Connecticut Sun, WNBA Prepare For Start Of Season After Long Wait

Head Coach Curt Miller and the Connecticut Sun for years had been building towards last season, when his vision for the WNBA’s only team in New England and its potential were supposed to come together.

“It was almost like our 'Last Dance,'”Miller said, referencing the documentaryon Michael Jordan’s last year with the Chicago Bulls. “We knew, we pushed our chips in going into the 2019 season with eight players at the end of the year who were gonna be free agents. Everyone knew deep down that our team would not look the same in 2020 as it was in 2019.”

The Sun were one of the best teams in basketball, but ended up losing to the Washington Mystics in a WNBA Finals series that will likely go down as an instant classic.

The team is preparing for a chance to bounce back. But as the WNBA gets ready to play a regular season starting next month that’s been shortened due to the coronavirus, it will be unlike anything the Sun was gearing up for.

Amber Cox, vice president of the Sun, remembers the end of last year being hard after the loss in the finals.

But there was a lot to look forward to when the WNBA came back: a new collective bargaining agreement, a new commissioner, a dramatic free agency and some of the most exciting talent coming out of the college ranks in recent memory. For the Sun, that included acquiring DeWanna Bonner, one of the best players in the league, in a trade with the Phoenix Mercury.

Then the coronavirus put all sports on hold, and nobody knew what that meant for the WNBA.

“I mean, when Mohegan Sun closed its doors for the first time in 20-something years, you knew it was really serious,” Cox said. “That had never happened before.”

Everyone did their best to maintain some form of routine.

Players did their best stay in shape, physically and mentally. Miller went to his home in Indiana while he waited for basketball to come back. But even away from a court, the coach couldn’t shake some of his old habits.

“There are days where I still find myself grinding 10 to 12 hours a day,” he said. “I had a stretch (one) week of four straight days where I averaged no less than six hours on Zoom calls a day. So it’s amazing how much you can get lost in your work.”

For months, the WNBA was in limbo as officials tried to figure out what would happen next. Finally, on June 15, the league announced it would hold a 22-game regular season starting in late July at IMG Academy, a Florida prep school that focuses on sports.

In a conference call with reporters, Cox said she expects it to be one of the — if not the most — unique seasons in the history of the WNBA, which started play in 1997.

Playing during a pandemic would be enough to make it that historic. But after protests over police violence and the murders of African-Americans filled streets across the country, the WNBA and its teams vowed to use the season to focus on social justice issues.

“This is not a moment in time, this is a movement,” Cox said. “And we’re not going to stop until we don’t have to talk about this anymore. And we want to do everything we can to elevate these tremendous women.”

For the Sun, that means a new platform called “Change Can’t Wait.” Inspired by conversations with players, it will focus on voting, education, community outreach and amplification of important issues with a focus on Black and Brown communities in Connecticut and New England.

Veteran guard Jasmine Thomas told reporters it felt good to have the organization’s support.

“So when they were putting together the social justice reform platform for the Sun, (players) got to be involved with everything that they were thinking,” Thomas said. “And any ideas that they were having, they ran them by us, thought if it was something we would be interested in. And no pressure, as far as like, you get to decide what you’re most passionate about and be involved in that. ... So I’m really proud of what the Sun is doing. I think it’s a good thing they took the lead of doing that ... not just at a league level, but for this market.”

But while the Sun will have a new mission heading to Florida, not every player will be there. Some, like Sun forward Jonquel Jones, chose to opt out of the season. Across the league, others are doing the same — some over concerns about the coronavirus, and others to focus on social justice.

But for those who are heading down to Florida, it’s a chance to get back to something like normal.

“Gonna give it a chance. Hopefully everything is up to standard,” said guard Alyssa Thomas. “Of course, we don’t want to go in there and get the virus, so that’s definitely been something on my mind. But here in Connecticut, I’m working out and, like I said, I’m gonna give it a shot.”

For Jasmine Thomas, she’s still carrying the hunger from coming so close in the finals. But she understands what the world is going through.

“Everyone is afraid of COVID and keeping their families and themselves safe from that virus. So to think that athletes are excluded from that is kind of crazy,” she said. “It’s just us wanting to be safe. And I’m excited about the pieces that we have here and, hopefully, going forward to the future we get to experience a regular season with this group.”

The Connecticut Sun will finally be getting their chance to play in a new season. It won’t be what they, or anyone, were expecting. But for the WNBA, it’s a chance to regain the momentum the pandemic stopped.