YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.

Oktoberfest season is winding down, the baseball playoffs are headed to the divisional round, and Phoenix's Mercury will play Las Vegas's Aces for the women's professional basketball title, in case anybody cares.  Confirmation of a suspicion of mine, "[I]f the WNBA officials come from the same talent pool that calls Mid-American games, the quality of officiating will be low," has arrived from highly placed sources in the league.

Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve had something to say after her team's Game 3 loss to the Phoenix Mercury, and it's probably going to cost her.

An 84-76 defeat saw Reeve ejected in the final minute after running onto the court to berate the officials, on a play that left Lynx star Napheesa Collier needing to be helped off the court. Mercury star Alyssa Thomas made contact with Collier's knee on a steal and caused her ankle to roll as well, adding injury to a game-sealing breakaway layup.

Reeve was so livid she had to be restrained by multiple coaches and players as she attempted to charge back toward the refs.

The public face of the league these days is a coach with a sour expression, but in this case she might have reason to be sour.

Reeve entered the room for her post-game news conference, unloaded on the officials and the WNBA for two minutes, then left without taking questions. In the process, she revealed that Collier had potentially sustained a fracture from her run-in with Thomas, with a shoulder issue earlier in the game too.

Without Ms Collier, the Lynx went home after four games, taking their purple hair with them.

The officiating, though?  We know it's a shoestring operation with a lousy value proposition, and perhaps that presents with barely qualified referees, whether they're supplementing their college season stipends or not.

The officiating comments made by Cheryl Reeve on Friday night weren’t the first, nor were they unexpected. They were simply the most dramatic of the bunch.

This has been brewing in front of everyone’s eyes — the WNBA front office included — over not only entire games, but seasons. The actions and words of the Minnesota Lynx president of basketball operations and head coach were merely the whistle of a percolator blowing its top.

“A lot of coaches’ frustration comes from the overall buildup,” Aces head coach Becky Hammon said ahead of Game 4 in Indianapolis on Sunday. “I'm sure it wasn't just that one play.”

There’s a prevailing silencing of sorts when it comes to coaches’ honesty and transparency on officiating. They are often fined for their remarks to the media, so much so that almost daily throughout the Aces-Fever semifinal series, a coach has smilingly quipped to a reporter, “Are you trying to get me fined?” (Reeve was reportedly fined $15,000 for her comments and was suspended for the Lynx's Game 4 loss, while Hammon and Fever coach Stephanie White were fined $1,000 each after echoing some of Reeve’s sentiments.)

The whistle of a percolator about to blow its top?  I don't want Cassandra Negley anywhere near my kitchen!  Now, it might be the case that losing coaches blame the officiating, in the manner of losing skippers blaming the race committee, but too many WNBA games read like a Detroit police blotter.

Three nights prior to Reeve’s outburst, Hammon claimed the “level of physicality would not fly in the NBA. There would be fights.” Three months ago, when a dustup erupted between the Fever and Sun, White called it a direct result of allowing increased physicality and officials who are unable to get a game under control.

“A lot of the same kind of conversations are happening,” White said on Sunday ahead of Game 4. “It's happening from every team, from every franchise, from every coach, from every player, and I think at some point there has to be some accountability.”

As for Reeve, well, she’s the repeat offender unleashing on the league’s most visible stage. She and former New York Liberty leader Sandy Brondello traded complaints about officiating in a 2024 WNBA Finals series that went the distance. Reeve had the last word after a Game 5 overtime loss, delivering the notorious “this s*** was stolen from us” line almost immediately upon entering her postgame presser.

League headquarters?  When in doubt, mumble.

In every sport at every level, referees are often scapegoats. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert made sure to note that when asked about the issue in her All-Star address in Indianapolis, while skirting around the question of improving what has become more than an excuse.

The league “hear[s] the concerns,” they “take that input” and “we’re on it,” she said in July.

