WNBA’s Becky Hammon steals money in NY; Dave Dombrowski’s plan unfolding, so hush; LIV star wastes talent

The Las Vegas Aces are owned by Mark Davis and Tom Brady, who also own the Las Vegas Raiders, where pass rusher Maxx Crosby twice hit quarterback Kirk Cousins during plays at a training camp practice Saturday, which led to a fight between them, which led to them being suspended from Sunday’s practice ... which was the second-dumbest thing that happened involving a Davis-Brady team this weekend.

On Thursday night, “Point Gawd” Chelsea Gray hit buzzer-beater 3-pointers both at the end of regulation and at the end of overtime to upset Caitlin Clark in Indiana.

On Saturday afternoon, the Aces went cold after the first quarter and lost to the Lynx in Minnesota. Three-time league MVP A’ja Wilson looked flat.

This all happened while I was on vacation, but I know this because my family watches the WNBA like Donald Trump watches the stock market.

So imagine, then, our dismay when, on Sunday, we tuned in to the afternoon game between the Aces and the New York Liberty — a game we considered attending — and discovered that Wilson, Gray, and five-time All-Star Jackie Young would not play. At. All.

This would be like the Bulls showing up to face the Knicks in 1995 and sitting Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman because they’d played in Dallas three days prior and in Houston the night before.

This was fraud. This was theft. This was a Becky Hammon tantrum, and fans in the arena and around the country suffered for it.

The outrageous nature of this clear act of rebellion cannot be overstated.

But I will try.

This was a nationally televised Sunday afternoon game that led off the eighth of ABC/ESPN’s nine “Women’s Sports Sundays.” It also was the “Legends Weekend” game for the Liberty, where they recognized former stars. This was a must-see game as the season enters its homestretch, with both rivals squarely in the playoff hunt.

Imagine, then, the dismay of the 17,082 fans who paid about $150 to watch Dana Evans, bless her heart, start her second game in two years with the Aces, and score 2 points, and turn the ball over three times.

The Aces never led, trailed by 23 after the third quarter, and lost by 40.

Aces coach Hammon said afterward that, since the games in Minnesota and New York occurred within 24 hours of each other, “My players’ health is the most important.”

It should not be surprising that Hammon employed this disingenuous line of reasoning. After all, these shenanigans were pioneered by her NBA mentor, Gregg Popovich, on whose Spurs staff she learned a lot more about pro basketball than just the high screen-and-roll.

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From pitch counts to minute restrictions to scheduled losses, load management has become a distasteful aspect of professional sports. This was far more than load management.

This more likely was Hammon — a spunky sort who this summer dissed Jalen Brunson and whose handling of a player’s pregnancy got her suspended for two games in 2023 — making a statement of defiance at the league’s challenging scheduling of Aces games during this stretch.

Why was it more than load management? Simple.

Because Hammon didn’t have to sit all three players for the same game. She could have sat Wilson on Saturday, then sat the other two Sunday. Or vice versa. Or, more logically, she could have sat all three Saturday, against the Lynx, the league’s top team in a lower-profile game, then played all three Sunday with more of the world watching.

Instead, she sat three of the league’s better players against a rival that plays in the league’s biggest media market.

Unlike the NBA, the WNBA does not have a player participation policy with guidelines and mandates regarding not playing star players. Clearly, it needs one.

At any rate, given his record of out-and-out cheating, you know Brady must be proud.

Maybe it’s the malaise of the dog days of summer, but it’s become tiresome hearing complaints that a team knowingly built to be deficient defensively, with scant resources given to the bullpen, keeps losing games because it can’t catch the ball and it can’t pitch past the sixth inning.

In 2022 and 2023, Phillies president Dave Dombrowski told anyone who would listen that, when he added Trea Turner to a team that already had Kyle Schwarber, Nick Castellanos, and Alec Bohm, said team would not steal games with leather; rather, they would win them with wood. The Phillies are, by most metrics, a mediocre defensive team. By observation, after their defensive realignment as a result of the trade for Luis Arraez, they are easily bottom-five.

