EPISODE EIGHT - Time of Death

Wings Comeback, Fever Slide, and Two Truths & a Drivel

Sylvia and Madeleine recap a week in the WNBA on their Double Drivel podcast, covering game results, records, and standings, then playing “Two Truths and a Drivel,” and ending with upcoming matchups and wish lists. They discuss the Wings’ loss to the Valkyries (91–80) and dramatic win over the Sky (93–92) featuring a late Paige surge, plus key scorers on both sides. They review the Fever’s two losses to the Dream (108–101, 113–96, a Dream franchise-record 113), highlighting defensive issues, turnovers, foul trouble, roster construction concerns, and challenge usage. League notes include Angel Reese’s fastest-to-1,000 rebounds record, Olivia Miles’ rookie first-half scoring record, Mystics upsets of the Liberty and Lynx, and the Sparks’ 30th anniversary win over the Liberty on a Nneka buzzer-beater. Standings and Commissioner’s Cup matchup (Liberty vs Aces) are updated, and they preview next week’s games and mention Caitlin Clark’s Nike “Caitlin 1” shoe release date in October.

00:00 Welcome and rundown

00:25 Wings vs Valkyries recap

02:14 Wings comeback vs Sky

05:09 Fever fall to Dream twice

09:35 Fever issues roster and coaching

15:58 League records and big games

20:04 Standings and Cup update

20:45 Two Truths and a Drivel

27:24 Answers and score recap

31:12 Couch picks next week

33:50 Swish list and sign-off

Transcript

0:01

Hello, and welcome to Double Drivel, a mother-daughter podcast about the WNBA. I'm Sylvia and I'm the mom. I'm Madeleine. Today we'll be covering our usual game highlights and standings, then we'll do a fun segment called Two Truths and a Drivel, and then finally close out with our couch picks and swish list Starting out with the Wings Okay. So they unfortunately did not beat the Valkyries like I hoped, but also I feel like I had forgotten about how good their defense is. So, they lost to the Valkyries 91 to 80. It was just an overall very painful game to watch. It seemed like they were missing a lot of shots they would've usually made, and then paired with the fact that their defense isn't the best, so they couldn't really... When they were shut down on points, they couldn't really respond to that, But they were heavily outscored in the second quarter, which is the biggest reason for their loss, they had seven points in the second quarter, while the Valkyries scored 27. Seven in a quarter is, yikes. So I would say it wasn't, a bad game for anyone besides Awoka, but usually I feel like she doesn't score too much. She's sort of there for defense reasons. Jessica had 14, Awoka had three, Erica had 21, Paige had 15, and AZ had 10. And then not much from everyone on the bench, but, Sug had nine. And then for the Valkyries, Kayla Thornton had eight, Gabby Williams had 25. I think she's the big thing for the Valkyries. She had a lot of threes for them. Veronica Burton had 11, Tiffany Hayes had 10, and Caitlin Chen had 15, when I was watching UConn, she was playing there, so it was good to see her do well. Yeah, and she transferred to UConn her last- year from, it was Princeton, I think. Yeah. And I'm sure would never have made it to the WNBA if she would s- only played for Princeton. Yeah. So that worked out nicely for her. And then they beat the Sky 93 to 92. They did not have a lead the entire game until the fourth quarter. I saw something, I think it was Paige- scored nine points in the, I don't remember if it was just the first half or it was the first three quarters, but then I'm pretty sure it was either the second half or just the fourth quarter that she then scored 10, her post-game interview was pretty funny. Yeah. I mean, she acknowledged that it wasn't a good game for her, but it was definitely, I thought for sure, I mean, they were down like six or something with like 40 seconds left, so it was like, "Yeah, there's no way they're gonna win this." And then Paige hit the three and one, and then Lee was fouled when she was shooting. She made both free throws, and then the Sky just weren't able to... Like, they had many chances to get the ball in the basket, and they weren't able to. Paige post-game was like, "I can't believe we won that game. I played terrible for 38 minutes." And then she also was complimenting Lee and k- kind of saying, you know, she hasn't had a consistent role or minutes, but she really stepped up and all of that. I think Lee is a really good player, just like I think honestly, probably also Jessica Shepard, because I think they're both great players, but I also think they both really need to work on their defense, especially Lee. I feel like she's not very good at