A'ja Wilson scored 29 points on 9-for-18 shooting on Thursday night against the Indiana Fever. The rest of the Aces team? Seven combined made field goals in an 81-54 loss to the Caitlin Clark-less Fever.
That's, uhh....really bad. Like, really, really bad, and it highlights a growing concern for the Aces this season. Wilson is still a top-two player in the WNBA, but even she can't save this team when the rest of it is playing so badly.
Thursday's loss underscored something that's become more and more apparent as the season has gone along: the Aces, as currently constructed, aren't contenders anymore.
Aces losing to Fever was more than just one bad loss
Look, maybe Vegas losing to a Clark-less Indiana team is just a sign that the Fever are a really good team. I mean, they did win the Commissioner's Cup on Tuesday night without their star guard. But we have to really look at the context of this loss. If it was a close defeat, that'd be one thing. The reality, though, is that the Aces were played off the court.
It was awful. There's no other way to describe that defeat.
Jewell Loyd was 0-for-3 from the floor. Jackie Young shot 22.2 percent. Dana Evans came off the bench firing, but connected on just one of her 10 field goal attempts.
NaLyssa Smith, who the team traded a first-round pick for in a move that already seemed short-sighted at the time, was 1-for-6 from the floor. I'm not going to write off Smith's fit in Vegas after one game, but it's pretty clear she isn't the missing piece that makes this a championship contender. Vegas has had some success recently running lineups that surround Wilson with four perimeter players, but the team rarely turned to that approach on Thursday. The lineup that takes four of the starters and replaces Kiah Stokes with Aaliyah Nye has looked strong, but that lineup played 1.4 minutes on Thursday. If Smith is just going to lead to more two-big lineups instead of simply replacing most of Stokes' minutes, Vegas won't be optimizing its approach.
Will these players all play this badly every night? Of course not. Everyone minus Wilson forgot how to shoot on the same night. At the very least, Jackie Young shouldn't have many more games like this.
But the fact that Vegas should be better than this most nights doesn't mean the Aces are contenders. Title contenders don't have games like this. Vegas lost by 27 points, the team's third 20-point loss of the year. In 2023, when Vegas last won the title, it had one loss all season by 20 or more points, and it happened in one of the rare instances where Wilson was shut down.
Unless Vegas finds a way to make a big move on the trade market before the deadline, Thursday was proof that this team is out of the title chase.