Further, Dombrowski’s consistent legacy in Florida, Detroit, Boston, and Philadelphia, where he combined to win five pennants and two World Series, included his haphazard construction and maintenance of bullpen talent. The Phillies’ bullpen, plagued by both injury and ineptness, is second-worst in baseball.

They are as advertised.

Deal with it.

The peculiar path of Joaquin Niemann, the best golfer in the history of Chile, proves both the overall weakness and the hidden strength of LIV Golf’s existence.

Niemann joined LIV in August of 2022 for a reported $100 million. He’s won nearly $80 million more, including a total of $4.3 million when he won his ninth LIV event Sunday at Trump Bedminster. That’s not only the most wins in the league’s brief history, it’s as many as Bryson DeChambeau’s five wins and Jon Rahm’s four wins combined. DeChambeau is tied for second with Brooks Koepka, but Koepka won’t win on LIV again since, like a rat aboard a sinking ship, he abandoned LIV in December to return to the PGA Tour.

Earlier this year Koepka, DeChambeau, Rahm, and Cameron Smith were courted by PGA Tour czar Brian Rolapp to return.

Each had won a major title, and, from DeChambeau’s social media superstardom to Smith’s magnificent mullet, each has created an international brand that would enhance a PGA Tour that utterly lacks charisma.

Only Koepka accepted the offer, but, with LIV foundering, there will be other offers. Rolapp should court Niemann, too.

He is, without question, not only the most successful golfer in the history of Chile, but also the most successful golfer in the history of LIV. Considering he has competed against fields that included Pat Perez, Yubin Jang, and Frederik Kjettrup, this is a dead, cold fish of a compliment, but Niemann has made that bed for himself.

As accomplished as he has been on LIV, no one can sanely argue that Niemann has been as good a player as DeChambeau, Rahm, or Koepka. In the 16 majors since the beginning of the 2023 season, Niemann has just three top-20s and two to-10s. Koepka, meanwhile, has five top-20s, two top-10s, and a win; Rahm has eight top-20s, seven top-10s, and a win; and DeChambeau has nine top-20s, seven top-10s, and a win.

However, one can reasonably argue that no golfer sabotaged his legacy more than Niemann by going to LIV. I believed this would be the case when he left, and I believe that’s how it has played out.

When he defected, Niemann had just won nearly $1 million by tying for ninth at the Tour Championship, the capstone event on the PGA Tour. He had won the Genesis Invitational and had spent most of the year ranked inside the top 20 in the world, peaking at No. 15.

Niemann left the Tour at the top of his game. He was tracking to become the next ... Collin Morikawa? Matt Fitzpatrick? Justin Thomas?

We may never know.

Or maybe we will.

Niemann won on the DP World Tour in 2023 but had fallen to 182nd this past March. Now, LIV’s product and personnel generally stinks, but Niemann hasn’t really been the 182nd best golfer on the planet since he was a teenager. He quickly proved that when LIV this year began awarding ranking points for top-10 finishes.

Niemann has won twice on LIV and he’s earned seven total top-10 finishes worldwide, one of them a tie for 7th at the U.S. Open at Bethpage Black. He also tied for 18th at the PGA Championship at Aronimink.

Rolapp can invite anyone back any way he likes. Niemann has said he would return to the PGA Tour if LIV collapses, but, unlike Koepka and Patrick Reed, who returns later this month, Niemann doesn’t seem particularly eager.

Maybe he likes beating up on the Harold Varners of the world. Maybe he’d rather compete on mediocre courses in member-guest condition. Maybe he just prefers playing in shorts.

At any rate, it is unfortunate. Niemann’s absence is the golf world’s loss.

There is time.

Niemann turns 28 in November. That’s how old Arnold Palmer was when he won the first of his seven majors and is just one year older than Koepka was when he won the first of his five.

But just imagine what Niemann might have accomplished in the last four seasons during partial absences of Koepka, Rahm, and DeChambeau.

Just consider what Scottie Scheffler has done in the absence of the big LIV quartet. Does that sound far-fetched? Well then, consider also that, like Niemann, at one point in 2022, Scottie was ranked No. 15 in the world.