defense. She just usually kind of throws her hands up and hopes for the best. She's a very good player, but I think that's definitely something to work on. Scoring wise, Jessica had 21. Awak again, only three. Arike had 12, so also a pretty quiet night for her. Paige had 19, and Azzi had 13. Not really notable points from the bench, but Maddie did have nine points. And then for the Sky, Azari Stevens had eight. Kamilla Cardoso had 26, which she was definitely leading them the whole time. Obviously, she was very upset when she fouled out, which is like, obviously that's a hard thing, when you've really been leading the team the whole game. And honestly, maybe if she hadn't have fouled out, they might have won, honestly- Yeah because if you had just been able to pass it to her, they might have been able to just make an easy layup, so. Skylar Diggins had 14. Sydney Taylor had 18 after missing, like, quite a lot of threes. She was two of eight from three. Yeah, I remember early in the game you were like, "I thought she was supposed to be, like, their upcoming star," but then she turned it on later in the game, for sure. Yeah. And then Natasha Cloud had 10 points. I didn't realize she took as many shots as she did, but she did make a couple three-pointers, which I think she doesn't do that often, so. Well, all right. For the Fever, not a good week. So they had two games again- against Atlanta, one at home and one in Atlanta. I'd hoped they would split the games. Obviously, Atlanta is a very good team. The Fever did beat them once earlier in the season, but they lost both of these games. First on Thursday 108 to 101. In both of these games, both teams were in triple digit scoring, so obviously defense was not, a big, priority in this game for either team, given those scores. The Fever came out and had a really good first quarter, but Atlanta really killed them in the second, and even though scoring was pretty even in the third and the fourth, the Fever were never really able to recover. Caitlin had 26 points and seven assists. In this game, Aliyah had 23 points and Kelsey had 26. No double doubles for anybody in this game on the Fever side. Off the bench, Sophie was the big contributor with 12 points, and then on the Atlanta side, the highest scorer was Angel Reese with 21 points, and then also 11 rebounds, so a double double for her. And then all of their starters were well into double digits. NaLyssa Hillman with 17, Alicia Gray also 17, Jordan Canada 18, and Rhyne Howard 16. Definitely outscored us and outplayed us in that game, and then again on Saturday. Oh, I guess I misspoke. The Fever only had 96 in Saturday's game, so they weren't over 100, but still a very high scoring game. The Dream won 113 to 96. The 113 points was a franchise record. Again, the Fever started off strong and then faded away, especially in the third quarter. I'd say for much of the season, the third quarter has not gone well for the Fever. I don't know what's happening at halftime, but they don't seem to be coming out very motivated. Caitlin had a really strong first half with only one or two turnovers, and then a point came in the third quarter where she got numerous turnovers in rapid succession and ended up with a total of seven, which is, possibly her worst game for turnovers this season. I think she has been averaging about five. So that's definitely not something that you want to see. In terms of Fever scoring, Caitlin was the high scorer again with 26 points. She had seven assists in this game, and one steal, and three rebounds. Second highest scorer was Kelsey with 16, and Aliyah with 13, and then Sophie Cunningham also had 13. So usually we get a bit higher scoring from both Kelsey and Aliyah, so, that didn't help our offensive cause there either. And then for Atlanta, all five starters were in double digit scoring again, this time led by Rhyne Howard with 24, Alicia Gray with 22, Nazelman with 19, and Angel with 18, and Jordan Canada with 12. There was a funny comment by Ryan Ruocco in this game when he said, "Canada is harassing the Fever." And then he said, "The player, not the country." As if we needed that clarification. So after this week, you know, yes they were 4-0 last week against all teams that were towards the bottom of the league. They've had a pretty easy start to the season in terms of the skill of the teams they've been playing. They've been playing primarily the weaker teams. And now are one and two against Atlanta. So I'm kind of feeling based on everything we've seen at this point that unless something changes drastically, it's time to call a time of death for the Fever to be championship contenders. Instead, they might just