welcome back loyal listeners the stacking slabs podcast network to season six episode zero the preview episode for the newest chapter of the wnba card podcast my name is caitlin i go by at cold lunch cards mostly on the instagram machine but you can find me in a few other places as well on the internet and today is a very special day not only are we kicking off the next chapter opening a new page i suppose for the podcast but we've got a new co host joining us today for those of you on the patreon with early video access you can see them here but for those of you that are listening why don't you introduce yourself hey caitlin how's it going my name is mark i go by mjs sports cards on instagram really happy to be here this is a long time coming mark and i have you know made a friendship because of cards mostly women's basketball cards and we talk a lot of shop beside behind the scenes but now we're bringing these conversations to wherever you're listening to us today whether it's on your drive to work hopefully on your drive home from work whether you're listening in your headphones in your office or wherever you may be today we're excited to be talking to you for this special preview episode we're gonna have a lot to talk about today we're gonna go over who mark is why he's here maybe a little bit about what he collects we're gonna talk about what to expect this upcoming season as things kinda turn a new page we're gonna talk about the playoffs thus far what we've witnessed through almost the entire first round the date of recording we're almost done with the first round of the wnba playoffs we're gonna talk about awards that have been given so far and predictions that will be proven right or wrong by the time this episode comes out but let's start with probably the most exciting thing which is you mark do you mind kind of like talking to the audience a little bit about who you are kind of the background of of what's going on with you yeah it's good to it's good to meet everyone it's good to be here my day job is i'm a history professor i'm based in nashville tennessee that's what i do for my day job so i do a lot of writing research and teaching but i'm also a collector i primarily collect basketball nba wnba and a little bit of women's college basketball but i also dabble in f one collecting baseball cards and pop culture i'm a little bit all over the place but basketball has been really my main love and over the past few years that has come to be dominated by wnba collecting i'm so excited to hear about kind of a similarity that we have mark which is we're all over the board when it comes to collecting but the one thing that stays true is kind of the passion behind each of those lanes that we explore and i'm so excited to dive into kinda like our same our similar wnba lane i mean that's why we're here that's what we're here to talk about this season being in nashville i just wanna start out of the gates so that people can kinda start to understand your fandom as it comes with the wnba there's no team in nashville i i haven't heard any plans of expansion to nashville at least not officially so where does your allegiance lie in the league yeah there should be a team in nashville by the way candace parker has been leading the effort to get a team in nashville it even has an awesome name right they're they wanna call it the tennessee summit in honor of pat's summit and you know some of the ranges we have here in in tennessee so you know if anyone in the wnba league offices is listening please nashville team but as far as teams go the team that i cheer for is the atlanta dream they're the closest team here to me geographically they're about four hours away i love the stadium that they play in you know i think it was jared a couple of weeks ago that was talking about all of the things that are awesome about the atlanta dream and i a hundred percent agree with him and so i am a a very happy camper as they're on the verge of starting the semifinal series but that's my wnba team on the college level i i cheer a lot for vanderbilt university with mikayla blakes and a lot of other great players and i also cheer for my alma mater ucla a lot of winning recently for you mark it's been a good lot it's been a good time yeah no kidding a national championship you got angel reese winning defensive player of the year you've got the dream still in it unlike my minnesota links but i'm excited kinda to have are you okay are you okay i'm not i'm not mark i i appreciate you asking and and it's funny because this episode is coming out right after the final team collector episode from last season which was an absolute blast to put together but that last episode was all about my linx fandom and how much i love the linx it was a little love letter to the linx and yeah i'm a little heartbroken to be heartbroken and kind of pissed off like i expected a lot as i do as a minnesota fan and my expectations were were not met but you know i i have as much to say we'll we'll get into kinda my thoughts on how that that series unfolded we'll get some liberty mentioned in here too don't worry guys but it's gonna be it's gonna be a fun episode but i'm not okay no i'm not okay mark i understand i understand well when we when we talk about it the like you know think of this as a space for you to process your grief it's gonna be difficult but yeah hopefully for the links fans that are listening you'll feel like we can kinda have group therapy together while mark brags about how good his team is so it'll be fun mark i kinda wanna talk to you about your collecting philosophy because before we get into like you know this season is gonna have a lot about cards it's gonna have a lot about the wnba about collegiate collecting i kinda wanna give a a peek behind the curtain i suppose into your approach to collecting so that listeners understand kinda where you're coming from for me i think the easiest way to talk about my collection is its fee forward and then everything else