They start by breaking down the preseason WNBA Finals predictions, which included eight votes for the New York Liberty, six votes for the Minnesota Lynx and one vote for the Las Vegas Aces.<\/p>\n
\u201cMinnesota has been pretty clearly the best team all regular season when they\u2019ve been healthy, just an absolute basketball machine,\u201d Shafer said. \u201cThey\u2019re always 30 seconds away from going on a 10-0 run, and they never quit, and they have so many weapons and so many ways to beat you. I think that having Minnesota and New York as the clear top two was what we thought was the obvious pick at the time, and it still looks to be the right selection here.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Subscribe now to The IX Sports<\/a> and receive our daily women\u2019s sports newsletter covering soccer, tennis, basketball, golf, hockey and gymnastics from our incredible team of writers. That includes Basketball Wednesday from founder and editor Howard Megdal.<\/p>\n Readers of The IX Basketball now save 50% on their subscription to The IX.<\/p>\n When it came to predicting individual player awards, the Sixth Player of the Year was the \u201cleast consensus award.\u201d Cruse, Adler and Shafer talked through the possible options, with Shafer stating his case for Atlanta Dream forward Naz Hillmon.<\/p>\n \u201cI was really intrigued by a lot of the stuff that Naz was doing, and I thought that playing in the Karl Smesko system would be really fun for her, given her screening, the occasional post-up,\u201d Shafer said. \u201cI didn\u2019t see that she\u2019d be a high-volume three-point shooter coming, but that\u2019s been a huge boon to her case.\u201d<\/p>\n The trio rounded out the show, reviewing which teams were picked to have the best and worst offense and defense in the league.<\/p>\n Adler and Cruse revealed they voted that the Golden State Valkyries would have the worst defense in the league, prompting Adler to say, \u201cWe were very disrespectful.\u201d<\/p>\n The IX Basketball, a 24\/7\/365 women\u2019s basketball newsroom powered by The Next
The IX Basketball<\/a>: A basketball newsroom brought to you by The IX Sports<\/a>. 24\/7\/365 women\u2019s basketball coverage, written, edited and photographed by our young, diverse staff and dedicated to breaking news, analysis, historical deep dives and projections about the game we love.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n