be fighting for a playoff spot. They've been kinda sitting around. They've been seven for at least the last couple of weeks, so that puts them in a playoff spot if it were to be the end of the season today. But sometimes they've been just out of playoff at nine, and their schedule's only gonna get harder. Plus, they've had some longer breaks between games, and that means their games are gonna get closer together as the season goes on as well. So not something I'm thrilled about as a Fever fan, obviously. I think there's a lot of different things and people that you could point fingers at in terms of what's kind of going wrong this season. I think starting with Amber Cox and their roster construction. There's a lot of weakness in the front court aside from Malia. A lot of fans were complaining about this during that very brief free agency period. In the off-season after the CBA was signed, they just kept signing guard after guard after guard, and we were like, "What are we even doing here?" Their, quote-unquote, big signing was Mo Billings to play the four. And she had chemistry in the off-season at FIBA with Caitlin and Unrivaled with Kelsey. And I think they thought that she could keep up with the faster pace that the Fever play better than, say, a Natasha Howard. However, Natasha has been absolutely killing it with the Lynx. I don't know if they made her an offer and she chose to go to the Lynx or if they didn't make her an offer. She probably does fit better in the Lynx system, but we've definitely downgraded from Natasha. Mo has just been inconsistent and pretty lackluster overall. I think she was supposed to be good at defense, and that hasn't been impressive. She often is not scoring much or even playing that many minutes anymore, even though she is still, starting. Myisha Hines-Allen has been playing her role off the bench fairly well. You know, is a relief player and, not a huge scoring threat generally speaking. Timpson is developing and at times she's having really good moments with blocks and things like that, but she also still has a lot of development to do. And because of foul trouble, especially for Aaliyah, she often seems to be kind of our quote unquote best option at latent games, and I think it's pretty scary that she's our best option because she's definitely not good enough or developed enough yet for that to be the case. And Dutchess is just really not working out. Her best season in recent years was in twenty twenty-four, which still wasn't anything that notable. Obviously, she's meant to be a stretch big because she can shoot the three, but she hasn't been making a lot of those either. Of course, a lot of people always want to blame the coach. I think there's certainly some blame there. It's hard to really parse out how much is Stephanie versus the roster versus, you know, things happening within the teams and the players individually. But she definitely had a questionable use of challenges. She could be using them more for Boston or Clark when they're in foul trouble on questionable calls. In the last game, she instead used one to challenge a foul called on Sophie. Early-ish in the game was, a fifty/fifty call at best. She didn't win the challenge. Sophie wasn't in foul trouble, isn't normally in foul trouble, and then she didn't have one to use on more questionable calls later in the game where it might have mattered. And then I think it's increasingly becoming a question of Stephanie's system versus Caitlin's preferred style of playing and whether those are really a good match for each other. I guess time will tell. Obviously, Caitlin didn't play a lot last season, so she's still semi-new to actively playing under Stephanie. But, that's definitely something I'm keeping an eye on as well. Team identity I think is also still questionable. Stephanie White always wants a defensively focused team. This team is definitely not that. I don't know if they have the right pieces to truly become that. They already had kind of that come to Jesus talk a couple of weeks ago, which seemed like it spurred them to that first win that they had over Atlanta. But that seems to be faltering a bit again. Lexie has not found her groove. She's meant to be strong defensively, but hasn't really been that thus far this season, and we don't really have reliable scorers outside of the big three. Sophie, I think, has been the most reliable outside of them, but sometimes she has a twenty-four-point game and sometimes, she has like six points, right? So defense is Really a big one. Caitlin is always called out for being really bad on defense, and she's definitely not a strong defender, but she's actually not the worst