Culture
The Las Vegas Aces let the rest of the WNBA catch up. Now their three-peat quest is over
LAS VEGAS — Among the many buzzwords Becky Hammon has used during her three-year run as head coach of the Las Vegas Aces, perhaps her favorite is “habits.”
Success relies on building habits.
“You don’t get to flip a switch,” Hammon said. “It’s the beautiful thing about sports, actually. The work and the commitment and the buy-in and the play-hard and want-to and the will, will always show up in the end.”
The Aces simply didn’t have the right habits in 2024. Their defense, which led the league in 2023, was fifth (100.3 points per 100 possessions) at the All-Star break. Their shooting suffered, as their 3-point percentage dipped from 37.2 in 2023 to 34.8 before the Olympics. A team that set the WNBA wins record (34) in 2023 en route to back-to-back titles matched its total losses by the 12th game of 2024.
Las Vegas was without its edge for most of the season, only really discovering that by the final 10 games. At that point, the damage had been done. The Aces had dug themselves too big of a hole, and the rest of the league caught up.
The Liberty loaded up on size to counter Las Vegas’ movement. The Lynx revamped their offense, spreading the floor and increasing their volume of 3s. Connecticut doubled down on its toughness, suffocating opponents defensively. The other contenders were able to hone in on their strengths while the Aces barely saw theirs in action. Their singular greatness never coalesced into more than the sum of its parts. Their players couldn’t amplify one another, simply letting individuals carry the team on alternating nights.
That meant fourth-seeded Las Vegas had to play Seattle, a historically good first-round opponent, before starting the semifinals in Barclays Center, a place where the Aces have won just once in seven tries over the last two years. Whatever edge they had summoned over the final quarter of the season petered out, and they ran out of gas.
“At the end of the day, I thought our shortcomings stood out a little bit,” Hammon said. “We have some great things to build on, (but) you don’t have it every year. It’s not the way this works.”
New York seized upon those weaknesses Sunday night in its decisive 76-62 Game 4 victory. The Liberty pummeled Las Vegas on the glass, winning the rebound battle 55-37, including a 13-4 margin on offensive rebounds. With the Aces trying to protect the rim, New York won the 3-point battle 10-7 (on six fewer attempts) and still managed to outscore Las Vegas in the paint 30-28 with a barrage of fourth-quarter layups.
Thank you @LVAces 🤍🩶♥️ Until next season! 🫶🙏 pic.twitter.com/d6zjfRgzsJ
— Las Vegas Aces News (@LVAcesNews) October 6, 2024
It was a continuation of shooting woes and defensive issues that have plagued the Aces all season. Despite the hope that they could conjure some of their 2023 magic, they reverted to the habits that had defined them during the regular season, and it wasn’t enough to get the job done. A Game 3 victory, on a night that Hammon called her team’s most complete game of the season, wasn’t a promising sign of what was yet to come for Las Vegas. Rather, it was a blip on the radar, a fleeting reminder of what the Aces had been instead of what they actually were this season.
“This year really kind of set its home for us going into the offseason about how we want to handle things,” A’ja Wilson said.
Las Vegas now heads into a pivotal offseason. It will likely lose one rotation player or young prospect beyond the core four to the expansion draft, whether that is Kiah Stokes, Megan Gustafson, Kierstan Bell or Kate Martin. Kelsey Plum is an unrestricted free agent, though the Aces can core her, but it is the first time that one of the team’s stars has hit free agency without signing an extension.
The bench wasn’t deep enough in 2024. The coaching staff had faith in only three frontcourt players for much of the season, but one of those players is 5-foot-11 and another doesn’t get guarded by opponents in the playoffs. Among their perimeter reserves, Tiffany Hayes was retired to start the season and hasn’t committed to sticking around while Sydney Colson’s offensive limitations made it tough to play her extended minutes.
The Aces also will have to navigate a new league dynamic. The league is stronger and deeper than when Las Vegas won its first title. The Aces helped engineer a stylistic revolution over the past three years, bringing pace and space to the WNBA and opening up the floor for high-powered individual performances. The rest of the league has caught on, however, which means Las Vegas has to figure out what comes next.
