Leading 2017 MVP contender Sylvia Fowles boxes out reigning MVP Nneka Ogwumike in the 2016 Finals as Maya Moore looks on (Susan Lesch/Creative Commons).

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Ahead of Friday night’s matchup between the top two teams in the WNBA, the Minnesota Lynx and Los Angeles Sparks, Sue Favor joins the podcast to talk about the league. Sue, a devoted women’s hoops writer at Women’s Hoops World and her “They’re Playing Basketball” blog, handicaps the MVP race, details the Sparks’ winning formula and more broadly discusses the league’s most important storylines, on and off the court. Wonderful WNBA wisdom can be sampled below:

Sue argues Candace Parker is not declining. Far from it:

5:22-6:04: “It seems like the minute a player turns 30 everybody’s asking her when she’s gonna retire, whatever. Even Candace, herself, got that question a few weeks ago, and she was saying, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. Why are you asking me this right now?’ She’s still one of the best players in the world. She can take over a game, and she’s actually done that several times in the last month especially. She’s at the top of the league in statistics right now, and I don’t see her slowing down at all really. So I guess that’s why I wouldn’t even say that she’s trying to pass the baton to anybody right now. She and Nneka are friends off the court, and they work really well together on the court. They’re interchangeable. If one of them is having a slightly off game, the other one steps up. They both work together in tandem really well.” Continue reading