MA VoepelESPN.com
The Phoenix Mercury announced Thursday that Skylar Diggins-Smith would miss the final two regular season games this season. The Mercury also suspended her contract, so she won’t return in 2022 even if the team makes the playoffs.
Heading into Thursday night’s games, Phoenix is in a four-way tie at 14-20 in the standings, with five teams competing for the final two playoff spots. The Los Angeles Sparks who play on Thursday will be eliminated with a loss. Phoenix wraps up the season by hosting the Dallas Wings on Friday and the Chicago Sky on Sunday. Since winning their second franchise title in 2009, the Mercury have missed the playoffs just once, in 2012.
But 2022 has been a tough year for the Mercury under first-year coach Vanessa Nygaard, starting with Brittney Griner’s ban in Russia in February. Diggins-Smith and Diana Taurasi had a face-off on the bench in May, Tina Charles left the team in June, Diggins-Smith used a clown emoji on Twitter in an apparent reference to Nygaard in July, Taurasi is currently out with a quad injury, and now Diggins-Smith is done for the season.
Somehow, the Mercury still have a shot at the playoffs. What will it take for Phoenix to make the postseason, and what does the future look like for Mercury and Diggins-Smith? We take a look.
How does Diggins-Smith’s absence for Phoenix’s final two regular-season games affect the Mercury’s playoff hopes?
There are only so many shots a team can take, and Mercury has taken a lot of them. They won Saturday’s game against the New York Liberty without Taurasi and Diggins-Smith. That was thanks to a stellar defensive effort that held the Liberty to 62 points as Diamond DeShields scored a season-high 25 points.
The Mercury got career highs in scoring from Shey Peddy and Megan Gustafson on Wednesday, but fell to Minnesota 86-77. After the game, Gustafson talked about the importance of the Mercury players continuing to encourage each other.
The next two opponents, the Wings and Sky, have already secured playoff spots, but both hope to go into the postseason on a high note. Dallas won five in a row before falling into despair mode at the Liberty on Wednesday. Chicago has been one of the best teams in the league all season and is the defending champion. The Mercury are 1-2 against Dallas this season and 0-2 against the Sky.
Diggins-Smith has been one of the biggest attacking threats in the Championship this season, both as a goalscorer and a playmaker. To be blunt, her absence could really be the difference between Mercury making the postseason and not performing.
The Mercury played the last two games without Diggins-Smith. How will the starting line-up continue to adjust without him? Who should grow up?
Sophie Cunningham is a strong contender for the WNBA Most Improved Player award and has been one of the rocks for the Mercury in a season in which so much has happened. Cunningham is a tireless competitor and team player. Not all WNBA fans love her, going back to her college days at Mizzou, because of her aggressive play. But if you’re looking for someone who will always give it her all and never give up, that’s Cunningham. The Mercury would have no chance in the playoffs if they hadn’t made the strides they have this season.
Cunningham started Wednesday’s game along with Peddy, DeShields, Brianna Turner and Jennie Simms, who has played in 21 games this season after last appearing in the WNBA in 2017. Yvonne Turner has appeared in seven games with the Mercury this season after most recently playing in the WNBA in 2019. The veteran guard, who will be 35 in October, played 10 minutes Wednesday. And Gustafson was the most successful player off the Mercury bench on Wednesday.
In short, Mercury is like a patchwork quilt right now. They bear no resemblance to the team Nygaard thought he would be coaching when he took the job. But the Mercury players are also in a position now where they know it’s literally about this group that’s still standing, and they’re going to play with a sense of wanting to try something.
Common sense would say that the Mercury don’t stand a good chance of winning either of their final games. But strange things can happen when a team’s back is against the wall after so much adversity. Maybe Turner, a defensive player who has struggled as a scorer, finds that in her in these closing games. Perhaps Mercury heats up from behind the arc. Maybe DeShields takes over, as her ability allows. Or maybe they lose both games, miss the postseason, and then the postmortem on this season begins in earnest.
If Phoenix advances to the postseason, it will likely face a No. 1 seed. 1 or no. 2. Without Diggins-Smith’s 19.7 PPG – nearly 20% of the Mercury’s offense – and team-high 5.5 APG, how far do you see the team progressing?
Just making the playoffs at this point would be a huge accomplishment. It seems unlikely that Mercury will go beyond the first round, obviously. They will have to play the best defense they can play and get hot from behind the arc.
What is Diggins-Smith’s future in Phoenix?
Throughout the season, it has been clear that Nygaard and Diggins-Smith do not have a good working relationship. It seems almost impossible that both will be in Phoenix next season. Maybe neither will.
Sandy Brondello was let go after eight seasons last year after the Mercury’s disappointing loss in the WNBA Finals. But Brondello almost immediately took another job, with New York, because she is a reliable veteran coach who has shown she can manage players’ egos.
All of Nygaard’s previous coaching experience was at the high school level, although she has been an assistant in the WNBA. There is so much to manage as a WNBA coach behind the scenes, and this season would have tested even a veteran. Still, Nygaard got the job, so she should be up to the task, however difficult. That’s how it is in pro sports.
Diggins-Smith had an outstanding season, but it ended badly. She turned 32 earlier this month and still looks like she has a lot of good basketball ahead of her. According to salary information provided by Her Hoops Stats, Diggins-Smith is signed with Phoenix through next season and will be an unrestricted free agent in 2024.
Diggins-Smith was named the no. 3 overall behind Griner and Elena Delle Donne in 2013. She began her career at Tulsa and had her 2015 season cut short after nine games by an ACL injury. She went to Dallas the following year when the franchise moved and was a starter with the Wings in 2016, 2017 and 2018. She sat out the 2019 season after giving birth to her son and then requested a trade from Dallas.
Diggins-Smith talked then about dealing with postpartum depression and seemed eager for a fresh start in Phoenix. She has contributed greatly to the Mercury in her three seasons and is a popular player with the fans. But if this is the end of her time in Phoenix, where does she go next and what does it mean for Mercury?
Phoenix’s iconic player is 40-year-old Taurasi, and the franchise’s other longtime star is still incarcerated in Russia. Now Diggins-Smith could be on the way out, and Mercury has plenty of problems to deal with in the coming months.