is kinda second place in the wnba it's fee and then everything else for you do you have somebody like that that's kinda at the forefront or are you spreading love all over the all over the league i absolutely have someone like that in my wnba collecting my favorite player in the wnba is number fifteen on the atlanta dream alisha gray and so a big a big bulk of my wnba budget goes towards alisha gray cards i'm a little worried about talking about that in public because i'm i'm i'm worried that that will make alicia grey cards more expensive for me but i just love her game love her personality she plays on my favorite team and so i do spend a lot of time searching for alicia gray cards but i do like to spread the love you know and to the i i i like to curate a collection of players that i really enjoy watching or players that move me and more recently i've moved into players that i didn't have well i had the opportunity to watch but i didn't watch in in the earlier days of the wnba and learning about the history of the game and that you know kind of speaks to what i like to do in my day job but it's just like learning about these pioneers of women's basketball and how much they contributed to building this thing that i i really enjoy being a fan of today that has helped me i think increase my fandom of the wnba but also increase my knowledge of the history so i i a lot of my attention these days goes towards you know those earlier sets that you talked about a couple seasons ago those those early pinnacle sets some of the the rittenhouse sets and like other kinds of sets and flir ultra from the late nineties and early two thousands those kinds of sets that help me track this history that i am learning for the first time yeah it's such an interesting dynamic to kinda see the parallels between you talking about your day job and then how it translates over to cards and i think like when we think about cards the way that i think about them are kind of these conduits to conversations that really talk like speak to the history they they introduce you to things that maybe you haven't seen before and you speak about sets players teams dynasties events just like major things that happen throughout the league as we go into season six we're gonna be covering a lot of that we're gonna not only gonna be looking forward into the pipeline of collegiate players or international players that are coming into the league but we're gonna be looking backwards as well and hopefully appreciating and shedding some light on maybe some of the stories that haven't been told as loudly as say the stuff of the recent moment so i think it's just hitting all the notes that i wanna talk about and that's important to my collection as well is not only appreciating what's happening today but the shoulders that we're standing on that kind of paved the way for for today hopefully this season is gonna be you know all all that and more mark i suppose i i'd like to kick it over to you and kinda think about you know what season six is going to look look like we've discussed behind the scenes how hopefully we're gonna develop some recurring segments obviously today is the preview episode so it's gonna be a little bit more quick a little more hard hitting and then we'll get into more of the recurring segments deeper conversations as we get into season six but what are you kinda most excited about to be talking about on the podcast for this season well like i've told you behind the scenes i am i i i'm most excited to have this opportunity to chop it up with you right like to to talk about what cards and players are are really interesting what what what we're thinking what's what's really moving us in in the w card space i'm excited for that i'm excited for you to teach me how to be a podcaster i you know i i i've been on a few podcasts before but you know i don't have the experience that you have so i'm gonna mess up a bunch and you're going to you're going to teach me and i'm gonna learn and you know i i think this kind of conversation about the history of the league the president of the league the pipeline towards the future of the league that those kinds of conversation excite me because and i think it was one of your previous guests carter right because carter that talked about one of the most compelling things about the w right now is it still feels very early right like we are like there but even still there's a vibrant history and present and a but this really amazing and exciting future that we are kind of looking towards and and building our fandom towards that that i i'm i'm really looking forward to talking through with you yeah it's gonna be good and i hope that like through season six people all the listeners that are listening will kind of learn a little bit something as as as we're going to learn through as well and i'm excited i mean mark and i have started floating ideas around you know introducing topics and segments such as ripping packs on air or digesting like reading a research paper digesting it on our own and then coming together to have kind of a discussion on the podcast if you guys are like real nerdy about that stuff we're we're gonna be doing that once in a while i think it's just gonna be a really fun dynamic of of promotion of learning in a space that's so new and it's exploding and it just feels like people are are begging for this kind of like conversation to happen i know i know i'm excited to to host it and to have it but it's really gonna be hopefully a discussion between us and we invite all the listeners to join us if you guys have thoughts as we go through season six as we talk about stuff we're at w m gay card pod on instagram that's where you can find us and we're gonna be doing a lot of cool stuff on there so season six i mean it's bigger and better things coming for sure yeah if i if you catch me yelling let's go at a paper abstract you can feel free to make fun of me permission granted got it okay we got it well that's kind of like