{"id":199451,"date":"2025-10-03T12:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T12:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/199451\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T12:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T12:23:07","slug":"wnba-finals-to-tip-off-under-cloud-of-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/199451\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA Finals to tip off under cloud of controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lynx F Napheesa Collier \u201cwon\u2019t be playing in the WNBA Finals starting tonight, but her shadow will be everywhere\u201d after her comments<\/a> about WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert and the state of the league. ESPN SVP\/Sports Production Tim Corrigan — the production point person for ESPN\u2019s WNBA coverage — \u201cacknowledged the obvious significance of the story.\u201d He said he \u201clooks at it as something that needs to be discussed in the lead-up to games — and then you judge if it comes up during games based on the play.\u201d ESPN lead women\u2019s basketball analyst Rebecca Lobo said, \u201cI don\u2019t think that we\u2019re trying to shy away from talking about it.\u201d Corrigan said that he\u2019s \u201cnever been asked by the league to avoid discussing the officiating or the commissioner.\u201d The WNBA Finals\u2019 attention \u201cwill rightfully focus on\u201d A\u2019ja Wilson, Jackie Young, Chelsea Gray and company returning to the finals for Las Vegas, and the Big Three (Alyssa Thomas, Satou Sabally and Kahleah Copper) of a \u201cgritty Mercury bunch\u201d (THE ATHLETIC, 10\/3<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In Phoenix, Greg Moore wrote we \u201cshould be talking about\u201d the Mercury and Aces as we head into the Finals, but \u201cinstead, we\u2019re talking about the future of the league.\u201d Moore: \u201cCan we go back to talking about the WNBA Finals now? Because the Mercury are going to have a hard time dealing with the Aces. But if any team can figure out how to leave Las Vegas with a win, it\u2019s Phoenix\u201d (ARIZONA REPUBLIC, 10\/2<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lynx F Napheesa Collier \u201cwon\u2019t be playing in the WNBA Finals starting tonight, but her shadow will be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-199451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}