It's time to talk efficiency in the WNBA

Diving into why some of the league's star players rank at the bottom of a key efficiency stat

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Atlanta Dream guard Rhyne Howard (10) attempts a jump shot during a game against the Connecticut Sun. (Photo courtesy of Chris Poss)

Does anybody else get the sense that this year’s WNBA season is going to be a little awkward? 

The transition from niche to mainstream is clearly going to come with some bumps along the way. Whether it’s the Lynx showing frustration over a preseason game not being broadcast or the Phoenix Mercury passive aggressively responding to criticism aimed at Diana Taurasi for daring to suggest that the W will be harder than college basketball for Caitlin Clark, the massive influx of attention on the league is going to take some adjusting for everybody. Though we did get a nice preview of what is to come during the college season when “GOAT” arguments started popping up on ESPN’s debate shows.

Don’t get me wrong, the sudden spike in eyeballs on the W is tremendous for the league. A new broadcast rights deal is vital to the W taking the next leap forward in terms of player salaries and accommodations. Maybe soon we can get to a point where arenas that seat 4,200 people and practices at community colleges are no longer acceptable. It’s also pretty cool to be in public and hear folks talking about women’s basketball. 

What comes with an increase in interest is more desire for critique. In years past we might have been hesitant to criticize players and teams because we wanted others to join the party. Most coverage was focused around the idea that you are missing out on Player X or Team X rather than hardcore breakdowns of teams’ missteps. 

You would have been hard- pressed to find anyone asking why the Mercury hired an unqualified coach after letting Sandy Brondello go or wondering aloud what in the world happened to college great Lauren Cox. Fifty bucks to anybody who can find an article questioning why Chicago traded two first-round picks for an inconsistent role player last offseason. 

That doesn’t mean it’s time to throw the shackles off and start ripping people like a football show on the Monday after a loss, just that we can look closer at these things and start picking apart who is doing it right and wrong. 

In other more highly scrutinized sports, efficiency is always the name of the game. If an NBA player is a “volume shooter” with high attempts and low shooting percentage, it is accepted that either the team isn’t using their talents properly or the player is making bad decisions. Those players are generally not viewed as the cream of the crop, but in the W there are players who are consistently receiving star treatment in terms of All-Star appearances and adulation while bleeding efficiency. It’s worth looking closer at a few of those players and whether they can turn it around or if their inefficiency will continue to harm their teams’ chances of being truly competitive. 

Three players who fit the bill are Atlanta’s Rhyne Howard, Dallas guard Arike Ogunbowale and Seattle’s Jewell Loyd. 

Per Her Hoop Stats data, last season there were 35 players who attempted more than 10 shots per game. Out of those players, Ogunbowale was 28th, Howard 30th and Loyd 34th in effective field-goal percentage, which adjusts for the type of field goal (3-pointer or 2-pointer) that a player is attempting. 

If that number doesn’t really paint the picture for you, put it this way: Indiana’s Kelsey Mitchell scored 728 points in 2023 and attempted 555 field goals whereas Howard scored 681 points on 587 attempts. 

In terms of points per scoring attempt, all three franchise centerpieces ranked below 28th of 35. The top player in the league, Jackie Young, scored 1.31 points per scoring attempt whereas Loyd, Ogunbowale and Howard were all below 1.05 PPSA.

That might not seem like much but the margins are not large in the W. Adding one-quarter of a point to every attempt adds up over time. The difference in point differential between the third- best team in the W last year and the first team out of the playoffs was just 5.1 points per game – a gap of less than a pair of made 3-pointers.  

It wouldn’t be fair if the analysis ended there. We are talking about highly drafted and decorated players. So what’s missing? 

It isn’t a coincidence that three of the top five most efficient players by effective field- goal percentage (with at least 10 attempts per game) play for the Aces. If the playing field was the same for everyone then we could pretty easily draw the conclusion that Howard, Ogunbowale and Loyd were just worse at scoring than Jackie Young and Kelsey Plum, but every situation is different. 

How do we figure out the cause? Is it the quality of teammates? Shot selection? Coaching? Years ago 76ers coach Larry Brown responded to criticism that Allen Iverson was shooting too much by saying, “I told him to shoot that much!” The 76ers didn’t have many other scorers and A.I. got stuck with every last-second shot clock shot and was consistently forced to create something out of nothing. 

That explanation makes the most sense for Loyd. In 2023, a season after Breanna Stewart left for New York, Loyd took six more shots per game than she had ever taken before and nearly nine more shots per game than her highest eFG% season (2020). While her 24.7 points per game during the 2023 campaign ranks second all time, Loyd also posted a career-low eFG% of 44.5%

Seattle has reloaded for 2024 with one of the WNBA’s all-time most efficient players Nneka Ogwumike. The 2016 MVP ranks sixth all-time in eFG% at a remarkable 56.2%. Ogwumike’s presence alone should mirror Stewart’s from years past because they can both get into the paint or stretch the floor. The addition of Skyler Diggins-Smith should also increase Loyd’s fast break opportunities and catch-and-shoot chances like she had with Sue Bird for the majority of her career. 

It will likely take some adjusting back to being part of the machine rather than the entire offense but Loyd’s inefficiency was very likely more due to the situation than anything else.  

With Howard and Ogunbowale, it’s much easier to infer that shot selection is problematic. Both their teams were in the playoffs last year and they each have multi-year histories of the same type of below- average efficiency numbers. 

Shot charts help us identify the issue. For Howard, mid-range jumpers, the scourge of the analytics world, are crushing her shooting efficiency. Last year Howard only shot 28-for-86  (32.6%) on shots between 16 feet and the 3-point line (per Basketball-Reference). It isn’t much better between 10-16 feet (40.2%) and 3-10 feet (33.8%). At the basket and from beyond the arc, Howard’s numbers are very good (64.6% at the rim and 36.1% from three). 

If we dig even deeper, we can see that she’s putting too much on herself to score off the dribble. Out of 182 attempts between 3-16 feet away, only 19 were assisted. 

Similarly, Ogunbowale is only shooting 38.4% between 3-10 feet and 34.4% on long-twos. 

The answer for these players can’t be as simple as “don’t shoot there anymore” but if we compare Howard and Ogunbowale to the gold standard of efficiency, Jackie Young, it’s noticeable that Young only took 26 shots between 16 feet and the 3-point line. That’s 73 less than Ogunbowale and 60 fewer than Howard. 

The good news for our stars who are struggling with eFG% is that they can change. Kelsey Mitchell is an example of a player who started out her career inefficiently and then improved greatly over the years. In her first two seasons, Mitchell was below 40% shooting on 2-point shots but she’s made 48.3% over the last four seasons. Unsurprisingly she took nearly 70% of her shots last season either at the rim or from 3-point land. 

If the Dream and Wings can’t figure out ways to improve the efficiency of their stars, it’s not going to be easy for them to crack into the top tier of WNBA clubs like New York, Las Vegas and Connecticut. That may come about naturally as both teams improve their rosters around their stars, but it also might take schematic adjustments. With these top players, the standard has to be higher than their teams finishing around .500. 

There is so much more meat on the bone when it comes to analyzing the WNBA through a critical lens. It will take getting used to reading/hearing more voices breaking down the game in a similar fashion to other major sports. But it’s an exciting time to dig deeper and ask more questions to understand the game better as this sport skyrockets in popularity. 

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.