a little preview hopefully of what to expect from mark and i moving forward in season six i'm so excited that folks i know i got really good feedback on obviously season four of the history of wnba cards season five was you know the history or the the the team collector tour of the league and this this season's gonna be awesome as well we'll have guests on throughout and i'm just excited to to have a new partner in crime join me i think really an impetus of this or like a a a real i guess catalyst to why this happened is because i love talking about the wnba i love talking about cards but i don't like just talking to people i like talking with people and mark's gonna be an awesome addition to this podcast so i'm just i'm so excited for you to be here that's kinda like the admin for today mark i think the big thing that we wanna talk about is the hot topic of the moment the wnba playoffs let's do it let's do it i think we're gonna go kinda like series by series as a reminder to the listeners we're recording this a little bit in advance so things you know are gonna be a little bit behind but we're currently at the tail end very tail end of round one each of these series are a best of three which i need your take on that format mark but we can kind of go series by series do you have one that you want to start with let's see should we should we should we get the the grief session out of the way i think we should do it first that way it's not like haunting me as we go through each other that will be you'll be kind of scared of when it'll come up let's just get it out of the way let me let me box out and clear out a little bit of of space for you to space for you to maneuver how are you feeling after minnesota new york let me tell you this guys when i saw that we drew the liberty in the first round my first thought was goddamn it not again like i can't explain to you to to you how much it just invokes a sort of fear which is not a good feeling to have as a fan especially because last season i felt so confident the season before i felt so confident going into this season my favorite player our best player is out we've got a new rook who you know obviously was drafted high with olivia miles but didn't have the expectations of being this good and she carried us all the way to the number one seed fi joins forces nia brody aka nia coffey looking really good for the lengths everything's feeling right my biggest fear comes true is that our timing is just a little bit off it's a little out of sync and we gotta match up with the team that gives me nightmares the new york liberty add to that the fact that this is a three game series we dropped the first at home this this is just not going well for us i think for me you know going into the season like i said i did not have expectations to be the number one seed the links didn't have that prediction but i you know i wanna win and the the minnesota links have built a franchise identity of winning so i was expecting us to make it out of the first series of the playoffs as the number one seed the the number eight seed has never upset the number one seed before this so i was like you know we got the numbers in our favor but that matchup man it's killer there is one name and i will say it now jonquill jones a player i hope to never play against ever again in my fandom because it seems like every time we play against her she plays at her best and when she is at her best she is an mvp not only mvp caliber but she is an mvp of the league and she seems to just take advantage of us work down the paint however she'd like and i just i don't know i i could go on and on about the matchups i think our size wasn't there you know a little bit of a little bit of playoff nervousness with the rook which i understand but overall we just looked like we didn't want it and new york always wants it stewie wants it sabrina wants it john quill wants it phoebus phoebus comes back and wants it and we're just kinda like trailing behind so i'm disappointed i'm sad it's gonna be a long scary off season as a fee truther this is not the best season to be a fee truther i am nervous mark yeah first of all i i hate the three game series i i think i think it it it's too fast you lose game one and you're already worried about what's going on for the off season that said i don't think you would have won even if it was a five game series it was a a terrible matchup for you there was you know it was a a rough patch for the links even coming back from that olympic break it it like your team didn't look like the engine that it looked like earlier on in the season and it's it's always sad for me to see a season end that way for a team that was so successful so my my condolences there thank you but stewie is you know we forget because this is you know asia asia is the undisputed goat of this generation but stewie is just an incredible winner and like i think the biggest compliment that i can give to stewie is that she is in the conversation with asia right like that like the two of them are just these dominant forces that you are going to have to beat to climb the mountain and it's really hard to do so and what you said about john quel john quel has been an mvp of everything everything right of everything and oftentimes she's an afterthought until you remember it's like oh yeah she was an mvp of everything and they and they showed up and leo phibich like the length that she brings to the floor that's going to be a scary thing for for any future matchups and they just they just have players off of the bench pauline astier like all of these just a bunch of players that can really contribute and maybe win a game right we we still haven't seen the maureen johannes game right like and that's like that's always like that's all she's always good for a twenty five point heater that wins that wins the liberty a game that they had no business of winning so i i think the the liberty are probably the scariest eight seed that we're going to see for a