on the team. Looking at net points season to date, Kelsey is the worst at a negative 22 on defensive net points, and then Dentiss and Caitlin both have negative 10. Lexie and Raven, who were supposed to be the defensive specialists, are at negative six and negative two respectively, and even Boston, who's thought to be a pretty good defender, is a negative nine. So if you talk about our three biggest offensive engines, they're a combined negative 43 on defense. So, that's really not a place you wanna be. The only players that are on the plus side defensively for us are Myisha Hines-Allen and Timpson at eight and six. Another thing, we've talked several times on the podcast about how aggressively the refs are calling fouls this season. The Fever appear to be the worst of that in terms of how many fouls they're getting called. They've been averaging 24 personal fouls per game, which puts them on the pace for a new league record for the most fouls committed per game. No WNBA team has ever averaged more than that. So if this is where they end the season, they will set that new record. The current league average for fouls committed per game is 20.6, so they're about four per game over that. And that's obviously slowing down the game, which doesn't align with the Fever's fast-paced transition-centric offense that they want to play. And they need to be more disciplined on defense and be able to defend effectively without fouling. So hopefully they can find a gear to get better at that. Since we're talking about net points, on the offense there's only four players with positive net points, Caitlin, Kelsey, Leah, and Sophie. And in terms of total net points, offense plus defense, only those four players plus Timpson have a positive overall net point. So a lot of room for improvement for the Fever across all of these metrics. Moving into some records that were set this week. This week Angela reset the record for the fastest player to 1,000 rebounds, which was in 79 games which beat, the previously held record by Tina Charles, which was 89 games, so I think that's a pretty significant jump- Yeah which is 10 whole games. And then Olivia Miles set the rookie first half record, scoring 24 points in the first half in the game where she got her career high 31 points against the Sparks. And then some other notable games, the Lynx beat the Valkyries 81 to 75. So the Valkyries were able to defend Olivia Miles pretty well, who only had seven points on one of 10 shooting and six turnovers. I think the Valkyries are definitely like the best defensive team in the league, I would say. It seems like it. We'll have to look at the stats for that. I just think whenever... Like I feel like I always kind of forget they're good on defense, and then we play against them and like, oh my gosh, we're just like, we can't score. But anyway, Nia Coffey and Courtney Williams were high scorers for the Lynx. Jaydela Seeley. And Gabby Williams and Janelle were all high scorers for the Valkyries. And then another Valkyries game that was notable was, against the Aces, where the Aces beat them 92 to 73 Jantel Lavender Was the best Valkyrie score again, but only at 12 points, which I think kind of shows that it wasn't a very good game for them. On the Aces side, Jackie Young had 21 points, she was struggling- for a while, but A'ja had 19 points and nine rebounds. Chelsea Gray had 15 points, and Alyssa 14. And then a couple upsets. So the Mystics actually beat both the Liberty and the Lynx this week. They beat the Liberty 86 to 83, all five of the Mystics starters in double digits for points. And then they also beat the Lynx 84 to 79. Sonia had 21 points. Kiki had 17 points and seven rebounds. And I don't wanna mess up that name either. Cody McMahon. Had 15 points. And then the Sparks beat the Liberty 98 to 80- 97 yeah. Oh, okay. Typo. At the buzzer, so it was a three-point shot by Nneka with an assist from Erica Wheeler. Liberty led, the first half, but the Sparks fought back in the second. Liberty had all five expected starters for a change with Sabrina back, but she struggled and had only two points, which I feel like is kind of, I wouldn't say expected, but it's not like that surprising considering she really isn't played much this year, and also the first game back 'cause I know it was before she went out again, it was against the Wings, and she also didn't have a very good game. So I think she probably needs to get back- Yeah into her game. The rest of the starters were in double digits, so and for the Liberty. And then all Spark starters were in double digits. Nneka had 24 points, six rebounds, three assists, and three steals. And Rae Burrell was the second highest score with 19 points off the bench. And this was the 30th anniversary game of the Ws, so the Sparks and the Liberty played the first ever game, I guess 30 years ago yesterday on the date of that game. So also very kind of historically notable. And Nneka wears the number 30, so I saw she made a post after all about how it all just kinda- Felt meant to be after her score the game-winner, et cetera. So the Sparks were offering really discounted tickets to that game because it was the 30th anniversary game, and I kept getting emails about it and was sort of tempted to go. But it was Father's Day, so I didn't think your dad would appreciate that. A couple nights ago, I think I had a dream. Maybe it was last night. I don't remember. But I feel like I had a dream that, the Wings suddenly, really lost, the rest of their games, and they were, last. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, how did this even happen?" Right when they were about to have a better record- than last year already. Anyway, so the standings. So the Liberty will host the Aces for the Commissioner's Cup Championship on June 30th. But the overall standings, the Lynx remain in first, and the Aces are now only half a game back in second. The Liberty now Went from third to fourth. Oh, and then the Dream went up from- Fourth to third. Okay. So they swapped places, yeah. The Wings are still in fifth. The Valkyries are in sixth, Fever seventh, and the Mystics have moved up to eighth from 11th, which pushed the Sparks down to the ninth. Yep. Okay. Now we're gonna move into a fun little segment we're calling two Truths and a Drivel. You probably better know this game as two truths and a lie. But we'll take turns sharing three statements, and the other will have to guess which one is the truth and which is, or, well, which one is the drivel more specifically. Okay, do you wanna do the first one? Okay. So the first one, A'ja Wilson has led the league in both scoring and blocks in the same season. Breanna Stewart has won MVP in both the WNBA and EuroLeague, and Napheesa Collier has never averaged 20 plus points in a season. Hmm. I'm pretty sure A'ja, A'ja's definitely led the league in points. I'm sure she's led the league in blocks. I'm sure that's has to have had happened in the same season, so I think that one's true. Breanna Stewart has definitely won MVP of the WNBA. I'm not sure about EuroLeague, but it seems like she probably would have. And then it said Napheesa has never had more than 20 points? Yeah. That seems very unlikely. So I'm gonna say that that one is a lie, number three. Okay. All right. Diana Taurasi is the all-time leading scorer in WNBA history. A WNBA player has scored 60 plus points in a single game, or the youngest player to score 30 points in a game was under 21. I know the one that's a WNBA player has scored 60 plus points in a game is a lie, because I know the record is held by A'ja with, like, 52 or something, so. Okay. What number was that? Number two Okay, number three, a rookie has recorded a triple double in their first season. A number one draft pick has won MVP as a rookie, and a rookie has never led their team in scoring Okay. Um, a rookie's definitely had a triple-double. Caitlin was the first to do it, and had two in her rookie season. So only one rookie, to my knowledge, has ever been MVP, and that was Candace Parker, and she had to have been a number one draft pick, so, um... And the last one was what? Um, a rookie has never led their team in scoring That one is the lie. Both Paige and Caitlin did. And I imagine there are probably others also Okay. Three WNBA teams have won four WN, four WNBA championships apiece. The Atlanta Dream have never won a championship. The Las Vegas Aces hold the record for the most championships in four years. Wait, what was the first one? Three WNBA teams have won four WNBA championships apiece The Atlanta Dream have never won a championship, and the Las Vegas Aces hold the record for the most championships in four years I'd say... Hmm. I mean, I feel like, I mean, maybe the Atlanta Dream has never won one, but also I don't know about, what was it, four tea- or three teams- Three teams out of four out of four. That seems like a lot Okay, so I'll say the first one Okay Okay There has been a WNBA game decided by 40-plus points. A team has gone undefeated in the full regular season, and the league record for total team points in a game is 127. Hmm I feel like Somebody has probably beaten another team by more than 40 points at least once. Undefeated, I don't feel like that's true. I think the teams with the best records have lost at least a couple games. And what was the last one