Failing to defensively atone for Satou Sabally's departure led to a very disappointing follow-up for the 2025 WNBA finalist Phoenix Mercury.
Beyond the WNBA's fateful eight lies a searching seven.
The FIBA World Cup break has paused the 2026 WNBA season, but the eight-team playoff field has been established with four games left on every group's docket. The remaining seven are left to pick up the pieces for next season, forced to ponder their fates as they watch the league's 30th postseason from the sidelines.
With that in mind, Ballislife looks into the futures of these voyages of the damned and what kind of waters they'll traverse on the trip ahead. This will be presented in the order of each team's elimination from playoff contention.
The heat is literally on in part four, which centers on the PHOENIX MERCURY ...
Team: Phoenix Mercury
Record: 14-26 (and counting)
Last Playoff Appearance: 2025
Date of Playoff Death: August 22
What Went Wrong
On paper, the Mercury strongly resembled the team that made a surprising Finals run with the exception of Satou Sabally's transfer to New York. But even with Sabally's own medically-marred season in the metro, she's staging a subtle MVP case in absentia considering the way Phoenix's defense has fallen off.
Mercury In Retrograde
The Mercury ranked fifth in defensive rating with a single season of Sabally in tow and the second-best among playoff teams that advanced at least one round. While they've kept scores manageable (eighth in points against per game), they're now 11th in rating, tied for second-to-last in blocks, and the attempt to make up for the lost clogging in the post, admirable as Natasha Mack's efforts may be, has kept women open up top: the Mercury has allowed nearly 10 opposing threes per game after letting up under eight last year.
Again, Phoenix retained most of last year's Finals fighting bunch and they carried a formidable, if not seasoned, one-two punch in Kahleah Copper and Alyssa Thomas. But the offense likewise endured regression that doesn't bode well for the Nate Tibbetts investment: Phoenix dropped from fourth to 14th in field goal attempts, third to 12th in successful 3-pointers, and sixth to dead-last in offensive rebounds.
Failing to properly atone for Sabally's loss was bad enough but it went deeper: even though injuries ate away at desert depth (i.e. Sami Whitcomb's knee injury that kept her out until July, a season-long absence for Kathryn Westbeld), it was clear that Phoenix did not properly prepare for losing second-unit pieces like Kitija Laska and Kalani Brown.
After leading the league in bench scoring last year, thanks no doubt in part to the return of DeWanna Bonner, Phoenix ranks 11th in the same department, leading them to bring back Lexi Held after her time with expansion Toronto ended. The 39-year-old Bonner has since earned a buyout with Phoenix and latched onto the playoff-bound roster of Atlanta.
20 MINS, 20 PTS ✌️
— espnW (@espnW) August 4, 2026
Kelsey Plum was only expected to play 20 minutes tonight and still got a 20-piece in her Mercury debut 😤 pic.twitter.com/g84rAVsO2w
Plum Benefits?
If anything, the Mercury ensured we'd be talking during a relatively dormant trade deadline.
With the playoff field mostly established, the cooled Mercury sent promising previous Rookie In Name Only project Monique Akoa Makani, a 2027 first-round, and a 2028 second-round draft pick further west to Los Angeles to take on Kelsey Plum's expiring contract. While it was probably prudent for Plum to escape from LA, which essentially sealed its rebuilding fate with the trade and the preceding firing of general manager Raegan Pebley, it also placed a surprising amount of pressure on a team destined for home this postseason, essentially turning the rest of the tour into a month-long pitch for Plum's services.
For a time, Plum did bring some form of nourishment to the desert: despite a lack of progress on the playoff leaderboard, the Mercury leaped from 11th to fourth in pace during her three-week stint while she shot over 49% from the floor in five appearances. However, lower-body injuries that kept her out of the All-Star Game resurfaced just before the break and kept her not only out of the American World Cup run but the rest of her de facto audition as well, placing the Mercury in a purgatorial holding pattern that's going to define their entire offseason and possibly more.
