WNBA Dissected: Who wants to win? Who's trying to trade? Is anyone actually good? Plus more from 2022 Week 9
As we hit the all-star break and head towards the trade deadline, it's time for another look around the world of the WNBA this week
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Ping-Pong Pursuit
Now comfortably past the midpoint of the season it's time to look at how the bottom of the standings might finish, not just the top. Does everyone want to make the playoffs, even if they can? Would those teams be better off finishing in the bottom four and taking their chances in the lottery rather than hoping to make an unlikely postseason run?
Several teams have no interest in losing their way into the lottery because they don't own their own first-round pick anymore. Due to various trades, Las Vegas, Chicago, Dallas, Phoenix and Los Angeles have all given up their selections. That definitely isn't a problem for the Aces and Sky, who'll be handing over late first-rounders. For the other three, all currently sitting on the fringes of the playoff race, it puts additional stress on their season. There's no pot of gold at the end of the losing rainbow, so winning becomes even more important. Their disappointing seasons are just giving Sky, Mystics and Fever fans something else to root for.
Beyond the group who've given up their picks, things get a little more complicated. Obviously, coaches and players are still trying to win every time they go out on the court, but sometimes front office personnel have to think a little more long-term. Also, the WNBA's two-year system for deciding the lottery odds changes things up somewhat. Atlanta aren't just 10-12 and on the fringe of either making the playoffs or having fourth-best odds in the ping-pong draw. Instead, due to last season's 8-24 finish, they're 18-36 and comfortably sitting second in the current lottery standings as long as they stay out of the postseason. Minnesota have the reverse problem. You wouldn't expect them to tank anyway in Sylvia Fowles's farewell year, but trading her somewhere to ring-chase and letting anyone else with even the slightest injury sit out remaining games is a viable option many NBA teams would consider in equivalent situations. However, the Lynx went 22-10 last season, so even in a best-case scenario they'd probably end up with the third-best odds in the lottery. Is that worth throwing the season away?
As with many aspects of life, Covid-19 has also complicated this situation. We often don't know exactly who'll be in the pool of college players available to be drafted due to potential early-entrants who may or may not leave college early to turn pro. There are huge names in that situation this year, with Paige Bueckers and Cameron Brink old enough to declare in 2023 if they want. However, thanks to the extra year of NCAA eligibility granted due to Covid, we don't even know for sure if the upcoming seniors will be in the draft. Aliyah Boston is seen as the one big prize in 2023 but could go back to school for a fifth year if she wanted. Backup options like Haley Jones, Diamond Miller and Ashley Owusu are similarly heading into the fourth year of college careers that could be extended. We're dealing with a lot of unknowns here.
Ultimately, I don't think Indiana or Atlanta really wanted to be in the playoffs this year. The Fever are on course, whereas rookie head coach Tanisha Wright is doing such a good job with the Dream that the playoffs have become a realistic possibility. If you gave Atlanta Dream general manager Dan Padover truth serum, or got him very, very drunk, I think he might admit that they'd still rather not make the playoffs. Those second-place odds in what is likely the Boston lottery are too valuable, compared with what would likely be a quick playoff exit. Everyone outside of those two franchises probably still wants to make the postseason. Although if they happen to fall inadvertently into Boston as the prize for one year without playoff basketball, there are a lot more who'd happily sign up for that.
Let's (Try To) Make a Deal!
The WNBA's trade deadline is approaching on July 15 at 8 p.m. EST, and in a lot of other leagues this would signal a hive of activity - or at the very least, a frenzy of wild speculation. Unfortunately for those of us who like to create these possibilities, there's every chance that we'll wake up on July 16 without a single deal having been done, for a variety of reasons.
Comparatively speaking, trades don't happen all that often in this league anyway. When you only have 12 teams and a maximum of 144 players, there just aren't that many options to get deals done. Also we've seen players like Rebekah Gardner, Nikolina Milic and even recent Dream signing Maya Caldwell step in and produce this season after being picked up off the street. Why trade for a solid backup when they're available for nothing? That makes deals for half the players in the league unlikely.