“They’ve made us a better team,” New York guard Sabrina Ionescu said. “To do what they’ve done is not easy. We’ve gotten there and lost, they’ve gotten there and won twice, and it’s a testament to their togetherness, their experience, how hard it is that they’re wanting to go out there and be their best every night, and they’ve laid down the foundation. And they’ve continued to motivate everyone in the league to just want to be better and want to win championships.”
Regardless of who ends up on the Aces’ 2025 roster, their only path to get back to competing for titles is to put in the work during the offseason and get in reps that will pay dividends come next October. Wilson said she’ll get back in the lab in December, and Hammon says she expects a different level of focus to start training camp.
Las Vegas also has the motivating factor of defeat.
“We’re gonna have a lot of hard learning lessons,” Hammon said. “It hurts now, I promise you it’s going to hurt tomorrow, probably worse because it sets in the next day, but you got to build habits, you gotta work in a way that you believe you deserve to win.”
The Aces didn’t deserve to win in 2024. They lost to a better team, a team that was more consistent and less complacent throughout the season. For the last few years, Las Vegas has set the pace. Now, there is a new standard to meet.
(Photo of A’ja Wilson and Aces players: Barry Gossage / NBAE via Getty Images)
On Dec. 16, 1775, a girl was born in Steventon, England — the seventh of eight children — to a clergyman and his wife. She was an avid reader, never married and died in 1817, at the age of 41. But in just those few decades, Jane Austen changed the world.
Her novels have had an outsize influence in the centuries since her death. Not only are the books themselves beloved — as sharply observed portraits of British society, revolutionary narrative projects and deliciously satisfying romances — but the stories she created have so permeated culture that people around the world care deeply about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, even if they’ve never actually read “Pride and Prejudice.”
With her 250th birthday this year, the Austen Industrial Complex has kicked into high gear with festivals, parades, museum exhibits, concerts and all manner of merch, ranging from the classily apt to the flamboyantly absurd. The words “Jane mania” have been used; so has “exh-Aust-ion.”
How to capture this brief life, and the blazing impact that has spread across the globe in her wake? Without further ado: a mere sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness Austen has brought to our lives. After all, your semiquincentennial doesn’t come around every day.
By ‘A Lady’
Austen published just four novels in her lifetime: “Sense and Sensibility” (1811), “Pride and Prejudice” (1813), “Mansfield Park” (1814) and “Emma” (1815). All of them were published anonymously, with the author credited simply as “A Lady.” (If you’re in New York, you can see this first edition for yourself at the Grolier Club through Feb. 14.)
Where the Magic Happened
Placed near a window for light, this diminutive walnut table was, according to family lore, where the author did much of her writing. It is now in the possession of the Jane Austen Society.
An Iconic Accessory
Few of Austen’s personal artifacts remain, contributing to the author’s mystique. One of them is this turquoise ring, which passed to her sister-in-law and then her niece after her death. In 2012, the ring was put up for auction and bought by the “American Idol” champion Kelly Clarkson. This caused quite a stir in England; British officials were loath to let such an important cultural artifact leave the country’s borders. Jane Austen’s House, the museum now based in the writer’s Hampshire home, launched a crowdfunding campaign to Bring the Ring Home and bought the piece from Clarkson. The real ring now lives at the museum; the singer has a replica.
Austen Onscreen
Since 1940, when Austen had a bit of a moment and Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier starred in MGM’s rather liberally reinterpreted “Pride and Prejudice,” there have been more than 20 international adaptations of Austen’s work made for film and TV (to say nothing of radio). From the sublime (Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning “Sense and Sensibility”) to the ridiculous (the wholly gratuitous 2022 remake of “Persuasion”), the high waists, flickering firelight and double weddings continue to provide an endless stream of debate fodder — and work for a queen’s regiment of British stars.
Jane Goes X-Rated
The rumors are true: XXX Austen is a thing. “Jane Austen Kama Sutra,” “Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen” and enough slash fic and amateur porn to fill Bath’s Assembly Rooms are just the start. Purists may never recover.
