Key Points
Bullet point summary by AI
- A preseason surprise, the Lynx, now leads the WNBA power rankings this week, defying early expectations with dominant defense.
- The Portland Fire sit unexpectedly high while the Mercury falls to the bottom after a steep decline in performance.
- The league's most volatile storylines revolve around roster construction and whether hot starts can translate into sustainable success.
Another week of WNBA action has come and gone, and the power rankings this week find a surprising team moving into the No. 1 spot. Well...maybe not that surprising if you read the headline you clicked on, but considering preseason expectations, it's a surprise.
Meanwhile, we have movement at the bottom of the power rankings as well, as the Connecticut Sun are — for the moment — no longer in last place.
WNBA Power Rankings, Week 4
Position | Team | Record | Last Week |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Minnesota Lynx | 6-2 | 4 |
2 | Atlanta Dream | 5-2 | 2 |
3 | Las Vegas Aces | 5-3 | 1 |
4 | Dallas Wings | 5-3 | 6 |
5 | Golden State Valkyries | 5-3 | 5 |
6 | New York Liberty | 5-4 | 7 |
7 | Portland Fire | 6-4 | 10 |
8 | Toronto Tempo | 5-4 | 12 |
9 | Indiana Fever | 4-4 | 3 |
10 | Los Angeles Sparks | 4-4 | 8 |
11 | Washington Mystics | 3-4 | 14 |
12 | Seattle Storm | 3-6 | 11 |
13 | Chicago Sky | 3-5 | 9 |
14 | Connecticut Sun | 2-8 | 15 |
15 | Phoenix Mercury | 2-7 | 13 |
The Minnesota Lynx are pretty good
It is always a bad idea to count out a Cheryl Reeve team. Despite Napheesa Collier being sidelined and multiple key players from the 2025 team gone via free agency or the expansion draft, the Minnesota Lynx are back atop the WNBA.
While the offense ranks just sixth in the league in points per game, Minnesota is home of the WNBA's best scoring defense, with the frontcourt of Natasha Howard and Nia Coffey doing some great work on that end. Minnesota is going with a smaller unit, and Howard's versatility is a key to making that work.
Then there's the backcourt, where the three starting guards all average at least 14 points and 1.5 steals per game. Olivia Miles has hit the ground running as a rookie, and it has the Lynx clicking. Add Collier back at some point and Minnesota will be a real title threat.
Phoenix continues to slide down the rankings
We have a change at the bottom, as the Phoenix Mercury move to last. Sure, they're a half-game ahead of Connecticut in the actual standings, but they've dropped five in a row while the Sun are coming off a win.
Phoenix has simply not been able to replace Satou Sabally, and it's putting too much stress on the two remaining stars, Kahleah Copper and Alyssa Thomas, and while Phoenix deserves a ton of credit for its additions of international players to provide guard depth, the team has a severe lack of big depth, and that's really killing them.
It's also hard to see an end in sight. This roster is clearly not clicking and there's no path to making it click. DeWanna Bonner no longer looks like the player she was in her prime or even like the very good player she still was after her prime, and unless she suddenly starts providing volume scoring off the bench at a far more efficient level, Phoenix is kind of stuck here. The Mercury will win more games than teams like Connecticut and Seattle by the time the season ends, but this team has fallen from contender to the bottom of the league very, very fast. At this point, it might be time to trade the big names and focus on the future.
Should we take the Portland Fire seriously?
The Fire were, on paper, a bad team entering the season. They lacked star power and while the other expansion team in Toronto focused on veteran talent, Portland selected a lot of unproven players.
Somehow, this ragtag group is 6-4. If we're talking about how teams stack up right now from a "who is the hottest team" perspective, Portland deserves to be ranked seventh in the power rankings.
At the same time, I'm really not sure we can use this 10-game sample to conclude this is a good basketball team. I mean, look at where the Fire rank in a few key metrics.
Metric | League Rank |
|---|---|
Offensive Rating | 12th |
Defensive Rating | 12th |
Net Rating | 12th |
A big part of that is that every Portland loss is by double digits, though the team was competitive for much of its 20-point defeat against the Atlanta Dream last week. As good a story as this has been, the team really lacks the gear needed to come back from a deficit, and that's going to be an issue going forward. Still, we can celebrate how well the team has started out, as well as the fact that it's found some key building blocks for the future, with Carla Leite being the most notable.
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