again? The league record for total team points in a game is 127 That's a lot of points, but I mean, we've seen well into the teens even just recently. So that also seems like it could be true. And I don't know if that's regulation or with overtime Let's say that, um, a team has never gone undefeated, or a team has gone undefeated- Okay is a lie. Okay. Now I have a Paige-specific one for you. Paige was the first freshman to ever win AP National Player of the Year in women's college basketball. Paige never averaged more than 20 points per game in a full college season, and Paige holds the WNBA rookie scoring record for points in a game. Okay, well, I already know which ones are true, so the second one has to be a lie 'cause I know she won that in her freshman year, and I know she holds the record for most points scored in a game by a rookie, which was 44. So second one. Okay. And then a Caitlin Clark one. Caitlin led the NCAA in both scoring and assists in the same season. Caitlin recorded multiple triple-doubles against ranked opponents in college, and Caitlin scored 10-plus made three-pointers in college. She definitely led in both points and assists, and had quite a few triple-doubles in college. I'm sure multiple of those were against ranked opponents. Scored 10 or more three-pointers in college. That's a lot of three-pointers, and she made a lot. But of the three of these, I'm gonna say the number three is the lie. Okay All right. Ready to see how we did? Yeah. So for number one, You said three was the lie. Oh, yes. That is correct. Napheesa has averaged over 20 points in the last three seasons. Okay. Let me see. For number two, I said two was a lie, and I was correct. Two was a W... Oh, yeah, it was, so no WBA player has scored more than 60 points, and I, I was close. It's not 52, it's 53, which is held by both Liz Cambage. Is that how you say her name? Cambage maybe. I'm not 100% sure. And, and A'ja Wilson. So I also got that point Okay. And number three, you said that- No, you said that Oh, wait. I said that. What was the lie? Three. Three. Yes, that's correct. Several rookies led their team in scoring, including both Paige and Caitlin Okay. Number four, I said one was the lie, but I was wrong. Wait, what was one? Oh, I said the lie was that three WNBA teams have won four WNBA championships apiece, so I was wrong, I guess. The Aces have won three of the last... Oh, wait, so three, which is the Las Vegas Aces hold the record for the most championships in four years. Oh, this is kinda tricky. But three is a lie 'cause Aces have won three of the last four, but the Houston Comets won three in a row from 1997 to 2000. No, they won four in a row. Oh. Well, you wrote three, so. Yeah. '97, '98, '99, 2000. Yeah. Okay. So I'm wrong. And then, yeah, it is true that the Dream have never won a championship. There's two other teams, excluding recent expansion teams, that have never won one. Any guesses what they are? Oh. Portland Fire No, not including recent expansion teams Oh, oh, I thought that you said they were. I was like, "Oh, that's easy." What are the recent expansion teams? I'm pretty sure the Wings have never won one. Correct. That's one. I couldn't tell you The other one, ironically, is one that is moving back to resurrect the franchise that has won the most championships in a row. The Connecticut Sun will be moving to become the Houston Comets. So the Sun have never won a championship. Oh. Okay, what are we on, number five? Yeah. You said two. Correct. Two is the lie. The best regular season record was 27 and three by the Houston Comets from, in both 1998 and 2000. The Mercury do hold the game scoring record of 127. Okay. For number six I said two, and that's right, two is the lie. Paige averaged exactly 20 in the 2020 to 2021 season, and 21.9 in the 2023 to 2024 season in college. Okay. And for number seven, You said three three is the lie. That is correct. Caitlin's record of three-pointers made in college is nine, so close, but not 10 or more. Okay, we did pretty well. Okay. Wait, how many questions were there? Seven? Yeah. So technically you answered more than me, but you still would've won anyway. But you got four right, and I got two right. Okay. Well, we did a good job. Okay. All right. Let's move on Couch pick. So the Wings have a game versus the Storm tonight when we're recording this on Monday, then they have a game versus the Aces on Thursday, so that'll be interesting to see if they're able to beat them again, and this will be the first one against Aces that I'm actually able to watch, so they better win. And then, they're playing the Lynx on Sunday, which I don't expect they'll win because they've