Tag: Las Vegas Aces

WNBA superstar A’ja Wilson rocked a Bill Laimbeer jersey pregame to celebrate his birthday

A’ja Wilson celebrates Bill Laimbeer Night by rocking his Detroit Pistons jersey.

The stars of the WNBA love a good pregame outfit and perhaps no one does it quite like A’ja Wilson. 

From Sheryl Swoopes Houston Comet jerseys to repping Las Vegas Golden Knights jerseys, Wilson has made a splash in the fashion game.

On Thursday night, the former NCAA champion and 2020 league MVP pulled up to Michelob ULTRA Arena rocking a throwback Bill Laimbeer Detroit Pistons jersey from the 1980s.

There’s no coincidence here. The former Bad Boy Piston had coached Wilson from 2018 up until this current season when leadership replaced him with Becky Hammon as the team’s head coach. 

Laimbeer was back in attendance to celebrate his 65th birthday on Thursday as the Aces (-10.5) honored him with Bill Laimbeer Night.

A’ja understood the assignment.

[tipico]

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WNBA 2021 lottery teams playing well, A’ja Wilson blocking all shots and more from Week 1

Discussing all of Week 1s’s happenings in the W.

Welcome to Bet For The Win’s weekly WNBA column, where we cover everything women’s basketball from highlight plays and signature moments to bad beats and best bets. Be sure to check back here every week for your W fix.

The sample sizes are growing! Last week’s column covered just the opening weekend of the W, which basically served as reactions to one game (maybe two) from each team. A full week later we’ve got more data, more moments, more everything. From the Atlanta Dream’s surprising start to the league’s continued struggles with chartered flights, let’s break down what went on in the W— during the past week.

MLB and NBA coming to Vegas? Raiders’ Darren Waller says it’s ‘definitely’ happening 

Darren Waller on what he sees for the Las Vegas sports scene.

While the NFL reigns as king of the American sports landscape, regionally, it can be a different story.

The Raiders are one of the most iconic franchises with one of the largest fan bases in football, but according to their All-Pro TE Darren Waller, they are the “Clippers” of Vegas, playing second fiddle to the NHL’s Golden Knights. 

“We’re like the Clippers when we showed up,” said Waller in an interview with USA TODAY Sports’ Mackenzie Salmon. “We played a softball game against the Knights at the minor league ballpark, and the fans went crazy for the Knights. They were happy for us too, but the Knights are their squad.”

Waller’s experience isn’t surprising when you consider the Golden Knights’ historic run to the 2018 Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season. And despite narrowly missing the 2022 playoffs, the Knights led the NHL in attendance for the 2021-22 season, selling out all 41 home games. 

For Waller and the Raiders, the football team did not find the same success in their first season with fans. Even with the draw of the immaculate Allegiant Stadium, the Raiders ranked in the NFL’s bottom ten in attendance last season. 

Waller believes making the playoffs, locking up Derek Carr to a long-term deal and landing Davante Adams and Chandler Jones this offseason will help the team establish themselves in Sin City. 

“We are carving out our niche here in Vegas,” Waller said. 

Waller also made it clear he intends to be around to see that growth after trade rumors swirled around him during draft week, even going as far to say Vegas’ sports landscape might be expanding. 

“Vegas, for a sports town, we are definitely getting an NBA team and definitely getting an MLB team. I feel like it’s only a matter of time just by the way these fans support and show up and go wild for the teams that are already here. I feel like it’s a no-brainer. I can’t wait to be here, living here, playing here, when it happens.” 

Watch the full interview here:

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Former Notre Dame players on 2022 WNBA rosters

Which player(s) will you cheer for this season?

The 2022 WNBA season has tipped off, and there is plenty of Notre Dame representation. Not that this should come as any surprise given that they all played under Muffet McGraw. Hopefully one day, Niele Ivey will have just as many of her own former players competing at the pinnacle of professional women’s basketball. For now, McGraw’s legacy is far more apparent.

With nine former Irish players in the WNBA and a few of them even teammates, there’s a very good chance you’ll find one of them on a given night if you decide to flip on a random game this season. Maybe you happen to be a fan of a particular team that has Irish blood on it. In that case, congratulations for hitting the jackpot!

Don’t be so quick to write these athletes off just because it’s women’s basketball. It’s just as thrilling to watch them as it is male athletes, and you’re only hurting yourself if you refuse to watch solely based on gender. Now, with that out of the way, here are the former Irish players to look for:

The Las Vegas Aces doused Becky Hammon with water bottles after she made history with her first WNBA coaching win

Becky Hammon might really have something special going on in Vegas

After all the waiting and all the controversy behind Becky Hammon’s hire as the head coach of the Las Vegas Aces, it was finally time to perform. The WNBA season opened on Friday and Hammon had her first game as a head coach.

Perform is exactly what she did. The Aces looked extremely impressive.

So impressive, in fact, that they made a little history along the way to their first win of the season for Hammon. They blew the Phoenix Mercury out 106-88. The 106 points the Aces put up were actually the most ever in a WNBA head coaching debut, per Across the Timeline.

