Reflecting On the Preseason Loss to Seattle Storm and LA Sparks, Kahleah Cooper Talks About Mercury’s Strategy

This year’s WNBA season is coming in hot with the preseason games reaching a tentative pause. With the training camp still in play, all the teams will have to decide which players get to be on the season’s roster and who stays behind.

Meanwhile, still struck by the recent preseason defeat, Kahleah Cooper and Phoenix Mercury are still trying to figure things out for the upcoming regular season. The Mercury recently tasted defeat in both preseason games against the Seattle Storm at first and then against the LA Sparks. Let’s look at what she has to say about taking this loss.

Kahleah Cooper talks fresh strategy going into the season

In a recent post-game interview, Mercury’s shooting guard, Kahleah Cooper talks about her experience playing for the team saying, “It was definitely good to be on the other side of it. I’m glad to be on this side of it.” Cooper has been one of the recent additions to the Mercury’s roster from the Chicago Sky. Given the roadblocks that the Phoenix Mercury faced last season, the team went into a remodeling phase before they stepped into this season.

The preseason face-off was a big reality check for them as Cooper puts it, “We joked about it like Seattle game was like a whirlwind. Um, you know, us all getting out there on the court together everything was so new, you know. And, then that coming back into practice, uh watching the film and understanding what it is that we needed to work on.”

“We did that and we got more comfortable within our offense and our defense and we came out and we made strides and that’s what we want to do every time we step on the floor we want to be better,” she further added.

From the looks of it, Kahleah Cooper kept pressing on the team’s approach to make improvements while the season knocks on their door. “We go back and watch the film we go back and watch the film and continue to just build on what we’ve um how we’ve come this far you know going into practice and you know getting into the scout.”

The Mercury has been through some thorough modifications that included the above-mentioned trade for former Sky star, Kahleah Cooper alongside a free agent Natasha Cloud as an upgrade to the team’s starting lineup. Let’s take a look at what other changes the team has made.

Phoenix Mercury coming fresh for a new season

With Diana Taurasi and Brittney Griner remaining as veterans on the team, the Mercury and Suns owner, Mat Ishbia and CEO Josh Bartelstein have hired Nate Tibbetts as the team’s new head coach while they let go of Vanessa Nygaard last season. Similarly, they let go of the interim head coach Nikki Blue to give the team fresh guidance to Mercury.

Counting the 2023 season a dump for missing the playoffs for the first time, the revamp turned out to be a necessary step forward. Both Kahleah Cooper and Natasha Cloud have won the WNBA championships, so they are familiar with what winning tastes like. On one hand, Cloud led the Mystics to their first WNBA title in 2019 while Cooper was made the MVP in the 2021 title run when the Sky defeated the Mercury.

Simply put, this is going to be an exploratory season for the team that’s standing, straight from the ground up, with two former champions leading the way to another championship run.