A Lady Unmasked
Austen’s final two completed novels, “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion,” were published after her death. Her brother Henry, who oversaw their publication, took the opportunity to give his sister the recognition he felt she deserved, revealing the true identity of the “Lady” behind “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” etc. in a biographical note. “The following pages are the production of a pen which has already contributed in no small degree to the entertainment of the public,” he wrote, extolling his sister’s imagination, good humor and love of dancing. Still, “no accumulation of fame would have induced her, had she lived, to affix her name to any productions of her pen.”
Wearable Tributes
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen fan wants to find other Jane Austen fans, and what better way to advertise your membership in that all-inclusive club than with a bit of merch — from the subtle and classy to the gloriously obscene.
The Austen Literary Universe
On the page, there is no end to the adventures Austen and her characters have been on. There are Jane Austen mysteries, Jane Austen vampire series, Jane Austen fantasy adventures, Jane Austen Y.A. novels and, of course, Jane Austen romances, which transpose her plots to a remote Maine inn, a Greenwich Village penthouse and the Bay Area Indian American community, to name just a few. You can read about Austen-inspired zombie hunters, time-traveling hockey players, Long Island matchmakers and reality TV stars, or imagine further adventures for some of your favorite characters. (Even the obsequious Mr. Collins gets his day in the sun.)
A Botanical Homage
Created in 2017 to mark the 200th anniversary of Austen’s death, the “Jane Austen” rose is characterized by its intense orange color and light, sweet perfume. It is bushy, healthy and easy to grow.
Aunt Jane
Hoping to cement his beloved aunt’s legacy, Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh published this biography — a rather rosy portrait based on interviews with family members — five decades after her death. The book is notable not only as the source (biased though it may be) of many of the scant facts we know about her life, but also for the watercolor portrait by James Andrews that serves as its frontispiece. Based on a sketch by Cassandra, this depiction of Jane is softer and far more winsome than the original: Whether that is due to a lack of skill on her sister’s part or overly enthusiastic artistic license on Andrews’s, this is the version of Austen most familiar to people today.
Cultural Currency
In 2017, the Bank of England released a new 10-pound note featuring Andrews’s portrait of Austen, as well as a line from “Pride and Prejudice”: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” Austen is the third woman — other than the queen — to be featured on British currency, and the only one currently in circulation.
In the Trenches
During World War I and World War II, British soldiers were given copies of Austen’s works. In his 1924 story “The Janeites,” Rudyard Kipling invoked the grotesque contrasts — and the strange comfort — to be found in escaping to Austen’s well-ordered world amid the horrors of trench warfare. As one character observes, “There’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place.”
Baby Janes
You’re never too young to learn to love Austen — or that one’s good opinion, once lost, may be lost forever.
The Austen Industrial Complex
Maybe you’ve not so much as seen a Jane Austen meme, let alone read one of her novels. No matter! Need a Jane Austen finger puppet? Lego? Magnetic poetry set? Lingerie? Nameplate necklace? Plush book pillow? License plate frame? Bath bomb? Socks? Dog sweater? Whiskey glass? Tarot deck? Of course you do! And you’re in luck: What a time to be alive.
Around the Globe
Austen’s novels have been translated into more than 40 languages, including Polish, Finnish, Chinese and Farsi. There are active chapters of the Jane Austen Society, her 21st-century fan club, throughout the world.
Playable Persuasions
In Austen’s era, no afternoon tea was complete without a rousing round of whist, a trick-taking card game played in two teams of two. But should you not be up on your Regency amusements, you can find plenty of contemporary puzzles and games with which to fill a few pleasant hours, whether you’re piecing together her most beloved characters or using your cunning and wiles to land your very own Mr. Darcy.
#SoJaneAusten
The wild power of the internet means that many Austen moments have taken on lives of their own, from Colin Firth’s sopping wet shirt and Matthew Macfadyen’s flexing hand to Mr. Collins’s ode to superlative spuds and Mr. Knightley’s dramatic floor flop. The memes are fun, yes, but they also speak to the universality of Austen’s writing: More than two centuries after her books were published, the characters and stories she created are as relatable as ever.