while i agree and and to to kinda like echo some of the points when i saw six four leonie povich matched up against the one and the only courtney williams i put my hands my head in my hands and i was like this is not gonna end well this is not gonna end that's a nightmare matchup and to just see it over and over i was like this is this is over so yeah and then plus astier just locking up olivia miles i saw the meme where it's like you know lebron looking back at the free throw line and seeing somebody come in the game and he's like shit like that that's the that's like the meme of olivia miles seeing pauline astier come off the bench and come to guard her so yeah it was it was a good series i mean the liberty looked good they looked clean i think you know stewie said stewie was asked about her thoughts on her greatness and she just kind of said you know i know i'm the best and i respect that a lot and she showed it it really does feel like this league runs through asia and stewie each of which are owning a coast and i'm left in the midwest with fee just praying that we can get through it and this year it just it wasn't our year yeah the sort of the coastal superiority discourse hits again hate it hate it it's gonna curse me for my entire life yeah so that's kinda my thoughts on on the links i'll say this as like a finishing thought which is i'm really scared about not only what my fandom looks like but also my card collecting looks like if my favorite player leaves my team and i don't think it's out of the realm of possibility with the signing a one year contract becoming an unrestricted free agent the the the feeling that i'm having going into the off season is fear which is not a good one to have i you know i feel sick for you right like you know i this it's it's so tough you know i get the sense that she loves minnesota but is open to other options and there is there speaking of coastal bias there is a team out there on the coast that looks really looks like it could use a fee and well any team could use a fee but like looks like she would slide right in and make them a championship contender if not the favorite so i i am sick for you i i am i am nervous for you on the bright side though i think liv is exactly the type of player that's going to take a beat down like this and come back stronger she is going to she is going to spend the off season in the lab with lindsay whalen hopefully figuring out what is it what do i need to be able to to attack this kind of pressure defense that the liberty brought against her not just in the playoffs in the last couple games of the regular season like what what do i need to make this make this something that teams can't do to me ever again yeah yeah god willing i'm i'm looking forward to seeing what comes next for my links but good luck to liberty fans out there you guys got our number and you know i gotta respect that is it is now it doesn't even feel like a lot rivalry right now because i just keep getting my ass handed to me but good for them they're a good team and they got a lot of money so they better be so why don't we move to the next matchup march sure before i go off on the liberty anymore and alienate our our base what what series do you wanna move to next let's go let's go to my team let's get that my team out of the way let's hear it what what were your thoughts on round one atlanta dream so i was really nervous because this seemed to me to be the battle for the up and coming team and the dream have had this first round demon hanging over hanging over them for the last couple of years of course last year the fever eliminated them in a three game series so i i was really nervous but you know the the the dream are a different team this year they i think you know the players that are returning players really took that loss and used that as a fire to to to figure out different ways to win right like the like they they keep finding ways to win and players like jordan canada ryan howard and alicia gray and naz hillman right like they have played with each other for a long time and they have learned a great deal about each other's games and they're they're so supportive of each other and then of course you bring angel reese into the mix they did a fantastic job shakira austin who i think is amazing had a great start to game one but they they really ramped up the pressure on the defense from the second half of game one to all the way through game two and they made it really hard to the mist for the mystics to play for for people that are not fans of the dream i could understand this not being the most fun series to watch there were so many fouls they these these teams were going so hard at each other it wasn't always pretty but i am so glad that my team came out on top yeah i think when i think about playoff teams across sports the one thing that comes out with championship winners is you just find a way to win it does not matter if it's pretty because i'll tell you what's pretty the links offense links offense is pretty we pass the ball real nice and it doesn't nothing happens so i i i think my point is like a team like atlanta that can find a way to be scrappy to win to win together against a very talented young core of or of young ho's over in washington with the mystics what they call themselves i was really surprised to see the mystics kind of fall not easily but like i was hoping they'd put up a little bit more of a fight but i thought they played really hard really good they were not expected to be in the playoffs let alone you know in this seeding i i was impressed by by the mystics this season and in this playoffs this i think they should be very happy if i was a mystics fan i'd i'd feel very good about our future they're they're a great team and i'll tell you what if if i didn't have a team already or if someone was looking for a team i would definitely nudge them towards the mystics they are they play so hard they they have a pick swap with the chicago sky for for for