Top Silver Linings
If Plum does opt back in, it's clear that Phoenix immediately carries a formidable big three that could thrust it back into contention.
Thomas' season was partly marred by her involvement in a rather ... feverish ... tangle-up with Caitlin Clark but her 13th tour and second in Phoenix was anything but cursed from a statistical perspective.
She wasn't immune from the Mercury's defensive setback (posting a triple-digit defensive rating for the first time since her third year) but served as a guiding light in the sandstorm to the tune of three more triple-doubles to add to her well-distanced output and currently tied for the WNBA lead in assists per game with Clark at age 34.
That puts her on pace to become just the sixth woman to lead the league in helpers on multiple occasions. Thomas has obviously been involved in her share of on-floor extracurriculars. Anyone using them to fully define her, however, is merely telling on themselves at this point.
"[Diana Taurasi] built this. This is her legacy."
— ESPN (@espn) August 17, 2026
—Alyssa Thomas on celebrating DT's legendary career 👏 pic.twitter.com/jIBXWaCBpM
Copper, one of the victors from Team America's latest successful World Cup run, likewise had a landmark season with a career-best 21.3 points per game as she heads north of her 30s. An early shooting slump was a grim subplot of a brutal start but Copper's adjustment and adaptation (just under 50% in her last 23 games, up over 13 full points from her rate in Phoenix's 4-12 start) shows there's more than enough reason to believe she can still be a top offensive option on the road ahead.
Looking Ahead
Unrestricted Free Agents: Valeriane Ayayi, Kelsey Plum
Reserved Free Agents: Noemie Brochant, Lexi Held, Lee-Seul Kang, Kyara Linskens, Jovana Nogic, Marta Suarez, Kathryn Westbeld, Maddy Westbeld
Have we mentioned the Plum gambit? It looms pretty large on the team's fortunes, especially with only four veterans (Copper, Mack, Thomas, Whitcomb) under contract for 2027.
Phoenix had been handling life after Brittney Griner and Diana Taurasi reasonably well and the Plum deal feels like a swing before the pitcher has even thrown. The idea of tearing it down in the event of Plum's potential lack of contract doesn't even feel feasible at this point: the lack of pick aside, Tibbetts was not made the highest-paid coach in the league to oversee a rebuild and signing Copper and Thomas to multi-year deals just to trade them would be undoubtedly redundant.
The pain of trading away a first-round pick is somewhat soothed by the fact that last year's Finals run offers a minimal chance at landing presumed premier pick Juju Watkins but this deep draft could've offered heiresses and contributors alike. If all that is shoved aside for five games of Plum, the already-humid seat of general manager Nick U'Ren could reach an inferno.
The good news is that, after 21 women entered the Mercury ledgers this season, there feels like ample opportunity to replenish the depleted depth and it'll be relatively easy to keep them considering their reserved status. Akoa Makani is gone but the Mercury enjoyed the contributions of new RINOs such as Brochant and Nogic, both of whom hardly hesitated to tee up from deep.
Is There Hope?
Peeling back the layers to such a question can only be answered if or when Plum decides to double down on the desert. That's the situation the Mercury created when they made the trade and a fate they're married to.
It's easy to forget considering what transpired this season but the Mercury is less than a year removed from a WNBA Finals appearance and has the core that did it under contract. But getting back carries a timely sense of desperation: Tibbetts and U'Ren could face questions about their job security if the Mercury gets off to another slow start and both Copper and Thomas, like Bonner before them, could be tempted elsewhere if they feel like a championship is but a desert mirage.
Again, it all comes down to whether Plum liked what she saw in her brief time in purple. If she does, there'd be no harm in prematurely printing 2027 playoff tickets. If she doesn't, her five-game showing could go down as the most inconsequential cameo since Harry Styles' minute in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Previous Obituaries
Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags
