Phoenix Mercury

Team information

Inaugural season: 1997

Home stadium: Footprint Center

Owner: Mat Ishbia

Team colors: Purple, orange, gray, black

Overview

The Phoenix Mercury is an Arizona-based professional sports team that plays in the Western Conference of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). It is one of the eight charter franchises that participated in the league’s inaugural season in 1997. Through the first twenty-five seasons of WNBA history (1997–2021), the Mercury have made five appearances in the WNBA Finals, winning three championships.

Billionaire Mat Ishbia owns the Mercury. He also owns the Phoenix Suns of the National Basketball Association (NBA), with whom the Mercury maintain an official affiliation. Ishbia is the CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage.

The Mercury play their home games at the Footprint Center, which is also the home of the Suns. In 2021, the team led the WNBA in home attendance, drawing an average of nearly 5,900 fans per home game. In 2023, the averaged 9,197 fans per game, but were second to the Las Vegas Aces, who averaged 9,551 fans per home game.

Official team colors include purple, orange, gray, and black, with the Mercury’s color scheme closely mimicking that used by their NBA affiliate, the Suns. In 2021, the Mercury unveiled a three-jersey uniform collection as part of the WNBA’s 25th anniversary celebrations. The club adopted a white jersey with orange and purple accents, a purple-and-orange jersey with white accents, and a third black jersey with purple and orange accents.

History

The WNBA was founded in 1996 as an offshoot of the NBA, functioning as the top-level women’s professional basketball league in the United States. It staged a successful inaugural season in 1997, and the Phoenix Mercury were one of eight teams to participate in the league’s first campaign. They competed in the WNBA’s Western Conference alongside the Los Angeles Sparks, Sacramento Monarchs, and Utah Starzz. The four charter clubs in the WNBA’s Eastern Conference included the Charlotte Sting, Cleveland Rockers, Houston Comets, and New York Liberty. The Mercury finished first in the Western Conference in 1997, advancing to the semifinal round of that year’s WNBA Playoffs where they lost a single-elimination game against New York.

Under the guidance of returning head coach Cheryl Miller, the Mercury staged another successful season in 1998. The club finished with 19 wins and 11 losses to reach the semifinals of the WNBA Playoffs for a second consecutive year. For 1998, the WNBA adopted a best-of-three format for all playoff matchups, with the Mercury sweeping the Charlotte Sting 2–0 in their semifinal series to set up a meeting with the Houston Comets in the 1998 WNBA Finals. The Comets prevailed, overcoming a 69–66 Game 1 loss to take the final two games in the series by scores of 65–62 and 75–64, respectively.

Miller remained the team’s head coach through the end of the 2000 season, with the Mercury failing to advance beyond the conference semifinals in the playoffs during the final two years of her tenure. From 2001–2005, the Mercury finished out of the playoffs under four different head coaches until Paul Westhead took over behind the bench in 2006. That year, the Mercury won more games than they lost (18–16) for the first time since 2000 but narrowly missed the playoffs, with the 18–16 Seattle Storm capturing the final berth in the Western Conference by virtue of a tiebreaker.

Phoenix would not be denied in 2007, rocketing to the top of the Western Conference standings with a 23–11 record. They reached the 2007 WNBA Finals without suffering a playoff defeat, disposing of the Seattle Storm and San Antonio Stars in the first two rounds of that year’s postseason tournament. The Mercury matched up against the Detroit Sparks in the 2007 WNBA Finals, with Detroit earning a 2–1 advantage through the first three games of the five-game set. However, Mercury point guard Cappie Pondexter responded with back-to-back 26-point games in Game 4 and Game 5 to propel the Mercury to a comeback victory and their first championship. For her efforts, Pondexter was named the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the 2007 WNBA Finals.

Westhead ceded the Mercury bench to incoming head coach Corey Gaines ahead of the 2008 season. The Mercury became the first team in WNBA history to miss the playoffs the year after winning the league’s title, but the club returned to its championship form in 2009 with a 23–11 record and a first-place finish in the Western Conference. Led by Pondexter and WNBA legend Diana Taurasi, the Mercury advanced through the playoffs in dramatic fashion, with each of their three series going the maximum number of games. However, the Mercury prevailed each time, outlasting the San Antonio Stars and Los Angeles Sparks in the Western Conference playoffs before defeating the Indiana Fever 3–2 in the best-of-five 2009 WNBA Finals. Taurasi was named WNBA Finals MVP after the series.

