Things looked shaky for a bit, but we can pretty safely say that the Las Vegas Aces are going to be a playoff team in 2025.
Winners of four in a row, the Aces are now 18-14 on the year and sit in fifth-place in the standings, with a fairly realistic shot to grab homecourt in the first round as the team is just a game-and-a-half behind the fourth-place Mercury.
Maybe Vegas goes on a strong run to move up in the standings. Maybe Vegas struggles a bit and moves back down. Whatever happens, let's look at two teams that Vegas would hate to play in the first round and two that the Aces should be salivating to face.
Two opponents the Aces would hate to see in the first round
Minnesota Lynx
The good news for Vegas is that it would need to fall off pretty hard over the last few weeks of the season to drop far enough in the standings to play the No. 1 seed Lynx.
The bad news is that if Vegas did fall off or if Vegas stayed at No. 5 and beat the No. 4 seed in the first round and ended up facing Minnesota in the second round, the Aces would be in some trouble.
The Lynx have won all three matches so far, including completely dominating the past two matchups, winning 109-78 in July and then 111-58 in early August.
This is just an awful matchup for the Aces. Minnesota has an all-world defender in Napheesa Collier who can limit A'ja Wilson and force the rest of the roster to step up, and the rest of the roster simply hasn't proven it can step up.
New York Liberty
The Aces are winless against the Liberty this season, dropping games in May and July. If we assume Breanna Stewart is healthy by playoff time, then things get even worse for Vegas, as the team couldn't beat the pre-Emma Meesseman version of the team, so how are they supposed to beat this new version?
Because this is another matchup where the opponent has the ability to limit Wilson enough that the rest of the Aces squad starts to feel the pressure. You can't completely take Wilson out of the game, but the path to beating Vegas relies heavily on getting the basketball out of her hands.
Two opponents Vegas really wants to match up with
Atlanta Dream
Atlanta would be a good matchup for the Aces because the team's two bigs don't really have the athleticism to stop the Aces' bigs. Wilson matched up with Brittney Griner or Brionna Jones would be a win for Vegas, because both players lose some juice when forced outside the paint. Let Wilson work in the midrange against them, and good things can happen.
Atlanta is also a team that relies on shooting, something that can be difficult to sustain in the postseason. If Vegas can pressure the team's shooters and disrupt their rhythm, the team could roll past them in a first-round series.
Phoenix Mercury
Phoenix is still struggling to figure out how to use DeWanna Bonner, and the Mercury are one of just two current playoff teams to be under .500 over the past 10 games. They haven't had the same massive fall-off as the Storm, but it's clear that the team doesn't really know how to play together yet.
And as great a player as Alyssa Thomas is, I still worry that her play style just doesn't work as well in the playoffs as it does in the regular season. I'm not blaming her for the Sun never managing to get over the hump and win a title, but having multiple non-shooers on the floor in the playoffs is going to put a lot of pressure on Kahleah Copper, Satou Sabally and Monique Akoa Makani.
And, well...Sabally has struggled to shoot the ball this year and Akoa Makani is a rookie, so there's definitely reason to be concerned there. Vegas has the advantage in this matchup in large part because this Mercury team doesn't feel built for playoff success.