The Las Vegas Aces' path toward keeping their dynasty alive continued, and it's only natural for other teams to try to emulate their winning model.
During the postgame press conference, Becky Hammon was asked if she saw parallels between the Indiana Fever and the Aces from 2022 when she took over.
Hammon bluntly said, "No," which caused A'ja Wilson to burst out laughing. Hammon later noted that Indiana has potential, but "it's different."
The clip went viral on social media, and unsurprisingly, in the current state of social media, there were people who took issue with how matter-of-fact Hammon was in her assessment of the Fever. However, she was spot-on.
Each team's contexts are completely different
Let's start with when Hammon was hired as the Aces' head coach in 2022. The former San Antonio Spurs assistant gained a strong reputation across all basketball circles, and it was a question of when, not if, she would become a head coach.
She didn't land an NBA gig, but there were high expectations when she took over from Bill Laimbeer. She met those when she led Las Vegas to a WNBA Championship.
However, the team she took over did not start from the ground up. Laimbeer was an accomplished WNBA head coach, and the Aces' dominant run of semifinal appearances began under his watch in 2019. They even made the WNBA Finals in 2020.
This was a championship-caliber roster, and the Aces' leadership saw that the team needed the right person to take them over the top. This was the WNBA equivalent of Steve Kerr taking over for Mark Jackson with the Golden State Warriors in the mid-2010s, or Phil Jackson taking over for Doug Collins with the Chicago Bulls in the '90s.
The implication of the question about parallels between the current Fever and the 2022 Aces is that Stephanie White is the Laimbeer, Jackson or Collins figure. It's certainly possible that there is another head coach who could get the most out of Indiana, but it is not close to being a championship roster.
There are more flaws the Fever need to fix
Indiana has only made it as far as the semifinals with their big three of Caitlin Clark, Kelsey Mitchell and Aliyah Boston. However, the Fever went through a playoff drought from 2017 to 2023.
Mitchell has been great, but it took her a while to finally become the player the Fever hoped she could be when she was drafted second overall in 2018. Clark and Boston are fantastic players, but they also need to fix their respective flaws to truly reach their ceilings.
The Fever also need to find a player or two who can best complement their star players if they want to make deep playoff runs.
Las Vegas in 2022 had Wilson peaking into one of the greatest players of all time, Kelsey Plum and Jackie Young taking the next steps toward becoming two of the top guards in the league and a polished veteran like Chelsea Gray.
When Hammon took over the Aces, they were primed for the historic run they're currently on. For the Fever, it still feels like they're close yet so far away from reaching a championship ceiling, which is what makes the upcoming offseason an important one for them.
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