Gaines remained the Mercury’s head coach until partway through the 2013 season, when he was replaced by Russ Pennell after posting a losing record in the campaign’s first twenty-one games. However, the Mercury suffered their third defeat in the Western Conference finals in four seasons under Pennell, and Sandy Brondello took over coaching duties in 2014.

Brondello guided the Mercury to a record-setting campaign in 2014, when the Mercury went 29–5 to post the best season in WNBA history to that point. The Mercury’s 29–5 mark in 2014 remained a WNBA record through the league’s twenty-fifth anniversary season in 2021. In the 2014 playoffs, Phoenix swept Los Angeles in their best-of-three first-round series before topping the Minnesota Lynx in the Western Conference finals. In the 2014 WNBA Finals, Phoenix swept the Chicago Sky to earn their third title in franchise history.

Brondello remained the team coach until 2022 when she left to coach the New York Liberty. After her departure, Nate Tibbets became head coach. In 2021, the Mercury returned to the WNBA Finals for the first time since Brondello’s first season behind the bench, meeting the Chicago Sky in the championship round. The Sky bested Phoenix 3–1 in the five-game series, with the Mercury failing to recover from a record-setting 86–50 Game 3 drubbing that set a new mark for the largest margin of victory in a WNBA Finals game.

Notable players

Fans and basketball pundits widely consider Taurasi and Pondexter among the best players in Mercury franchise history. Both were featured in a 2021 review of the twenty-five greatest players in WNBA history, which was published by the ESPN sports network to coincide with the league’s twenty-fifth season of operations. Taurasi and Pondexter were joined by two other Mercury alumni: Brittney Griner and Penny Taylor.

Taurasi finished first on ESPN’s list, making her the network’s choice as the best WNBA player of all time. Through the end of the 2021 WNBA season, Taurasi posted career averages of 19.4 points per game (PPG), 4.3 assists per game (APG), and 4.0 rebounds per game (RPG). Through seventeen seasons in the league, Taurasi won three WNBA championships (2007, 2009, 2014), two WNBA Finals MVP awards (2009, 2014), and one regular-season league MVP award (2009). She has been praised as a model of offensive consistency and leadership, continuing to perform at a high level into the late stages of her career.

ESPN ranked Griner in seventeenth place on its top-25 list. A dominant defensive player, Griner also excels on offense. As of 2023, she was one of four players in WNBA history with at least 700 blocks. In 2022, Griner was detailed and arrested on smuggling charges by Russian customs official because she was carrying less than one gram of medically prescribed hash oil. She was sentenced to nine years in prison but was released in a prisoner exchange for a Russian arms deal. Griner returned to the WNBA in 2023, receiving a standing ovation from the audience. She was named to TIME magazine's list of 100 most influential during the same year.

Pondexter played four seasons for the Mercury between 2006–2009, winning two championships (2007, 2009) and capturing a WNBA Finals MVP award (2007). A force in the league from her rookie season, Pondexter set a WNBA record as the fastest player to score 3,000 points, 1,000 assists, and 200 steals in her career. Though the mark was broken in 2021, Pondexter’s legacy as one of the league’s brightest stars remains intact. She also played for the New York Liberty (2010–2014), Chicago Sky (2015–2017), Los Angeles Sparks (2018), and Indiana Fever (2018) before her retirement.

Taylor was the final player included on ESPN’s top-25 list, with her career review noting the valuable intangibles and excellence she brought to both ends of the court. She was a member of all three Mercury squads to win WNBA titles as of 2021 and was selected as a WNBA All-Star in 2002, 2007, and 2011.

Bibliography

Metcalfe, Jeff. “Phoenix Mercury GM: 'We're Not Going to Take Any Steps Back.” Arizona Central, 20 Oct. 2021, eu.azcentral.com/story/sports/wnba/mercury/2021/10/20/phoenix-mercury-gm-were-not-going-take-any-steps-back/8519229002/. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

“Phoenix Mercury.” Basketball Reference, 2024, www.basketball-reference.com/wnba/teams/PHO/. Accessed 19 Nov. 2024.

“The 25 Greatest Moments in Phoenix Mercury History.” Phoenix Mercury, 23 Mar. 2021, mercury.wnba.com/news/the-25-greatest-moments-in-phoenix-mercury-history/. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

“WNBA Finals: Sky Move One Win from Title after Record Thrashing of Mercury.” The Guardian,16 Oct. 2021, www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/oct/16/wnba-finals-chicago-sky-phoenix-mercury. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

“WNBA’s Greatest Players of All Time: Ranking the 25 Best in League History.” ESPN, 21 Sept. 2021, www.espn.com/wnba/story/‗/id/32210623/wnba-greatest-players-all-ranking-25-best-league-history. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.