This year there's an added complication. Almost every team is close to the team salary cap, with a few actually tipping over it due to the various hardship signings they've had to make during the season. The WNBA doesn't have an NBA-style rule that salaries going in either direction in deals have to almost match, but teams do have to finish trades with a legal roster - i.e. under the cap. When no one has much additional room to work with (and several are in the red), you're left trying to match salaries even when that isn't technically a rule.
Also, who are the sellers? Indiana are probably the only team in the league right now who'd make a deal for future value without giving it a second-thought, and their roster is largely packed with youngsters who are seen as part of their future. They'd happily give up Bria Hartley, but her $196,100 contract is hard for anyone else to take on without giving up a player they wouldn't want to lose - and it's not like Hartley has been out on the court proving she's worth pursuing. If she ultimately changes teams, it'll likely be via buyout before signing somewhere else as a free agent (although if that was going to happen there's no real reason why it hasn't already occurred). Any other deal would likely have to feature two sides who both think they're getting better, unless a franchise like Phoenix or Los Angeles want to throw in the towel on 2022. Or Atlanta want to openly try to make themselves worse to drop back into a lottery spot.
We have seen some grumbling in recent weeks which makes your ears prick up and your trade machine instincts wish more deals were plausible. From Skylar Diggins-Smith tweeting a clown emoji over a video of her head coach, to Isabelle Harrison saying "when you find out, lemme know" when a fan asked why she keeps getting pulled from games (and adding a similarly-toned TikTok days later), there are apparently malcontented players around the league we could at least throw into theoretical deals. Chennedy Carter has been a late scratch in LA lately due to a knee injury, after spending most of the season in a much more limited role than she was probably expecting (regardless of who's been the head coach for any given game). Reporting yesterday from Howard Megdal added further fuel to the Diggins-Smith fire by suggesting Phoenix have already shopped her around the league.
Something like Diggins-Smith for Carter and Kristi Toliver might work mathematically, as long as the league is still allowing the Mercury to go over the salary cap via the relief they were given for the Brittney Griner situation. But it seems unlikely that Phoenix would give up on an All-WNBA performer like Diggins-Smith for that low of a return, even if they wanted to pivot younger in anticipation of the post-Taurasi era. And LA don't have a 2023 first-round pick to throw in anymore. The WNBA doesn't allow trading picks beyond the next league year - another element that limits dealing - so the Sparks don't have any meaningful draft picks they could add. Wherever the destination, it would be vastly easier to build a deal for Diggins-Smith in the offseason, when teams will have space and maneuverability - also as of January 1, 2024 picks could legally be included in the deal.
There are also probably teams who'd like to add Harrison's post offense to their rotation if she wants out in Dallas, but again it's hard to make the numbers work with her $159,000 salary. And unlike Diggins-Smith, who’s signed through 2023, Harrison is on an expiring contract so would be a rental for the rest of this season.
So what about coming at it from the team perspective? Which teams might think they need one extra piece for their playoff run? Both Connecticut and Las Vegas could use some extra depth, but it's hard to see where the deal is coming from that makes them meaningfully better. And the player has to be a worthwhile improvement on the group of free agents signing 7-day contracts around the league right now. When they can keep re-signing Joyner Holmes and Jazmine Jones, is there much point in the Sun seeing if Tianna Hawkins would be available from Washington? Does Michaela Onyenwere still have enough positive vibes left over from last season to be worth making an offer to New York that they'd consider? None of these seem particularly appetizing.
