Las Vegas Aces GM Dan Padover On What Comes Next After WNBA Finals Loss

After being blown out in Game 3 and suffering a sweep at the hands of the Seattle Storm, 2020 WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson called it the most painful loss of her career. 

“This one here, it hurts,” she told reporters postgame. 

It wasn’t just that the Aces lost. They were hapless for most of the series. After a game-winning shot by Storm wing Alysha Clark in Game 1, it was never close.

While being swept hurt and may have felt like a letdown in the moment, the fact remains that the Aces are ahead of schedule. Without two of their best players, they went into the Bubble with the advantage of having one of the most trusty and repeatable identities. It took them all the way to the Finals. This young, passionate roster will only get better when the full roster is back and they are able to build outside the confines of a Bubble. 

“The biggest thing that I learned from this is sometimes you need to let the confetti hit you,” Wilson said. “I’ve been in a lot of situations where the confetti fell on me, it was in my favor. Now I feel like this is something I’m going to take. The confetti hit, it’s not for me. All right, that’s not fun. We’re going to try it again.”

Las Vegas will inevitably be among the favorites for the WNBA championship in 2021, but there are a few key factors that will decide if they can get back to the Finals in what figures to be one of the most stacked seasons in league history. 

Re-signing Liz Cambage and Kayla McBride

The Australian All-Star center Cambage has gone year-to-year since returning to the WNBA in 2018, so she is a free agent once again this offseason. Re-signing her will be a top priority for Las Vegas’ front office, and they can lure her with the $215,000 super-maximum contract for “cored” players. Cambage has long discussed winning a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics as one of her last big career goals, so that would likely benefit the Aces too if their goal is to coax her back stateside for another WNBA season.

“One of the most important things is to recruit your own players,” Aces general manager Dan Padover told me. “You can talk about outside free agents, you can talk about draft picks, but the most important people we had are those who finished with us this year and who were on our roster but couldn’t play for medical reasons.”

That also applies to Kayla McBride, who is an unrestricted free agent as well and could be in line for a big contract. McBride is the longest-tenured Aces player and one of the team’s only shooting specialists as well as a veteran leader on the roster. 

“She’s obviously had a tremendous impact on this franchise not only this year but in years past,” Padover said. “Like any free agent, we’ll give everybody a month or two to relax and then in January, we’ll start those conversations. It’s just all going to depend on how everything fits together, but we want her back.”

Should Las Vegas “core” Cambage, they would have about $500,000 remaining to re-sign McBride and fill out their roster under the projected $1.34 million salary cap, according to Howard Megdal’s salary cap charts at The Next. Sources close to the team believe there is mutual interest with McBride, but that a huge offer like we saw for several unrestricted free agents in the 2020 offseason could make things tight for Las Vegas.

The health of Dearica Hamby and Kelsey Plum

Plum missed the 2020 season after rupturing her Achilles’ tendon but is under contract for next season. The highlight-reel guard broke out during the 2019 playoffs but faces a difficult recovery from the Achilles rupture. Padover said the team is expecting that she will be back in time for Aces training camp in mid-spring. 

“You never know because everyone rehabs differently, but she’s an absolute gym rat, so that’s our plan is to have her full-bore come camp next year,” the general manager said.

When it comes to Hamby, the recovery process figures to be more basic. Hamby suffered an MCL injury during the playoffs but has not yet undergone surgery. She is also under contract for 2021. 

If the Aces can get all four of these veterans back by training camp next year, they will keep the 3-and-D prowess of McBride while also adding three All-Star level players to a group that just made the WNBA Finals without them. 

Filling out the bench in free agency

While the majority of the Aces’ core is locked in for 2021 and Padover said the team’s focus is on keeping that group together, the majority of their depth pieces will also be free agents. Starting guard Lindsay Allen could leave, while starting center Carolyn Swords is likely to carry on with retirement as she initially planned this year. Throw in Finals contributors Emma Cannon and Danielle Robinson and veteran scorer Sugar Rodgers, and the Aces have a lot of holes to plug. 

That will mean a sharply different set of advantages than the Aces had in 2020.

“The conscious decision to load the bench up, come in with energy and the scoring threats that we did and also play to our strengths, getting to the free-throw line, getting into the paint, playing high-intensity defense and most importantly getting out in transition, we played to our strengths,” Padover said.

A more top-heavy roster will pose a different sort of gameplan in 2021 for head coach and president of basketball operations Bill Laimbeer, who prefers to use depth and scheming to play chess against opponents. Even if the Aces are slightly thinner in 2021, they will likely have more talent than just about anyone in the WNBA.

“No two teams are ever the same,” Padover said. “This year, we played a certain way and had certain people step up out of necessity, but quite frankly, talent wins. We saw that in the Finals.

“There’s a lot of good learning experiences for our team and a lot of things we can take into next year.”

Among the questions that will need to be answered for this franchise heading into next season are how a fully realized Wilson, the 2020 league MVP can coexist with the ball-dominant Cambage, and if they can keep up their elite defense when lesser defenders like Plum and Cambage soak up more minutes. 

With a superstar like Wilson and a head coach like Laimbeer, betting against Las Vegas would probably be unwise. They crept into the Finals when hardly anyone projected they’d get there, and are set to enter 2021 as among the favorites for the championship. Indeed, no two teams are ever the same, but the ceiling next year is likely to be even higher.