There has been a lot of talk recently after the Las Vegas Aces refused to play in their scheduled Friday night road game versus the Washington Mystics after being stuck with several delays just to get to Washington, DC. The Aces believed that the game would be unsafe to their player health and they announced their decision through the WNBA Players' Association around 6:30 pm EST on Friday -- an hour and a half before tip-off.

They felt as if they could not play a competitive game due to a lack of proper sleep and nutrition. However, when the Aces made their decision, they also knew that they could face some consequences. There have been many opinions among the WNBA coaches, players, front office members, and fans have been divided over the controversial decision. Today, the league announced the Aces would forfeit the game, giving the win to the Mystics. This decision improves the Mystics record to 18-11 and drops the Aces record to 12-17.

The WNBA made the historic decision after taking their time to ensure that they got it right as it could set a precedent for dealing with this for the future if it happens again to the WNBA teams.

The statement shows that the WNBA will not excuse similar actions in the future. The Aces did face unfavorable circumstances, but the league did what it could to accommodate. The consequence of the Aces actions are that they now have an extra loss which sets them back in their playoff push. The Aces already had their work cut out for them heading down the stretch if they were going to make the playoffs.

This is also somewhat unfair to the other lottery teams such as Chicago, New York, and Indiana as this extra loss counts toward the lottery standings. It should be noted that at the time of this article, that lottery position for Las Vegas could change.

The Washington Mystics, however, got an extra win from out of this and move to the top four in the WNBA standings. The standings are so tight that an extra win can give a team an advantage and the Mystics got the benefit. This is unfair to the other WNBA playoff teams as they have battled all season long and to see a team that has the same record or one game better than the rest, has got to have a bad taste in their mouth.

From the Aces point of view, they wanted the league to address air travel by getting charter flights as a league-wide policy moving forward. This forfeit will not address this issue right away. The issue will be addressed when WNBA players will opt out of their current CBA (collective bargaining agreement) in November. It should be noted that the new CBA will be after the 2019 WNBA season.

Regardless of where people felt it was wrong or right, there is a time and place to deal with travel issues, and the Aces chose the wrong time and place to do it as the Mystics lost money from opening the arena and fans were left hanging as well. As a result, they have paid the price and given their opponent an advantage. This will have ripple effects across the WNBA and no one is happy about it.