It's been two weeks since we last checked in on the WNBA power rankings — my bad on missing last week! — and some things have changed. Or, well, one key thing has changed, as a seven-game winning streak has vaulted the Washington Mystics into contention for homecourt in the first round while also putting the team in a strong spot in this week's power rankings.
Where are the Mystics at? What about the rest of the league? Here are the current WNBA power rankings.
WNBA Power Rankings, Week 14
Position | Team | Record | Last Week* |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Minnesota Lynx | 27-7 | 1 |
2 | Washington Mystics | 19-12 | 7 |
3 | Golden State Valkyries | 23-9 | 2 |
4 | Indiana Fever | 20-12 | 5 |
5 | Las Vegas Aces | 22-11 | 3 |
6 | New York Liberty | 20-13 | 8 |
7 | Atlanta Dream | 19-12 | 6 |
8 | Dallas Wings | 19-14 | 4 |
9 | Portland Fire | 13-19 | 9 |
10 | Chicago Sky | 12-20 | 11 |
11 | Phoenix Mercury | 12-22 | 10 |
12 | Los Angeles Sparks | 12-19 | 14 |
13 | Connecticut Sun | 8-23 | 13 |
14 | Toronto Tempo | 10-21 | 12 |
15 | Seattle Storm | 6-28 | 15 |
* - This is actually referencing two weeks ago, not last week.
The Washington Mystics are contenders
Seven wins in a row for the Washington Mystics, and that's without the newly acquired Betnijah Laney-Hamilton suiting up for the team yet. The trio of Kiki Iriafen, Shakira Austin and Sonia Citron has this team rolling, and with the league's second-best defense, Washington looks like a true contender.
(Defense might really win championships this season. The top three teams in the power rankings are the top three teams in points allowed per game. Maybe this is an underrated consequence of expansion.)
Laney-Hamilton gives this young team an experienced voice to help guide them, and once she's on the floor, she theoretically fixes a major hole, as the team lacks wing depth. Laney-Hamilton isn't the same kind of scorer she was earlier in her career, but as a fourth option? That's a huge win for the Mystics. Combined with the team's defensive effort, we have to take the Mystic seriously as contenders. This might not be a league for super stars anymore; we might have a league where the best teams are the ones that are cohesive units.
Toronto's descent continues
The Tempo started out this season with so much promise. They'd built a roster that looked like it could — key word here is "could" — battle for a playoff spot. Instead, the Tempo are now one of the league's worst teams after dropping eight games in a row.
Looking at this roster before this campaign began, you'd probably think "hmm, this could be a defensive disaster." You'd be correct. as the Tempo allow a league-worst 93.7 points per game. They're also last in defensive rating.
Injuries haven't helped. Brittney Sykes has missed over half of the team's games. Kiki Rice has as well. In the most recent loss — a 97-83 defeat against fellow expansion team Portland — the team just couldn't get a stop, and not having Sykes continues to really hurt things. (Or help, I suppose, if you consider that the Tempo should want to be as bad as possible to better their shot at getting the No. 1 pick in 2027.)
New York appears to be back
For a bit there, it looked like the New York Liberty might fall out of the playoffs. I mean, they likely never were going to, and the gap between the eighth and ninth seeds has now grown so immense that we know, in retrospect, it wasn't going to happen, but something did feel fundamentally wrong. I won't call this current four-game win streak proof that the team has completely fixed things, but things are looking up.
Over the past two weeks, the Liberty have a league-best 123.8 offensive rating and are shooting a league-best 78.5 percent at the rim. Inserting Rebecca Allen into the starting lineup has really helped the spacing, which in turn has created more driving space. Everything's connected. (New York is 7-1 in games with Allen in the starting five, by the way.)
Sure, there are questions, like when Leonie Fiebich and Satou Sabally will play again and how their returns impact the lineup. But right now, the Liberty seem to have found a bit of something that's working for them. It's probably no surprise that this lineup is on the smaller side, as a lot of the team's issues this season have come about because the lineups felt too big.
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