Aces players were obviously thrilled to get Hammon her first win. They had to celebrate it the right way. So what did they do? Doused her with water bottles when she entered the locker room after the big win.

What an awesome moment for Hammon and the Aces. This was an incredibly impressive win against a team that went to the WNBA Finals last season. Obviously, they’re without Brittney Griner right now who we need to get home ASAP, but they’re still a pretty formidable squad.

For the Aces to dominate them like that with A’ja Wilson only taking 8 shots? Nah, man. The WNBA better watch out for these Aces this year.

Becky Hammon might have something special on her hands.

Watch our sneaker unboxing series, Special Delivery

WNBA Power Rankings Week 1: Sky, Sun and Storm looking strong ahead of season openers

Ranking the WNBA teams 1-12 ahead of Week 1 of the 2022 season.

Months have passed following the WNBA’s celebratory 25th season, one that saw the Chicago Sky win its first-ever championship 201 days ago. Headlines filled the eight-month intermission as notable players were traded, superstars switched teams, and coaches went to new organizations.

Alas, the dust has finally settled and the off-season is in the rearview. Now, each team has finalized its roster and is ready to roll into the 2022 season on an even playing field.

Where do things stand as the new season gets underway? We take a look at all 12 teams and rank them ahead of opening night with our first power rankings of 2022:

2022 WNBA Draft Recap: 5 under-the-radar picks that you should be excited about

Looking at five of the most under-the-radar picks of the 2022 WNBA Draft.

Monday night’s 2022 WNBA Draft was a doozy.

It was the first in-person draft since 2019 (pre-pandemic) and the hype around the event didn’t disappoint. Thirty-six players came off the board — some predictable, others not so much. And now that the dust has settled, I’m ready to talk about some of the picks outside of the Top 3 that could potentially be big in the long run.

Let’s run through a list of my five favorite picks of the W’s 2022 draft and break down what has me excited about these rookies’ potential fits on their new teams.

All odds courtesy of Tipico Sportsbook.

There’s a lot going on in the WNBA’s 2022 Free Agency period, and it’s all so exciting

Tracking the latest WNBA Free Agency news.

News was surprisingly slow throughout the opening week or so of this season’s WNBA Free Agency negotiation period. From January 15th until the 22nd, most of the action revolved around players being re-signed by their current teams, qualifying offers being agreed to and rumors being leaked around who players were meeting with.

But a lot happened last week in the lead-up to February, the first day in which contracts could officially be signed. As you’d expect, the first couple days of February brought a lot of headlines.

Here’s a rundown of all the important signings and expected deals and rumors to this point of the free agency period.

Notre Dame product Jackie Young named to U.S. 3-on-3 Olympic team

Add another Notre Dame Olympian to Team USA.

With only a few days before the Tokyo Olympics officially begin, Notre Dame has some new blood for the U.S. Former Irish guard Jackie Young, a member of the 2018 national championship team, has been named a late addition to Team USA for the new 3-on-3 basketball event. She will take the place of Katie Lou Samuelson, who was forced to pull out after entering health and safety protocols. The other members of the team are Stefanie Dolson, Allisha Gray and Young’s Las Vegas Aces teammate Kelsey Plum.

Young, the top overall pick in the 2019 WNBA draft, is in her third season with the Aces, who are one game back of the Seattle Storm for first in the Western Conference. She has started all 21 games for the Aces while averaging 12.6 points, 3.7 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.2 steals a game.

The preliminary round for the 3-on-3 competition will begin Saturday and run through July 27, which also is the day of the quarterfinals. The semifinals and finals will be played July 28. One person who will be watching is Irish coach Niele Ivey, who was associate head coach during Young’s time in South Bend:

The Las Vegas Raiders responded to the Derek Chauvin guilty verdict with an incredibly tone-deaf tweet

Oh no.

On Tuesday afternoon, a Minneapolis jury convicted former police officer Derek Chauvin on all three counts — second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter — for the killing of George Floyd in 2020.

The video of the murder — which showed Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds — sparked global protests of police brutality and racial injustice against the Black community last year. And Tuesday’s verdict represented an important step towards a semblance of justice for the Floyd family, but it didn’t change the fact that George Floyd should still be alive today.

Predictably, many social media accounts with communications teams wanted to make a public statement about the verdict. And in the sports world, specifically, it would be tough to find a worse response than the Las Vegas Raiders’ effort.

This was just so bad.

The Raiders tweeted, “I can breathe 4-20-21,” in a Twitter graphic. This morbid play off of Floyd’s final words as he was being murdered did not sit well with anyone — even as the Raiders kept the tweet live and pinned for 30-plus minutes.

Again, the verdict doesn’t bring Floyd back to life. He still can’t breathe. Who are the Raiders talking about then? The Raiders’ tweet essentially celebrated a tragedy with the kind of tone-deafness you can expect from the NFL.

Fans were not pleased.

Never tweet, Raiders.

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