So when it comes down to it, I'm not expecting any movement before next Friday. I'd love to be surprised, and I'm sure there'll at least be a few phone calls floating around between the teams to see if there are any real possibilities. Let's hope that sometime in the not-too-distant future the league opens up the rules a little to make more trades viable (something that expansion would also help, purely by creating more potential partners). This stuff engages the fanbase, whether the deals are actually happening or it's just people like me making them up. Allow our imaginations to run wild, without reality making all those dreams an impossibility.
Postseason Crapshoot?
Now I'm not saying that every team in the league is as good or bad as all the others this year. But lately it has felt like the league has concertinaed back together a little bit. Las Vegas have lost five of their last seven, and haven't been the same free-flowing dominant machine we saw in the opening stages. Similarly, Connecticut have lost four of six, and aren't steamrolling teams in the way we saw early on. Meanwhile at the other end of the scale, Minnesota have rediscovered their offense since Sylvia Fowles returned, Atlanta have been boosted by Tiffany Hayes coming back, Phoenix have had some fun playing smallball since Tina Charles left and even Los Angeles have almost forced their way back to .500.
The numbers back this impression up. Net rating had the Aces and Sun as elite teams earlier in the season, up around 14 at the end of May. Both of them have now dropped back far enough to fall below Chicago, and in our numbers at Her Hoop Stats there isn't a team in the league above 7.1. It's been rare to see a WNBA season without at least one team in double-digits, never mind no one even breaking eight. 2018's Seattle Storm led the league at 9.5, and were good enough to canter to a title anyway. 2015 was a wild season where no one finished above 5.5, and five of the seven playoff series went to deciding games, including Minnesota holding off Indiana in the Finals. Otherwise every year since 2010 has had at least one team with a net rating in double figures.
This doesn't necessarily mean the top teams aren't as good as we've seen in prior years. Fewer teams as outright punching bags at the bottom of the standings can make a big difference to these numbers, and this year only Indiana are falling away from the field (and even they aren't nearly as bad as several last-place teams from the past). However, it does make the playoffs potentially more interesting for the neutrals among us. Upsets aren't as likely as they were in the one-and-done format used in recent seasons, but when the top teams aren't truly elite they become vulnerable even in a best-of-three or best-of-five. The basic win-loss standings suggest we have five good teams this year, and then a bunch of others battling for the remaining playoff spots. That may well still prove to be the case when the games really matter, but we did just see a .500 team win a title. I'm just saying keep your eyes open - the chasing pack might be a little closer than they appear.
Clark's Corner
If I named Clark's Corner All-Stars (which actually isn't a bad idea, now that I think about it), Kayla Thornton would already be a multi-year member. Having broken into the league as largely a combo-forward who could fit in wherever her team needs her, she's spent most of this year playing de facto center for Dallas, because Vickie Johnson trusts her. Thornton may not be the flashiest player or the most productive offensively, but she will consistently be in the place she's supposed to be and will work her backside off. You'd be amazed how valuable a player who can manage to combine those two basic elements can be, especially when they can guard essentially anyone.
All these clips are from the same 90 seconds of a recent Wings game against LA, where Thornton was matched up against Liz Cambage.
That's an offensive rebound she had no right to get from behind Cambage and Jasmine Walker; a rip-away steal on an attempted entry pass to Cambage that Thornton wanted more, leading into Thornton running the break and sending a long assist to Marina Mabrey; Thornton responding to a loose ball by hustling towards the pile-up (while Cambage just stands around in the paint), leading to a breakaway layup; and then rounding it off with a three to punish the defense for helping off her.
Classic Clark's Corner stuff. She works harder than anyone, makes up for her deficiencies with effort and smarts, and gives her coach everything she has. The kind of player everyone thinks they can replace fairly easily but ends up playing 25 minutes a night because they're doing everything you need your complementary players to do. Dallas would love some of their bigger-name posts to steal some of her minutes, but they need to do the little things well in order to take them. Thornton won't be giving those minutes up without a fight.
Thanks for reading the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter. If you like our work, be sure to check out our stats site, our podcast, and our social media accounts on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.