WNBA Power Rankings: Candace Parker is back and so are the Chicago Sky

In this week’s WNBA Power Rankings, the return of Candace Parker has rejuvenated the Chicago Sky making this a three-team title race again.

The Chicago Sky are back and all it took was getting one of the greatest basketball players of all-time healthy. Who knew winning was that easy?

With Candace Parker back in the fold, the Sky won five games in a row and rocketed up this week’s rankings. They join two other teams — Seattle and Vegas — on five-game win streaks, as it looks like the top of the WNBA is starting to solidify.

Meanwhile, things at the bottom look the same, though 11 teams are still firmly in the hunt to make the playoffs. This WNBA season is proving to be the most unpredictable one in a while.

Alright, let’s rank.

Where does each team rank in this week’s WNBA Power Rankings?

The one real constant this year is that the Fever are struggling. They’ve lost 10 games in a row at this point and while this week has seen a few close losses, they still aren’t getting the job done. It might be time to start playing the young players. For example, Lauren Cox was a DNP-Coach’s Decision on Saturday and has been out of the rotation this week. Even if you’ve got injury concerns and even if you don’t think Cox is playing well, she was the No. 3 pick last year. You need to give her minutes and see what happens.

After a win over the Mercury on Wednesday, it looked like the Sparks might be ready to move up the rankings. But despite the best effort of Erica Wheeler, who recorded the first two double-doubles of her career this week, the Sparks dropped back-to-back games against the Mercury and Liberty. They were competitive in that second game, but it wasn’t enough to get them out of the 11th spot.

Atlanta drops from eighth last week down to 10th after an 0-1 week. Maybe that’s not fair, but it’s a really tight battle from 11th up to sixth. This team needs Chennedy Carter back, but the bright side is that Odyssey Sims is playing some great basketball and is showing why the Dream took a risk by signing her this offseason. I’d still like to see more of rookie Aari McDonald, but with the playoff race so tight, it makes sense to lean on more veteran guards.

Phoenix and Minnesota, the team that follows them at No. 8, are essentially tied in my head right now. Feel free to flip-flop their rankings depending on the team you cheer for. Personally, I went with Phoenix at this ninth spot because they lost to the Sparks this week, a team that’s 11th in the power rankings. This team’s been treading water with Diana Taurasi out, but her return — whenever that happens — should give them a shot in the arm. It would also help them fully unlock Kia Nurse’s potential as a third guard.

Alright, I was too high on the Lynx last week. With the team at full strength, I ranked them sixth despite a 4-5 record, because they’d won four of five and had Napheesa Collier back. But another Aerial Powers injury has hurt the depth again, and the team has dropped two of their last three games. A healthy Minnesota team still has a high ceiling, but the reality right now is that we’re not going to see a lot of full-strength Lynx games this season, so they’ll likely hang around the race for the eighth seed.

Give Dallas a lot of credit for how they bounced back on Saturday night. After a pretty lifeless loss to the Lynx on Thursday, Dallas put their foot on the gas and came away with a 95-77 win in the rematch. At their best, Dallas has one of the highest offensive ceilings in the league, as they have the luxury of bringing dynamic players like Marina Mabrey and Allisha Gray off the bench. There are still question marks at the 5 as Charli Collier keeps starting but then playing limited minutes, but Bella Alarie has been giving them some solid defensive minutes there, which is something this team really needs.

After a rocky start, Washington has won four of the past five games, including having a 2-0 record this week. Tina Charles is still giving them Tina Charles-esque production, while Ariel Atkins has been one of the league’s best perimeter players. But this week’s big surprise has been the play of Theresa Plaisance. Forced into a larger role because of a Myisha Hines-Allen injury, here are the veteran big’s stat lines this week: against Atlanta, 25 points on 10-for-16 shooting with six rebounds, three assists, and a steal, followed by 16 points and 12 boards against the Fever, with four assists and a steal as well. This team shouldn’t be playing this well based on their injuries, but head coach Mike Thibault is really good at getting production from unlikely places.

You’ve reached the weirdest part of the rankings: the part where I try to understand the Sun. Because Jonquel Jones is at EuroBasket and has been playing at an MVP level this season, Connecticut is understandably struggling without her. They’ve lost three in a row without their star. But even with those losses, they’re still third in the WNBA standings because of the 8-2 record they opened the season with. They’re not playing like the third-best team, so they sit fifth right now in the power rankings, which feels wrong in some ways considering they hold the league’s second-longest losing streak. Let’s just move on.

How do you rank one of the only four teams in the WNBA with a record over .500 after a pair of blowout losses and their last two wins coming by a combined five points? You, uhh, rank them fourth by default I guess, considering how Connecticut has looked this week. New York is surviving Natasha Howard’s absence, which is about as much as you could expect. A pair of upcoming games against Chicago could see this team plummet down the standings soon, but for now, I still want to give them some credit for winning more games than they’ve lost, which has been hard for most teams to do.

Oh, hey, it’s the Sky, who were 2-7 at one point this season and there were people wondering if they’d miss the playoffs. But getting three rotation pieces back — Allie Quigley, Stef Dolson, and Candace Parker — will sure turn a team around. Chicago was losing competitive games without those players. Now, they’re coming out on the right side of those battles. I think we probably should have always expected to see this Sky team get things heading back in this direction, but it’s happening a little quicker than it could have. Now, the big question is if they can keep this momentum up as their schedule gets tougher. Is there a three-team race for the title?

The Aces smashed the Liberty twice this week. Part of that’s because the Aces boast an A’ja Wilson and Liz Cambage frontcourt and the Liberty have been rotating Kylee Shook and Reshanda Gray at the 5, but that shouldn’t take away from just how dominant this team looked. The Aces currently have the best offensive and defensive ratings in the league, so you could make a valid argument for ranking them over Seattle. I’m not there yet, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t close to being there, especially if Kelsey Plum keeps playing so well.

The Storm remain in the top spot, though Vegas had a good week and tightens things up. The Storm let the Fever keep things competitive on Thursday, but I can’t move a team down when the worst thing that happened to them in a given week was that they only beat the league’s worst team by 10 points. Katie Lou Samuelson is back in the starting lineup, adding some nice offensive spacing to the equation. Seattle remains the league’s best team, but the gap has disappeared.