the twenty twenty seven draft so they might be getting another really great young player and they just they have so much talent they play so hard they are so likable i i will not repeat what they call themselves because i don't i don't think i should do that but they are just a really likable fun hard playing team and i you know i'm excited for their future also yeah i thought sonya was really inspiring to me as a player i think when we talk about just like watching games and feeling like the heat of the moment to feel compelled to purchase a card sonya citron did that to me i usually am not the kind of person that watches somebody to play let alone lose like like they didn't win but they lost and i said wow she looks nice like nice out there she looks like a young mature superstar coming together on a team that you said is very enticing not only from a fandom perspective but from a a building a real roster perspective and so i went out and made a splash on a sonya card and i felt really good about it i never do that i never pick up like a young rookie i bought a select color blast of sonia with the black background oh yeah and i was like you know that that's pretty moving if i go out and buy a card of somebody that really isn't that quote unquote proven yet so i was impressed not only by atlanta for for beating them but washington lost with some really you know they should keep their heads high basically is what i'm saying first of all that's a great card thank you thank you is it the one with the white jersey and the black background or i think so i i have it behind a stack of cards around my desk no but i i love those black those black color glass those those look so great but sonia's game is so cool she's calm collected but she is a mean defensive player yeah and you could see you could see some of the players on the dream getting really frustrated with her defense she's probably you know one of the top three to five perimeter defenders in the game today but like we think about her as a shooter as a scorer yeah like she is you know she is i don't think i don't think she's been properly recognized yet yeah that that notre dame collegiate program just keeps pumping out stars it's incredible when i think about just that team that sonya was on miles hidalgo etcetera etcetera etcetera i'm like damn they that's like when you think about like the lsu football team with like ja'marr chase joe burrow justin jefferson this is what i imagine is like the equivalent of that for the wnba is like the the notre dame i suppose pipeline that are coming out hannah's another one when she when she comes out i like she's nobody's gonna be able to dribble against her yeah that's gonna be fun yeah so that's a kind of a good recap how are you feeling about the dream moving forward mark so we've had some success against new york but you know it's like like i said about stewie what like you said this is this is the stuff of nightmares right like you this is like i like if if to to me if atlanta wants to win this series they better win in four i don't wanna be going to a closeout game against jj yeah well it will be it would be it would be in atlanta but i still don't wanna be playing against jj stewie and sad in a in in in a closeout game i but i'm i'm excited for them to get the opportunity i think they're hungry i think they're go i think they're going in confident so i think we got a shot you know i like i i i'm i'm i'm excited and i do think we've had some success against them so you know like dream in four yeah mark say it say it yeah i like it i like it i would love to see the dream win just because you everybody knows how i feel about the liberty but like to see angel reese get that win i i think would be major like major not only for her but for when we talk about the card market seeing somebody go to the finals that's so young so new has had so many doubts about her caliber of play when she is one of the best players in the league it is going to be awesome i'm excited to see the matchup i think the the dreamer a little bit better matched up against the liberty size wise length wise than say my lynx so i'm i'm rooting for the dream in this one should we move to another fun series of las vegas versus indiana mark did you get a chance to check out those games yes i you know the we're we're talking the the the day after game three to me it was just a wildly entertaining back and forth game between two teams that i think it's fair to say are not the biggest fans of each other but like two teams with different styles of play but two teams that desperately desperately wanted to win and put it all out there on the court and like the the the level of competition the level of on the floor like back and forth i i think it was a great series you know i think i think indiana played hard they you know they they they did a lot they they had a chance to win in las vegas you know they las vegas just like just like new york they're they're a team that is really hard to put away they're a team that's really hard to beat the championship dna of jackie young chelsea gray and and and asia like you you are going to have to put them away and you know i i you know what's interesting now is like we're looking at like this could be a a finals where we have like some new teams there or it could be a finals where it's las vegas versus new york no not at all you know and and and we get we get another one of those matchups yeah and you know i can i could very much see that happening yeah it was a fun hard fought series between the aces and the fever i think your take is completely right i don't think these teams like each other and i like that i like we should not be fans of the other teams in the playoffs okay i'll be the first to say i don't like liberty i say it every time you're allowed to say you don't like the aces or the fever and vice versa and i think that that's that's healthy amount of competition it breeds a really high level of play and that's what we got we