WNBA Power Rankings: Minnesota Lynx are taking the leap
In this week’s WNBA Power Rankings, the top three remain the same but the Minnesota Lynx are pushing to join the party.
The clock keeps on ticking and the WNBA’s Olympic break approaches. This upcoming Sunday will feature the final WNBA games until mid-August as the league prepares for the All-Star Game and then the Olympics.
Where does each team rank in this week’s WNBA Power Rankings?
The Fever won! And not just, like, a win against some fellow bottom-dweller, but a win over the Sun! A Teaira McCowan double-double plus strong showings from Kelsey Mitchell and Danielle Robinson helped them pull of the upset. It’s also been fun to see the expanded minutes for a healthy Bernadett Határ. Still, where’s lottery pick Kysre Gondrezick?
Hmm. On Sunday, Chennedy Carter left the game against the Aces and didn’t return, but the Dream said it wasn’t injury-related. That’s…odd! Rumors abounded Sunday night about what the issue was and I don’t want to get into speculation here, but I will say this: the Dream are a lottery-bound team that has one young potential star in their backcourt. They need to do what they can to maximize that player. Otherwise, they’ll just keep treading water.
The Sparks have lost four in a row, so not falling back to 11th this week is really more about Atlanta than it is L.A. The Sparks continue to struggle without Nneka and Chiney Ogwumike, which is fair. Amanda Zahui B. is giving them some great minutes at the 5, but it’s hard to win without two of your three best bigs, even when Brittney Sykes and Erica Wheeler are giving you strong backcourt production.
Losers of four in a row, Washington remains in this ninth spot. It seems the whole “let Tina Charles do everything” magic is wearing off, and through no fault of Charles’ — it’s just hard to win when your rotation is in the shape that Washington’s is in and you’re starting Shavonte Zellous and Theresa Plaisance, both of whom would ideally be solid bench pieces for ths team, not key starters.
Phoenix has lost two in a row, though both were to the surging Lynx. But an insanely tough end to the first half is upon them, as they’ll face the Aces on Wednesday and then have two games against Seattle to end the week. Yikes. The depth issues continue to hurt this team, as they just don’t have the personnel to help their star-studded starting five. Diana Taurasi’s return has helped the team some, but not enough yet to say this is more than the seventh or eighth-best team in the league.
After a strong start, New York slowly shrank down to .500 and then have just stayed around that mark. Since a June 20 win over the Sparks, the team is 4-3 and has alternated between having some strong offensive showings and having some nights where they can’t reach 70 points. The release of Kiah Stokes and an injury to Rebecca Allen have thsi team looking a little different right now, but Walt Hopkins’ starting unit is keeping the team afloat as they wait for Natasha Howard to return and shore up their interior issues.
Like New York, Dallas seems like a team that’ll be hanging around .500 going forward, but Dallas feels more capable of keeping up with the league’s better teams. They beat the Sky this week, scoring 100 points on Chicago’s defense. There’s just so much offensive talent on this team, especially on the nights when Marina Mabrey is on fire. The center issues remain — Satou Sabally and Kayla Thornton are currently the starting frontcourt, which isn’t ideal even though it works — and Charli Collier appears to have been booted from the rotation, so it’s not all smooth sailing right now for this franchise.
Little drop here for Chicago, as they’ve lost two of their last three games. This week, they split a series with the Wings, and while the Sky offense was playing up to the test in both games, the defense slipped up a little. Chicago’s got all the pieces to contend for a title, but something doesn’t seem to click on a nightly basis like it should. Either the team struggles to score like they did when a Jonquel Jones-less Sun held them to 58 or they let Dallas put up 100.
Oh hi, Minnesota! Four wins in a row — including an overtime victory over the Aces — has propelled Minnesota into the top four. They’re coming off some impressive wins over the Mercury, capping the week off with a 99-68 decimation of Phoenix. Kayla McBride had some consistency issues early in the year, but has averaged 25 points over the last two games, shotoing 18-for-26 overall and 9-for-13 from three in that span.
Jonquel Jones is back! And while a loss to the Fever on Saturday probably should have dropped this team in the rankings, I’m just sticking with the good vibes of Jones coming back and moving the team with 12 wins back to the third spot. They’ve got a winnable end to the first half against Atlanta and New York, and they’ve got an MVP candidate at center. Don’t let that loss impact how you see this Sun team.
Seattle bounced back from the overtime loss to the Aces by…barely beating Atlanta 91-88 and then posting a 10-point win over Los Angeles. Obviously, this is still one of the league’s two best teams, but there’s at least a couple of visible cracks here. Katie Lou Samuelson’s consistency at the 3. The backcourt depth behind Jewell Loyd and Sue Bird that left Epiphanny Prince playing 31 minutes last game with Loyd out. But after releasing Candice Dupree, we are seeing second-year big Ezi Magbegor start to play up to the potential that we’ve known she has.
What did Vegas do after their win over Seattle? A couple of wins over the Sparks, and then a victory over Atlanta in which the Aces put up 118 points. That’s a lot of points for a regulation WNBA game. I’m pretty much done having concerns about the Aces. Maybe I should worry that Kiah Stokes played almost as many minutes as Liz Cambage (14 to Liz’s 17) but if Cambage is going to put up 17 and 10 in those 17 minutes, then great. This is the best team in the league right now and while their bench might give us some pause, a healthy Aces team is capable of doing literally anything.