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The Las Vegas Aces endured a brutal trip to Connecticut ahead of their matchup against the Sun.
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They flew to New Jersey, waited hours for bags, hit traffic, and arrived after restaurants closed.
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The team resorted to eating at Walmart, where coach Bill Laimbeer joked he was “looking for the booze.”
The Las Vegas Aces spent the better part of a day traveling across the country for a road game in Connecticut.
And by the time they overcame flight delays, missing luggage, and traffic to arrive at their final destination, the No. 1 Aces had no choice but to grab food from Walmart as all the local restaurants had already closed.
Reigning WNBA MVP and Las Vegas superstar A’ja Wilson documented her team’s excursion to “Wally World” on Instagram Saturday night. She even caught head coach Bill Laimbeer joking that he was “looking for the booze” after their hellish trip to the East Coast.
Wilson’s mom was a fan of Laimbeer’s antics, and the coach’s daughter was sympathetic to her dad’s sentiments.
The Aces had woken up in the early hours of the morning that day to board their flight to Newark, New Jersey, according to reporting from Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Sam Gordon. They arrived at 2:30 p.m. local time, but instead of hitting the road for their three-hour drive to the Sun’s arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, the Las Vegas team had to spend an extra few hours waiting at the airport for everyone’s luggage at baggage claim. And once they finally embarked on their road trip up I-95, the Aces got caught in extra traffic – perhaps due to congestion in the lead-up to Tropical Storm Henri’s landfall in New England.
The less-than-straightforward journey adds to the oft-made case that WNBA teams should charter planes, particularly for big cross-country trips such as Las Vegas’ this week. Had they taken their own jet directly to an airport in Connecticut, surely the Aces wouldn’t have found themselves eating dinner at Walmart.
Perhaps that explains why Las Vegas star Kelsey Plum was heard repeatedly saying “Hey Cathy” in an apparent plea to WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert during Wilson’s Instagram stories.
“Hey, A’ja,” Plum said early on in the clip. “Tell Instagram we could’ve been in Europe by now!”
Other teams have faced similar travel challenges throughout the season. When New York Liberty star Jazmine Jones took to Twitter to discuss one such instance in July, team owner Joe Tsai vowed “to solve this transportation problem for good.”
Perhaps newly-minted Aces owner Mark Davis – who also owns the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders – could follow Tsai’s lead. After all, Davis has an estimated net worth of $700 million and has committed to using some of his wealth to improve his newly acquired franchise.
Check out a recording of Wilson’s Instagram story documenting Las Vegas’ Saturday-night adventure below:
Read the original article on Insider