Alyssa Thomas
' arrival in Phoenix was supposed to help push the Mercury toward contention, and initially, it did. After joining the team in 2025, she helped Phoenix reach the WNBA Finals and finished third in MVP voting. One year later, the Mercury have gone from the Finals to missing the playoffs entirely, while Thomas has continued to break records. Now, with the Mercury looking back on a season that fell well short of expectations, the disappointing finish also brought attention to where Alyssa Thomas' role begins and ends when it comes to making decisions.
According to Dylan Kane, a Phoenix Mercury
beat reporter for The IX Sports
, the 34-year-old was recently asked
if there were moments during the season when she offered input on things that needed to be changed defensively. Her response, however, made it clear that those decisions ultimately belong to the coaching staff.
Advertisement
"I mean, I'm not the coach, so that's for them to make those decisions," she said.
Alyssa Thomas has been in the WNBA since 2014 and has established herself as one of the league's elite floor generals. When a player of her stature says something like that, it isn't just a standard postgame canned response – it draws a sharp line between what happens on the court and the tactical decisions made from the sideline. And that distinction is especially notable after the kind of season Phoenix just endured.
Alyssa Thomas keeps making history with the Phoenix Mercury, even through the tough seasons. Subscribe for more interesting stories.
Phoenix entered the 2026 season believing continuity could be the key, as they returned nearly 6,000 minutes from the previous season, accounting for 68% of their rotation, and ranked fourth in the league in continuity entering training camp. After reaching the Finals in 2025, the organization had hoped that keeping much of that core together would help sustain its championship push.
Advertisement
Instead, Thomas and the Phoenix Mercury played their final game of the 2026 WNBA regular season against the reigning champion Las Vegas Aces
on Thursday. And while they may have wanted to close out the final game with a win after failing to make the playoffs this season as they finished 10th in the WNBA standings, the Aces gave them an 82-100 loss.
Coming off a 2025 WNBA Finals appearance against the eventual champion Aces, the Mercury saw their efficiency decline on both ends of the floor in 2026. This season, they finished 11th in defensive rating and 12th in offensive rating.
The departure of Satou Sabally
certainly left a void, but Phoenix still had established pieces in Thomas and Kahleah Copper
. The Mercury also acquired Kelsey Plum
from the Los Angeles Sparks
at the August 2 trade deadline, adding another veteran scorer to the roster. But Plum's season-ending injury
only added to all that the team was already dealing with.
As the offseason begins for this team, even head coach Nate Tibbetts acknowledged that the season had not gone according to plan.
Advertisement
"We were competitive at times during the season; we just battled adversity like other teams do. We didn't always handle it the best," Tibbetts said during the postgame media availability following the loss to the Aces. "This year hasn't been up to our standard, and we want to be in the playoffs; that's what this organization is about. We want to be playing for championships, so our job now is to get better."
But even with the disappointing finish, Alyssa Thomas gave the Mercury something to celebrate.
In the 82-100 loss to the Aces, Thomas finished with six points, seven rebounds, nine assists and one steal. Those nine assists pushed her season total to 358, allowing her to break her own WNBA record for most assists in a single season. She had previously set the mark with 357 assists in 2025.
Thomas also finished the season averaging a league-best 8.5 assists per game, narrowly ahead of Caitlin Clark
's 8.3. The mark gave Thomas another historic achievement to take into an offseason that will now be focused on rebuilding Phoenix into a playoff team again.
Advertisement
The Mercury will not have their first-round pick in the upcoming WNBA Draft after trading it to the Los Angeles Sparks for Plum at the deadline. That leaves the organization with a different set of priorities this offseason, including figuring out how to keep Plum in Phoenix while continuing to develop the younger pieces already on the roster.
For Alyssa Thomas, the focus will eventually shift toward helping the Mercury get back to where they were a year ago. But when it comes to deciding what needs to change, she has made one thing clear: those decisions belong to the coaching staff.
Trending Articles
The post "I'm Not the Coach": Alyssa Thomas Addresses Her Role in Calling for Changes After Mercury's Dismal Season
appeared first on EssentiallySports
. Add EssentiallySports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