been destroyed by them the past two times I think. Yeah, so couple big opponents and one that should be pretty easy this week. Yeah. All right. The Fever yet again are playing the same opponent twice in the same week, the Mercury, and this time both of the games are in Indianapolis, so that's interesting. I guess nice for the Fever. The Mercury are not doing very well this season, and I know that, Jovana Nokic also has now, I think her contract has been suspended, just listed as personal reasons, so not sure what's going on there, but I think she'd been doing fairly well for them, so that's a hit to them as well. Oh, speaking of contract, I forgot to mention earlier that also my hopes of JJ coming back are gone, but they did, re-sign Haley Jones was on the Wings. In this season they just signed her to a developmental contract, so the game's tonight, so it'll be interesting to see if they decide to play her tonight. I thought she was really good last year, so it'll be interesting to see how she fits into this new dynamic of the Wings if she plays tonight. I'm not expecting that she will, but you never know. And then they play the Sparks on Saturday. So again, kind of back to playing- teams not in the top half of the league. So hopefully they can come out with two or three wins this week, but, time will tell. There are a number of other potentially very good match-ups happening this week. Liberty versus Aces on Tuesday, so that's probably the one I'm most interested in watching. I think Aces versus Lynx would probably be even more exciting right now, but- that did already happen, but if they played again. And then the Lynx are playing the Mystics again. Obviously, the Mystics just beat them last week, so they've got a rematch on Wednesday. I'm sure the Lynx will want to redeem themselves in that game. And then the Valkyries have a couple of tough match-ups. They are also doing a play the same team twice in a week against the Dream on Wednesday and Friday. And then they're playing the Liberty on Sunday. So we'll be excited to see who prevails in those match-ups. All right, and then finally we'll close out with wish lists. What's yours? I would say I would hope that they beat the Storm tonight, and if they do, that will mean that they've officially passed their r- r- record last year of only 10 wins, so. That would be exciting. And mine is that after a very long wait, Caitlin's signature shoes with Nike were finally announced last week, the Caitlin 1s. She wore them in the last couple of games. They are not coming out until October. So why it took so long for them to come out, and then why they're having them come out basically during the playoffs, when I heard some other commentary about it where they were like, "You know, the Fever aren't doing great. What if like she's not even in the playoffs when her shoes come out?" Like, it's just not a great rollout strategy. So feels like Nike's fumbled with their handling of the timing and how long it took for her shoes to come out. But nevertheless, they are finally coming out and have a date for release, so that's exciting. Yeah, I mean, it was like a couple years or something, wasn't it? I mean, I know when they announced like she was doing a partnership with them, like I feel like every other time a player has said they're like partnering with Nike to make a shoe, it takes like less than a year, and a year at most, so. Yeah, I mean, they signed the, I think it was $28 million contract for, it was a lot of years. I wanna say like eight years maybe, including the signature shoe, like right before her rookie season. So yeah, it's taken basically like three seasons for her shoe to come out. And yeah, like Angel's shoe with Re- Reebok I felt like came out really quickly. I think it was during her rookie season, if I'm remembering right. It sounded like A'ja's shoe had been in the works for quite a while, that they'd been quiet about the fact that it was in the works. So maybe there wasn't as much build-up just because they hadn't publicly announced there was going to be one yet. I'm getting a little too negative in this wishlist segment talking about the fumbled roll out here. But anyway, excited that her shoe will be coming out. I'm not a sneakerhead. I don't know whether I will buy them. People definitely have a mix of opinions about whether they like the look of it or not. But exciting for her that that's happening. Okay. Well, that wraps up this episode, a little shorter than some of our recent ones. We'll look forward to being back with you next week. Please subscribe and review if you haven't already, and follow us @DoubleDrivelPod on social media. See you next time. Bye.