The Los Angeles Sparks and Golden State Valkyries were viewed as two of the league's worst teams coming into the year. Los Angeles was going to be without Cameron Brink for a large chunk of the season and no one knew how Kelsey Plum would look as a No. 1 option. Golden State was just a mish-mash of disparate parts from the expansion draft.
But things have worked out much differently than expected. The Valkyries have hung around the battle for the No. 8 seed all year, while the Sparks struggled immensely early but have turned things around over the past month.
Both teams sit at 14-15 on the season entering the weekend, with the Valkyries at No. 8 in the playoff picture and the Sparks at No. 9. With Seattle sliding lately, there's a chance both of these teams wind up in the postseason, but more than likely, we're looking at a two-team battle for the No. 8 seed.
And on Saturday night, the two sides play each other. The stakes are huge for this one.
Sparks vs. Valkyries could go a long way toward determining the No. 8 seed
The Sparks have won three in a row and are 8-2 over the past 10 games. If you'd told me back in May that Los Angeles would be the hottest team post-All-Star break, I might have laughed because the team just wasn't playing good basketball at that point. They were 2-6 on June 1, and the only wins were over the Valkyries and Sky.
Meanwhile, Golden State is trying to survive life in the wake of Kayla Thornton's injury. It looked promising at first, but a three-game losing streak threatens to derail the team's shot at making the playoffs in its debut season.
Saturday will be the final time these teams meet this season, with the Valkyries winning two of the first three games. Those barely matter when discussing Saturday's contest, though, because the most recent game was all the way back on June 9. Both of these are wildly different teams right now, and both have aspirations that they didn't yet have in early June, so this game is going to be a fight.
It feels especially important for Golden State. With how the Sparks have been playing, a loss here doesn't doom anything; the team will still have plenty of chances to make its push for the No. 8 seed. But Golden State has to do whatever it can to fend off the Sparks, and winning on Saturday would go a long way toward that. It's like a NASCAR race in a way — the Valkyries have the advantage by being out front in clean air, but as soon as they let the Sparks past them, they're going to risk getting lapped.