This was supposed to be a rebuilding year. Then Nick U’Ren went to work.
Ever since the dominoes began to fall at the conclusion of the Phoenix Suns’ direct-to-video regular season, the Valley’s basketball community has been awash in buzzwords. Grit. Toughness. Joy. Identity.
Alignment.
Well, the team the Suns share arena space with — the Phoenix Mercury — beat them to the punch.
At 12-6 on the season, the Mercury sit in third place in the league. This is occurring in what rightfully should have been a transition season. Face of the franchise Diana Taurasi called it a career in February. Brittney Griner departed as a free agent. Without those two and a cupboard bare from mortgaging the future to maximize Taurasi’s championship window, the Mercury faced the real prospect of rebuilding in earnest, maybe tanking for a couple years for a shot to nab JuJu Watkins or some other budding superstar in the draft. But general manager Nick U’Ren accomplished what passes for legend among front office types, spoken of in hushed tones within backrooms choked in cigar smoke: He didn’t rebuild; he reloaded.
Only Kahleah Copper and Natasha Mack returned from the 2024 squad, but U’Ren carried out a vision, flipping franchise favorites like Natasha Cloud and Sophie Cunningham when the opportunity arose to acquire elite talent like perennial MVP candidate Alyssa Thomas and rising phenom Satou Sabally.
Just like that, the Mercury birthed a new Big Three. And, crucially, a complementary one.
Thomas, the WNBA’s all-time leader in triple-doubles, is the closest thing to Nikola Jokic the W has. A big with the playmaking instincts of a point guard. A bull around the basket, but Liberalitas with a basketball. Thomas makes the Mercury offense click, leading the league in assists at 9.4 per game.
Sabally is a wing in a four’s body who was just named an All-Star for the third time in her career. She can stretch the defense beyond the 3-point arc or score in the paint and is doing so to the tune of a career-high 19.1 points per night. And at 27 years old, Sabally is just entering her prime.
Copper is a fiery guard who competes on both ends of the court, capable of immolating her opponent on offense and extinguishing that same opponent on defense. She scored 30-plus points in nine of her 37 games last season for Phoenix and notched her first 30-piece of 2025 in just her sixth game played coming off knee surgery.
Again, these pieces fit together. U’Ren clearly worked on the puzzle with a picture in his mind. But three pieces do not a jigsaw puzzle make, and pundits pounced on the Mercury for yet another top-heavy roster surrounded by a supporting cast cobbled together with spit and baling wire. But (and pardon the dated reference) honey badger Mercury don’t care.
Weak bench? Mercury don’t care. They’re second in the league in bench scoring at 26.2 points per game. Too many rookies — undrafted rookies at that? Mercury don’t care. The team’s rooks average 32.4 points (1st), 9.7 rebounds (2nd), 6.6 assists (2nd), 4.1 steals (1st), 1.6 blocks (1st), and 5.4 made 3-pointers (1st) per contest combined. Injured stars? Mercury don’t care. Surgery cost Copper the first month of the season, and Thomas sat five games; the Mercury kept chugging.
Head coach Nate Tibbetts, who was plucked from a long career as an assistant coach in the NBA before last season, wanted a versatile team. U’Ren went out and got Thomas and Sabally, two of the most versatile players in the WNBA. Tibbetts wanted a team that could shoot the leather off the basketball. U’Ren assembled a team that’s leading the league in 3-pointers made per game and established a new franchise record for made 3-pointers in consecutive games — most recently drilling 18 treys against the defending champion New York Liberty on June 27. Tibbetts wanted his team to have a defensive identity. Despite some recent slippage, U’Ren’s roster ranks first in steals per game and in the top seven for opponent field goal percentage, opponent 3-point percentage, and opponent scoring.
And credit to the scouting department, which scoured the European leagues for gems others overlooked. Like Lexi Held, who is the WNBA’s answer to Jose Alvarado and a great story in a season of great stories for the Mercury. She has missed the last four games with a right pneumothorax, and Phoenix has desperately missed her intensity. And Monique Akoa Makani, the undrafted rookie who has started all 18 games this season and is currently fifth in the league in 3-point percentage. And Kitija Laksa, who ranks 21st in 3-point percentage and 12th in 3-point makes. And Kathryn Westbeld, the 29-year-old rookie who stepped in as the starting center when Mack landed on the injured list and now ranks 10th in the league for blocks. All of these players proved themselves in top-tier competition overseas (some over multiple seasons), parlayed that experience into a training camp invite, and are now entrenched in key roles.
Owner Mat Ishbia’s investment in the scouting department deserves plaudits, with Preston Fawcett, director of player personnel for the Mercury, crediting Ishbia and CEO Josh Bartelstein in a recent article with “giving us the resources” to find these impact players. Perhaps in time the Mercury will develop the WNBA’s version of the San Antonio Spurs’ vaunted Euro mining operation.
But as important as all that is, this team has one more thing going for it: These women have fun. They enjoy playing the game. They enjoy playing with each other, for each other. There are no slumped shoulders, the body language isn’t sour. Even when they dig a hole, they believe they’ll climb right back out of it — and often have.
It’s the kind of togetherness you get from a team when care was taken to ensure all the pieces fit. When a coaching staff communicates expectations and intention clearly to the players. And when the players all enjoy coming to work in the morning. In other words…
Alignment.
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