got the asia wilson experience unfortunately for fever fans at your expense but that's what happens when you're facing asia wilson is you're gonna get the whole experience and she gave it to you i think asia wilson you know i went to a farm yesterday and i saw a goat and my first thought was asia wilson you know how good you have to be for my first thought when i see a goat to be you like that's that's pretty big time and i think asia showed up and proved once again why she is the greatest player of this generation which for anybody that just listened to the lynx episode i obviously am running a fi propaganda machine and so you'll have to excuse that and i still stand with fi as a homer but asia wilson is just a different level a different level and she wins and she's got a machine behind her like you said with the likes of jackie young chelsea gray jewel lloyd etcetera etcetera the list goes on this is a team that will not be denied and has a championship kind of expectation that i think you know is very hard to take down yeah i think she and she seems to be ramping up the level of difficulty like every year right like you know nelissa smith who is like a huge contributor is out for the season dana evans hasn't played yet in the playoffs and she was huge for them in the finals behind you know the maybe the top three or four like i i think you can add jewel lloyd maybe steph talbot there right like a little bit of parker tias park parker tias like it's a little bit shaky for the bench and you know the like you saw yesterday chelsea gray and jackie young played all forty minutes they didn't sit at all and and yet you know they're still terrifying and then this is what's this kind of generational tension that is that that is happening right now in the wnba i think it's an exciting thing and i i agree with you playoffs get heated you know for those listening like caitlin and i were afraid that minnesota and atlanta would would be playing against playing against each other in the playoffs and then we'd have to we'd have to cancel this before we even started but that's that's what playoff basketball is this is like this is the highest level of competition i you know i i personally love when teams give each other respect at the end at the end of the games but we're not always gonna get that with if you're asking people to compete at the highest level and you're telling them that it's championship or bust people are like things are going to get heated things are gonna get tense and they certainly did yeah one hundred percent i'm excited to see las vegas i think putting las vegas and indiana in the first round while an amazing entertaining matchup i just wish we could have seen him deeper in a in a like a five game series or a seven game series i really thought that that was one of the the series that you know if i was a tv network that would be the one i'd bid bid for one hundred percent oh i'd love to see the numbers of who was watch who was watching this game this this is this must have been a really high watch game and i agree like i think i i would you know right now it's three five seven i would make all of the series five games right like if if if i was the one choosing because i think that is kind of the sweet spot where you can establish who is like who is the better team and i think this would've this would've been a real this would've gone five i think so and you know and both of the teams would have been dead tired and you would have seen like like this like this amazing but dramatic rock fight for a game five yeah there's some series that just feel like heavyweight matchups this was one of them it just felt like blow another blow another hit and ultimately the goat came out on top but i think feverfan should feel good i mean they still have their their three their their their trio that looks amazing so future looks bright so long as everything stays according to plan there and i'm excited to see vegas make another push i think kelsey mitchell signed a one year contract right so she i couldn't see her leaving though i can't can you i i think i think she and caitlin play really well yeah together right and i think they open up each other's scoring a great deal but you know i you know similar to fee right like i think a lot of these players maybe were presented with the opportunity to sign for two and three years and wanted one year for some kind of flexibility and like and that flexibility often means like let let's see what's out there and you know i i would imagine a lot of teams would be really interested in kelsey mitchell i'd be excited to see that contract number too i think she'd get get top dollar in the market just with her play the past couple years for sure alright well let's let's kinda close the chapter of vegas indiana i'm excited to see where those both those franchises keep heading but let's let's kinda like close out our playoff reactions with golden state valkyries versus the dallas wings which at the time of recording we're only two games in the third game has not been decided what have been your thoughts watching this series thus far game two was weird i thought i thought the valkyries were just gonna were going to sweep dallas and you know and then we got the enrique game and when you get a and when you get one enrique game you you start to think to yourself can we get two enrique games and you can and you can right and she's been hitting those same shots in clutch moments since she was in notre dame again the notre dame of it all so you know everything everything is up in the air you know it's golden state's at home they are i think the better team i would pick them to win but if we're talking next week and we're talking about a las vegas dallas matchup i think it's probably because like paige came out and dominated and enrique had enrique game part two i think that you know and i think those are absolutely possible storylines that that that that get us to a dallas win yeah i i love the enrique game i