Editing Phoenix Mercury (section)

===Brittney Griner arrives (2013–2019)===
[[File:Phoenix Mercury at the White House to honor 2014 Championship.JPG|thumb|300px|Phoenix Mercury at the White House to honor 2014 Championship]]
Coming off the 2012 WNBA season in which the Phoenix Mercury franchise finished with the second worst record in the WNBA, a 7–27 mark, Phoenix received the 2013 WNBA draft lottery and secured the top overall pick. Once the [[2013 WNBA draft]] arrived in April 2013, the Mercury used the top overall pick on two time Women's College Basketball Wooden award winner [[Brittney Griner]]. However, the Mercury lost to the Lynx in the Conference round of the playoffs.
The following season the Mercury under the guidance of new coach [[Sandy Brondello]] went on to set an all time WNBA record for wins in a season, with 29, and breezed through the 2014 playoffs to claim their 3rd WNBA Championship.

On February 3, 2015, Diana Taurasi announced that she would sit out the 2015 WNBA season at the request of her Russian Premier League team, UMMC Ekaterinburg.  The team offered Taurasi to pay her more than her WNBA salary to skip the 2015 WNBA season.  For the 2014 WNBA season, Taurasi made just under the league maximum of $107,000. But she makes 15 times that - approximately $1.5&nbsp;million - playing overseas.

In [[2016 WNBA Playoffs|2016]], the WNBA switched to a playoff format involving single elimination games in the first two rounds.  The eighth-seeded Mercury upset the Indiana Fever in the First Round and New York Liberty in the Second Round to reach the Semifinals.  However, they lost the Semifinals to the [[Minnesota Lynx]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://mercury.wnba.com/schedule/#?season=2016&seasontype=04 |title=2016 WNBA playoff results |website=[[WNBA.com]] |access-date=3 October 2016}}</ref>

In [[2017 WNBA Playoffs|2017]], the Mercury once again sailed through the first two rounds of the playoffs, winning their games against the Seattle Storm and [[Connecticut Sun]].  Again, they lost in the Semifinals, this time to the Los Angeles Sparks.

[[2018 WNBA Playoffs|2018]] saw the Mercury win both single-elimination playoff games for the third year in a row with victories against the [[Dallas Wings]] and Connecticut Sun, giving Diana Taurasi a 13–0 record in winner-take-all elimination games in her career.  In the semifinals, the Mercury came up short against the Seattle Storm in the decisive fifth game, giving Taurasi her first ever loss in a winner-take-all elimination game.

The Mercury had to play most of the [[2019 Phoenix Mercury season|2019 season]] without Taurasi, who was struggling with back and hamstring injuries. The Mercury barely made the playoffs as the number eight seed with a 15–19 record and were eliminated in the first-round elimination game 105–76 by the [[Chicago Sky]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ariail |first=Cat |date=2019-09-13 |title=How injuries have influenced the 2019 WNBA playoffs, and may also influence future playoffs |url=https://www.swishappeal.com/wnba/2019/9/13/20863525/wnba-playoffs-injuries-impact-load-management-brittney-griner-breanna-stewart-sue-bird-diana-taurasi |access-date=2025-04-01 |website=Swish Appeal |language=en}}</ref>