You don't have to be a good team to make the playoffs in the WNBA. Maybe the math will change once the league finishes expanding over the rest of this decade, but as of now, the No. 8 seed in the playoffs is traditionally a team that finishes under .500. You don't gotta be good. You just have to be the best bad team.
As such, small things like a five-game win streak and the impending return of a potentially elite two-way big can swing the entire fight for the No. 8 seed.
Yep, I'm talking about the Los Angeles Sparks and the return of Cameron Brink, who is set to make her season debut on Tuesday night as the Sparks take on the Las Vegas Aces.
The Sparks have been winning without Brink
After a rough start to the season, the Sparks have five wins in a row, by far the longest current winning streak in the league as no other team has won more than two in a row at the moment. Los Angeles has now improved to 11-14 on the year.
Sure, two of those wins are against the league's worst team, Connecticut, but the Sparks have a huge win over the Liberty mixed in there plus two back-to-back wins against the Washington Mystics.
The key to this recent win streak? The trio of Dearica Hamby, Kelsey Plum and Rickea Jackson. Over the past five games, those two have averaged a combined 59.8 points per game. While Plum is right around her season average over that stretch, Hamby and Jackson have made massive scoring improvements, fueled by efficiency, as both are shooting the ball over this stretch. Jackson is shooting 50 percent from the floor, while on the season as a whole, she sits at 42.7 percent.
Plum arrived in Los Angeles with some major question marks. Not about her, but about why the Sparks would move the No. 2 pick to add a guard who could just leave in free agency, especially when the team would be without Brink for so long and just didn't fit the vibe of a playoff team.
But Plum has been great as a first option, and the Hamby/Jackson duo is a strong one. Sure, the Sparks have questions concerning depth, but when your top three players are playing as well as they are, you can beat anyone on any given night.
What does Cameron Brink add for Los Angeles?
Cameron Brink is one of the most intriguing young bigs in the league. As long as she isn't still hampered too much from the ACL tear that ended her rookie campaign, she should be a huge addition to this Sparks team.
Brink struggled a bit with her scoring efficiency as a rookie, but the team context in 2025 should help with that, as defenses have more to worry about and Brink should see more open space on her jumpers. She'll need to be more aggressive at the hoop since she ranked just 95th in the WNBA in field goal percentage in the restricted area last year, but I'd expect that to go up for the same reason her jump shooting percentage should go up. Los Angeles can surround her with shooters, giving her more one-on-one looks at the hoop.
But it's the defensive end where we should really expect to see Brink thrive.
As a rookie, Brink was already one of the best rim protectors in the WNBA, posting a league-best 9.0 percent block rate, which translated into 2.3 blocks per game. She has to work on avoiding fouls as she averaged more per game than any WNBA player last year, but she has the right skill and instinct to be an elite shot-blocker going forward.
Last year, opponents shot 44.9 percent from 2-point range with Brink on the floor and 52.9 percent with her off. Some of that is simply just a difference in sample size since Brink didn't play the full year, but even if we restrict it solely to games Brink played, the discrepancy shows up in the data, as opponents shot 52.2 percent from inside the arc with her off the floor in the games she played.
Are the Sparks now a playoff team?
It's very possible! While Los Angeles is currently still outside the playoff picture, the team has moved right to the precipice of it with this win streak, and a healthy Brink is a great addition for the franchise.
Assuming Indiana and Vegas have things figured out and will stick as the No. 6 and No. 7 seeds, the playoff race for the No. 8 seed is between Washington, Golden State and Los Angeles.
The Valkyries lost their lone All-Star, Kayla Thornton, to a season-ending injury. The Mystics are pretty clearly playing above their heads and have lost twice to Los Angeles during this Sparks win streak.
Adding Brink in might actually be enough for the Sparks to pull off a remarkable midseason turnaround. If I had to put money down on the No. 8 seed right now, I'd lean heavily in the Sparks' direction.