think similar to how you kinda touched on the marine game of it all how you can just have one game where you know twenty five points well enrique can give you forty five on any given night and i think you know i you know i've i mentioned this a few times on the podcast for but for anybody that's listening for the first time i grew up in wisconsin and i remember erique ogunibwale at divine holy savior angels going to her state championship game and she dropped like fifty three and i remember sitting in the box sitting next to my dad and he's like sit down and watch this watch watch what's about to happen here and i'm like okay like whatever and i'm like wow that was like seeing like transcending the game then she goes to notre dame then she has her iconic ncaa two game winners in a row now we're seeing the same shots that were being make making made during like the obama administration still happening today for the dallas wings when they need it most i still think if i got one shot at the end of the game and you say anybody in the wnba take it give me enrique ogdenwale i think that she is just one of the most clutch confident players and to see her in full form i felt like i was watching like seventeen year old enrique again you know like like i think i was like ten watching her and i remember my eyes lighting up and being like i didn't know it was this good i didn't know we were made like this here and she she's just been a baller forever and i was really happy to sit down watch that game in full and just watch the entire experience because paige kinda got to take the back seat a little bit and when that happens when enrique kinda has the green light which seems to be all the time but it was really green it's just so fun so i loved this series so far i'm pulling for the wings because of the enrique experience and because of the playoff page implications in the market i don't own a page card well i have one page card that's like forty dollars but like i don't have any financial stake in page but i would love to see what happens if paige makes a monster playoff push that being said i agree with you i think the velks are the better team and they have an absolute surgeon leading the team with natalie nakase coaching that team has been an incredible display of leadership of the strategy all that i think next week we'll probably be seeing golden state come out on top yeah i you know i i i think that you're absolutely right but also what an awesome deep cut you know like high school erique that that that's awesome and she was just as cold playing on an all girls catholic school team in like d four in wisconsin i'm excited to see how that series end that's probably been my favorite series mark is dallas golden state so far it's a it's a really interesting matchup of styles right like and and you know the other factor that you you probably should think about is like you know if golden state wins wins it all is fee going to to to the valkyries like if they've already won it all like purple fee i i could get behind purple fee that that that's not the worst color to wear that's not too bad i i don't know i purple is great though speaking of little tangent here golden state v dallas best uniform matchup of the playoffs for me when dallas are wearing those retro kinda likes like script dallas blue and then golden state's wearing the purple and the white oh those are really nice those are really nice i like the vaux jerseys i i've i've often toyed with getting a a caitlin chen jersey they are they are they are great jerseys well i suppose that's kind of our our reactions to the four opening rounds of the playoff or the four opening series of the opening round i have really enjoyed this this playoff so far despite my team absolutely shitting the bed i'm now a neutral observer scouting for fee so this will be an interesting playoff for me before we kinda wrap things up with our predictions moving forward made a couple of them i kinda wanna get your take mark a little rapid fire on awards this far we've you know the wnba has handed out some individual awards to date we're still waiting at the time of recording for that mvp call out but we saw cheryl reeve get coach of the year olivia miles winning rookie of the year jessica shepherd winning most improved player that's three links or former links right there folks and then angel of your atlanta dream winning defensive player of the year what's kinda your take on the awards this season yeah these seem broadly fine to me i i think nothing stands out as egregious of course miles was gonna get rookie of the year and very well deserved i you know i think you and you talked about it i think that the job that natalie nakase has done in golden state might have deserved some great some recognition but like you know the number one seed were the minnesota links so it's like i i do think it's a little bittersweet to get coach of the year and then get swept out of the playoffs in the first round and and you know that must be a little bit tough i would have picked i would have picked nat there for most improved player i mean jessica shepherd has had a great season but also shakira austin like i you know she so shakira would have been my pick but i i get that it's close and i did think you know i did think angel was probably the defensive player of the year i know i'm biased so i you know i i i just i just think the way like you know one of the things is like watch angel guard guards right like and and snatch their dribble away and then watch her get back and protect the paint watch her get rebounds that end that end a defensive possession and all of that really adds up to a a big part of why the dream have been successful this year yeah i think i'm just gonna cosign on what you said mark my two caveats were the same which is i thought nat over in golden state probably deserved it over cheryl and that's coming from a lynx homer here so like i love cheryl but i find what's happening in golden state to be a new