MINNEAPOLIS-A win in this year's WNBA Finals would give the Lynx four titles in seven years. It would tie them for most championships of all time with the Houston Comets, the WNBA's first dynasty that won the first four titles in league history, and only add to maybe the most dominant run in league history.
The Lynx take on the Los Angeles Sparks starting Sunday, Sept. 24, at Williams Arena. It’s a rematch of last season’s Finals, which the Sparks won in five games.
Minnesota guard Seimone Augustus said "when" the Lynx win this championship, they'll have "solidified ourselves as a dynasty."
"Four (titles) for a women's team is something that will put us up there with the Houston Comets, which is the team that started everything for the women's league," Augustus said. "So yeah, I think you can put us in that category."
But does Minnesota even need another title to enter that "dynasty" realm? ESPN WNBA reporter Mechelle Voepel doesn't think so. Having already won three WNBA championships in a five-year span and advancing to six finals in seven years is probably enough to have secured the Lynx's legacy.
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"It's not going to change the way I think of the Lynx if they don't win," Voepel said. "Just (with) their consistency, their excellence over such a long period of time. Even the Comets at some point weren't able to sustain that, and nobody else has really come close to doing it for this long."
Even Augustus, who clearly doesn't throw around the "dynasty" term loosely, said Minnesota already has "a solid legacy."
"We've built a great foundation for what we've established here - six finals in the last seven years is unheard of with any WNBA team, winning three championships throughout that time says a lot about this team," she said. "The individual accolades, the list goes on that this team was able to accomplish. So win or lose I feel like we have put ourselves up there with some of the great teams in this league."
Exactly where does this group rank? The top of the list, if you ask Voepel.
"I just feel like right now of the Lynx's legacy as being the best dynasty, even though they don't have the four titles, yet ... is secure," Voepel said. "It'll just be a wonderful extra cherry on top, if you will, for them to tie the Comets."
So, if a team's place in history is secure, what's left to play for? Why continually attempt to climb to the top of a mountain you've already been to so many times?
That's just not the way this team thinks. Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve likely won't think about Minnesota's place in history until well after its run, however long it lasts, comes to an end.
"I don't think about that," Reeve said. "I think about how in the heck I'm going to get these guys ready to win Game 1. That's what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about every little detail. So, no, that's the furthest thing from my mind. And frankly, I don't even think about winning a championship. That's not what I'm thinking about, because if you think about that, you're getting ahead of things and that's not where your focus should be."
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Besides, Minnesota has its own motivations.
"I think at the core of who they are, what you'll find is really, really competitive people," Reeve told reporters. "And that's what motivates them. They have a competitive drive, whether we're doing a shooting drill in practice or Game 5 of the finals. Getting back to the finals, whatever it is, they have really high standards for themselves. They have a high level of what's on the inside of them, this burn, this drive, to win. So that's why they're Olympians. Olympians have something extra special about them. It's usually that internal burn, that competitive drive that is second nature to them, but it's not second nature to most people."
That might be one of the main reasons why, as Voepel pointed out, there is no sign that the conclusion to this Lynx's run is imminent. Augustus knows it's coming sometime down the road, but it's not here yet.
"Our window of time is starting to close and people are trying to figure out their next career path in life after basketball," Augustus said. "You really do buckle down and think about these moments and really cherish the things that we've done here and the history that we've made.
"Like I told Rebekkah (Brunson), we don't know what the offseason holds for any of us. We could get into the offseason and be like, 'I really like my vacation time and, coach, I'm not coming back.' For any one of us, if this is it, why not go out with a bang? Why not go out on top?"
Much like Connecticut is currently doing in the women's college game, Voepel said the Lynx are merely "varnishing" their legacy at this point, and the rest of the league is better for it.
"There's a lot of similarities (between Minnesota and UConn), as much as you could have between a professional team and a college team ... in terms of setting that standard and then raising everyone else with them," Voepel said. "I think that's what the Lynx have done is made everyone else get better."