That’s not, “this is what we plan to do.” The WNBA’s referee structure takes the brunt of the blame, and moving forward with the new TV deal cash, there should be monetary resources to correct it. Officials are part-time, and the best are hired into the NBA, where they have consistent work and a salary. There is no public “last two-minute” report for accountability, nor is there a centralized review center. Coaches around the league have complained of wasting challenges on obvious calls, including out of bounds, that could be corrected with a second ref paying attention.

If I knew Ms Negley, I could show her how a percolator works and maybe get her to think like an economist.  If the best referees have work in the men's pro league, they are working during the women's play-in-Russia season and they could supplement their income during the summer.  The league being stingy on player salaries also presents on referee competence.  The absence of a centralized review center?  Maybe that's a good thing.  Referees are less accurate because they have replay review.

Napheesa Collier, though, used her end-of-season press availability to raise complaints with headquarters.

Collier, a five-time All-Star forward who's also a vice president of the WNBA Players Association and the co-founder of offseason 3-on-3 league Unrivaled, read a four-minute statement she prepared for Tuesday that called out WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert — and that could go down in league history, ahead of an offseason that will be defined by collective bargaining agreement negotiations.

"So, first of all, I'd like to congratulate the Mercury for advancing to the Finals, and I want to be clear, this conversation is not about winning or losing," Collier began.

"It's about something much bigger. The real threat to our league isn't money. It isn't ratings or even missed calls or even physical play. It's the lack of accountability from the league office."

Collier continued: "Since I've been in the league, you've heard the constant concerns about officiating, and it has now reached levels of inconsistency that plague our sport and undermine the integrity in which it operates. Whether the league cares about the health of the players is one thing, but to also not care about the product we put on the floor is truly self-sabotage. Year after to year, the only thing that remains consistent is the lack of accountability from our leaders."

League poo-bahs, predictably, hide behind the business bafflegab.

"The league has a buzzword that they've rolled out as talking points for [contract negotiations] as to why they can't pay the players what we're worth," Collier said.

"That word is sustainability. But what's truly unsustainable is keeping a good product on the floor while allowing officials to lose control of games. Fans see it every night. Coaches, both winning and losing, point it out every night in pre-game and post-game media. Yet leadership just issues fines and looks the other way. They ignore the issues that everyone inside the game is begging to be fixed. That is negligence."

It's.  Not.  That.  Entertaining.  But subjecting a human body that has emerged over geologic time to increasing stresses in calendar time likely leads to more stress injuries, and the roll call of players on the injury list is long.  That likely caught up with Indiana's Fever, who took the Aces to overtime in their fifth game, and then the experience prevailed.  "There is too much firepower in street clothes, too much newness to navigate for the Fever to keep getting better."  The quality level of inframarginal players available mid-season isn't that great, even with all the attempts to expand the high school and collegiate game.

There isn’t much the Fever can do about most of its personnel challenges. Injuries are beyond their control. As well as replacement players have performed, there is a reason they were available later in the season to sign with the Fever.

In the midst of the wrangling over getting capable players mid-season and hiring officials on the cheap, the league and its loyalists continue to trash their value proposition.  The Fever have been bringing all the injured reserve players along, and two with large followings are taking stick for their enthusiasm.

Sophie Cunningham has been that girl in the playoffs. Even hurt, sitting on the bench with the torn MCL, the camera still narrows in. Days after she was trending regarding Bikini pics of her, brace and all, she was trending again this past Friday, although this time following the post-game performance on the Fever bench.

Cunningham and Clark stood up, wavin’ their arms passionately at refs, essentially beggin’ replay help. Coaches urged them to sit back down and relax, but the girls weren’t listening. Sophie, in particular, waved off her coach as if saying “don’t tell me what to do.” It was all so very playoff basketball, yet more like TV reality.

Predictably, the Excessively Earnest People didn't like any of it.  Sophie, white trash?  Seriously?  "Sophie Cunningham doesn’t apologize. Caitlin Clark doesn’t apologize. They’re feisty, spoiled, dramatic, and totally unforgettable. You love ’em, or you despise ’em, but you watch."

No more Fever, no more reason to watch.  Divisional and championship playoffs commence in baseball.