brand of women's basketball that's going to spread like wildfire this is kind of a statistics driven very interesting manipulation of a roster that i don't think we've seen before obviously afforded by an expansion team draft but what's happening over there i think feels ahead of the curve for the wnba and i think nakase is gonna be one of those names that kinda like defines this pivotal moment in how we look at coaching roster building etcetera etcetera i mean it's it's just been a display of true professionalism of really good execution from that entire franchise in building that up that i also think she at least shoulda got a little bit more recognition if not coach of the year definitely and then jess shepherd i don't know man when jess shepherd would have thought on my team she was big and not very good like it was just like not that great then she goes to dallas and is playing unbelievable it's like her and atlanta smith just swapped bodies and started playing down there i don't know what happened it's been a great year for her i'm very happy for you dallas fans but i think there was some shakira austin propaganda on this podcast last season from many of my guests and i think i'm on their side as well i think shakira austin after being under the wing of fi in unrivaled really took the next step and contributed to a team that had very low expectations in the mystics and i would have had her as my vote for most improved player but that's the awards this far do you have any predictions for mvp any off the wall prediction mark or off the wall what what would off the wall other than the what is it the minus six thousand favorite for mvp i i mean no it's gonna be it's gonna be asia for sure i like what i'm interested in is like two through five and you know what is the what is the recognition that other players get how well olivia miles does where caitlin clark and kelsey mitchell are ranked because i think it it's i think both of them in some ways are are candidates for top five ballots but i'm curious to as to who the voters decide was more valuable for their team this year that will be fun that'll be a fun little thought experiment experiment that comes out i'm excited to see asia get her another mvp i think i think and you know i think we've been saying this you and i i think people who listen to spyguest know this but asia wilson cards are still just it does not make sense price wise to me to me if she wins another one mark is this finally the turning point for her market i think the train has already started to leave the station you know i think and i i saw earlier this week two of her rittenhouse psa nine rookies got got listed at three thousand dollars and scooped up by the end of the day and you know i i you know i i like that is that is both affordable and out of my reach but i i i think but i think those i i think we're already seeing a lot of price movement on some of her bigger cards and i don't see that coming back down you know like she's going to end this season with five mvps i don't know if she's gonna win the championship but like she like the the five mvps itself might be enough right like and and you know if we were really evaluating what the aces look like here they're they're they are they're playing with so many like some of their really key pieces missing and they're and there's they they they're still one of the last four teams standing and that's almost all due to one player and you know i think that says that says a lot about her greatness as well yeah you know i i don't i like for me i don't think there's gonna be many big asia cards that i'm going to be afford able to afford anymore and i i i think they're starting to we're starting to see movements that that that show the that that show an understanding of her as being the greatest player in the sport yeah it's been really exciting to watch this unfold because in any other league four mvps with a almost guarantee for a fifth equates to hundreds of thousands of dollars hundreds of thousands of dollars and what we're talking about is three thousand or five thousand or ten thousand not one million two million and to me i'm not like saying like asia wilson should go up that high because of just like this x y z sale in a men's sports league but damn how much more do you need how much more do you need to win because i don't see anybody else with five mvps i don't see anybody else with five mvps and i'd like to see what the equivalent would be if i could simulate in the market the equivalent of a male asia wilson with five mvps today thirty years old what that card market would look like because it would be way higher than asia wilson's so i think that you know it's gonna be an interesting playoff from a card perspective we've got players like paige like we talked about got players like angel and then we got the goats we got stewie asia still competing still bidding for yet another championship and it's gonna be fun to see how the market reacts especially with so many eyeballs added to the to the screen yeah i mean stewie is one that i'm watching because stewie has been often often underappreciated in the hobby and and just she just keeps winning keeps winning yeah it's it's nuts yeah it's gonna be fun mark i think that kind of rounds out our discussion of round one of the playoffs folks we said we were gonna do a little preview episode it's gonna be like thirty minutes long and we just had too much fun so we took this a little over fifty minutes for you guys we're excited for season six it's gonna be conversations about games that are happening about pipelines of players coming through the collegiate world it's gonna be talking all about cards and it's gonna be me and mark mark so i'm so excited for this mark thank you for joining us on season six any any last words for the listeners before we officially kinda like tip-off season six with episode one next week oh thanks everyone for listening and let's go dream okay well i guess so let's go dream why not