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WNBA

The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is the women's counterpart to the National Basketball Association (NBA). An affiliate of the NBA with the parent organization's complete backing, the WNBA was established in 1996 as an eight-team league which has since grown to its present total of 14 teams. Rules of play are almost identical to those of the NBA, notable exceptions being a marginally smaller basketball size and a slightly different three-point arc. Many of the WNBA teams represent a city which also has an NBA team, and most of these teams play at the same venue as their NBA counterpart.

Currently, the WNBA is divided into two conferences: the Eastern Conference with 6 teams and the Western Conference with 7 teams.

WNBA Playoffs

The WNBA has a three-round playoff format. The first round, the conference semifinals, match up a conference's #1 seed against the #4 seed, and #3 seed against the #4 seed. The semifinal round are best-of-3 games series. The winners advance on the the conference finals, also best-of-3 game series. The Eastern Conference and Western Conference champions then advance to the WNBA Finals to play a best-of-5 game championship series to crown the WNBA's champion.

WNBA At-A-Glance

Season: May through August. Each WNBA team plays a 34-game regular season schedule, broken down as follows: 4 games each vs two teams in its conference, 3 games vs each of the remaining four teams in its conference, and 2 games vs each team in the opposing conference.
Teams: 13 (6 Eastern Conference, 7 Western Conference)
Events:

The WNBA All-Star Game (mid-July)

Championship: The WNBA Finals
Current champion: 2007 - Phoenix Mercury
Hall of Fame: Basketball Hall of Fame, in Springfield, Massachusetts and the Women's Basketball Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tennessee