jonquel jones, capricorn icon
jonquel jones, capricorn icon
read my profile at complex sports
The response to yesterday’s newsletter about Christine Brennan’s women’s basketball coverage has been overwhelming. There are a lot of new people here; welcome! The tone of today’s newsletter is a little bit snarky because, well, it’s been A TIME for me over the past week and sometimes you just want to clap back a little bit, you know?
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Are you watching the WNBA playoffs? If not, WHY NOT? It’s fun, I swear! The Liberty look gooooood but the Aces are hanging in. Aces coach Becky Hammon continues to give eyebrow raising soundbites in the post-game pressers. Meanwhile, the Sun-Lynx series is physical and chippy as hell (they could never make me hate you, Marina Mabrey) and is an absolute defensive showdown.
Even though viewership is well below the first round playoff games that Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever played in, viewership continues to rise for the WNBA. According to Sports Media Watch, Sunday’s Game 1 semifinals matchup between the Aces and Liberty was the most-watched WNBA semifinal game in 22 years, and viewership was up 60% from the 2023 semi-finals.
Anyway, I’m just popping in today to share this profile of Jonquel Jones that I wrote for Complex Sports.
Despite people on X accusing me of only writing about Clark and using her to boost my own profile, my six+ seasons of WNBA coverage do seem to indicate that I write about many of the other 143 players in the league.
As someone who has predominantly covered the Connecticut Sun since they are the closest team to where I live in Boston, I’ve been watching Jones play for a long time. It’s been really great to see her go to a larger market and play in front of those crowds at Barclays Center. Every WNBA player deserves a home court experience like that at least once in their career.
Jones and I chatted prior to the semi-finals beginning about her ongoing quest for her first championship, no-look passes, and whether increased viewership has led to more opportunities for players not named Caitlin Clark. The Liberty are currently up 2-0 in their best-of-five series against the defending champion Las Vegas Aces.1
And because it wouldn’t be a profile from me without a little bit of sports astrology, I chat about Jones’s birth chart, which has a big ol’ Capricorn stellium—her sun, Mercury, Venus, and Mars are all in Capricorn.
Jones, born January 5, 1994, is a Capricorn stellium, which is a short way of saying that she has three or more planets in her birth chart in the sign of Capricorn. Now, maybe you don’t believe in astrology but if you did, this would affirm what you may have already learned about Jones just by observing her.
Capricorn is the mountain goat—the workhorse of the zodiac. Capricorn isn’t necessarily flashy and it’s not always the loudest voice in the room, but it also never gives up on itself. A Capricorn will work as hard as they need to in order to achieve their goals, they will do it in a direct and no-nonsense way, and they tend to have a mind for the business side of things. But then, balancing out all that Capricorn, is Jones’s moon—which rules feelings and emotions—in the sign of Libra. A Libra moon cares about fairness, about justice, about hearing everyone out, about making other people happy and giving everyone else a chance.
Together, an image of Jonquel Jones, the athlete and the brand, begins to form: an unselfish player who is willing to help out her team in any way she can because she wants to win and she understands that doing so requires balancing the different games and different personalities that make up a team.
Read the whole thing at Complex!
A few odds and ends
I also loved this interview that Curbed did with JJ about moving to New York City: “When I first walked into my apartment I was like, wow. I’d never been in an apartment that had a doorman and a mailroom. I’ve been in bigger apartments, but never a high-rise. I just remember walking through the place, being in awe, having a view of the Verrazano Bridge, the Statue of Liberty.”
Natalie Esquire and Terrika Foster-Brasby had a conversation about what the league can do to help address the cyberbullying and harassment that WNBA players have been subjected to this season. It’s well worth your time.
And this profile of the Minnesota Lynx’s Courtney Williams by Sean Hurd at Andscape is really great. Williams had a standout game last night for the Lynx against the Connecticut Sun and I always love to see her get some shine. She deserves it—she’s got the best mid-range game in the league, an unreal vertical for someone her size, and she’s so much fun to watch play basketball. Also, her tunnel fits are always on-point, and she styles herself! I’ve shared this before, but she’s a big reason why I decided I wanted to cover the W.
I am obsessed with the Diamond DeShields x ALDO extended size collection, which isn’t just great for tall girlies like WNBA players, but for the dolls, too. Trans women, take note!
And if you haven’t read yesterday’s newsletter yet, which is by far the most popular thing I’ve ever published, you should get on that.
I was even recommended by Substack for the first time!
Oh, and the New York Post tried to insult me but ended up crediting me with creating a new genre which I think I should copyright (trademark? I don’t know the difference and can’t be bothered to look it up) because it sounds dope. Thanks so much, Kirsten Fleming!
OK, folks: now that we’re two games into the best of five series, which teams do you have going on to the Finals?
I did not choose the pull quotes for the social media shares, thanks so much!
we want our “woke horror fantasy” merch!!! it’s much better than “DEI hire” or its Gen X precursor (now I’m dating myself), “affirmative action baby”
love your writing and expertise, thank you!! 🙏 🏀