Bonnets Fit for a Bennett
For this summer’s Grand Regency Costumed Promenade in Bath, England — as well as the myriad picnics, balls, house parties, dinners, luncheons, teas and fetes that marked the anniversary — seamstresses, milliners, mantua makers and costume warehouses did a brisk business, attiring the faithful in authentic Regency finery. And that’s a commitment: A bespoke, historically accurate bonnet can easily run to hundreds of dollars.
Most Ardently, Jane
Austen was prolific correspondent, believed to have written thousands of letters in her lifetime, many to her sister, Cassandra. But in an act that has frustrated biographers for centuries, upon Jane’s death, Cassandra protected her sister’s privacy — and reputation? — by burning almost all of them, leaving only about 160 intact, many heavily redacted. But what survives is filled with pithy one-liners. To wit: “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
Stage and Sensibility
Austen’s works have been adapted numerous times for the stage. Some plays (and musicals) hew closely to the original text, while others — such as Emily Breeze’s comedic riff on “Pride and Prejudice,” “Are the Bennet Girls OK?”, which is running at New York City’s West End Theater through Dec. 21 — use creative license to explore ideas of gender, romance and rage through a contemporary lens.
Austen 101
Austen remains a reliable fount of academic scholarship; recent conference papers have focused on the author’s enduring global reach, the work’s relationship to modern intersectionality, digital humanities and “Jane Austen on the Cheap.” And as one professor told our colleague Sarah Lyall of the Austen amateur scholarship hive, “Woe betide the academic who doesn’t take them seriously.”
W.W.J.D.
When facing problems — of etiquette, romance, domestic or professional turmoil — sometimes the only thing to do is ask: What would Jane do?
A famous poet once observed that it is difficult to get the news from poems. The weather is a different story. April showers, summer sunshine and — maybe especially — the chill of winter provide an endless supply of moods and metaphors. Poets like to practice a double meteorology, looking out at the water and up at the sky for evidence of interior conditions of feeling.
The inner and outer forecasts don’t always match up. This short poem by Louise Glück starts out cold and stays that way for most of its 11 lines.
And then it bursts into flame.
“Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” comes from Glück’s debut collection, “Firstborn,” which was published in 1968. She wrote the poems in it between the ages of 18 and 23, but they bear many of the hallmarks of her mature style, including an approach to personal matters — sex, love, illness, family life — that is at once uncompromising and elusive. She doesn’t flinch. She also doesn’t explain.
Here, for example, Glück assembles fragments of experience that imply — but also obscure — a larger narrative. It’s almost as if a short story, or even a novel, had been smashed like a glass Christmas ornament, leaving the reader to infer the sphere from the shards.
We know there was a couple with a flat tire, and that a year later at least one of them still has feelings for the other. It’s hard not to wonder if they’re still together, or where they were going with those Christmas presents.
To some extent, those questions can be addressed with the help of biographical clues. The version of “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” that appeared in The Atlantic in 1967 was dedicated to Charles Hertz, a Columbia University graduate student who was Glück’s first husband. They divorced a few years later. Glück, who died in 2023, was never shy about putting her life into her work.
But the poem we are reading now is not just the record of a passion that has long since cooled. More than 50 years after “Firstborn,” on the occasion of receiving the Nobel Prize for literature, Glück celebrated the “intimate, seductive, often furtive or clandestine” relations between poets and their readers. Recalling her childhood discovery of William Blake and Emily Dickinson, she declared her lifelong ardor for “poems to which the listener or reader makes an essential contribution, as recipient of a confidence or an outcry, sometimes as co-conspirator.”
That’s the kind of poem she wrote.
“Confidence” can have two meanings, both of which apply to “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson.” Reading it, you are privy to a secret, something meant for your ears only. You are also in the presence of an assertive, self-possessed voice.
Where there is power, there’s also risk. To give voice to desire — to whisper or cry “I want you” — is to issue a challenge and admit vulnerability. It’s a declaration of conquest and a promise of surrender.
What happens next? That’s up to you.
Cold weather can serve as a plot point or emphasize the mood of a scene, and this week’s literary geography quiz highlights the locations of recent novels that work winter conditions right into the story. Even if you aren’t familiar with the book, the questions offer an additional hint about the setting. To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. At the end of the quiz, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.
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