Ranking the W 2024: Nearing the summit, from 10 to 6
Ranking the W 2024: Nearing the summit, from 10 to 6
Our expert panel's anticipated best 50 players in the WNBA for 2024 reaches the top 10 as the results of #RankingTheW continue to be revealed
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. You can also buy Her Hoop Stats gear, such as laptop stickers, mugs, and shirts!
Haven’t subscribed to the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter yet?
We've gone from 50 to 26, and 25 to 11 - now it's time for 2024's Ranking the W to hit single digits as we count down from 10 to 6.
We’re introducing Ranking the W to create a snapshot of the consensus expectations of WNBA player performance in 2024. We invited an international panel of over 100 writers, reporters, analysts and broadcasters from around the world of women's basketball to lend their expertise to this exercise. Thanks to all of them for their time and input.
Participants were asked to vote on player vs. player matchups with the question "Who will be the better WNBA player in 2024?", taking into account both performance and availability. Voting was anonymous among the invitees, so no one had to be worried about their hot takes being stolen or being embarrassed later in the year if a choice turns out to be wildly inaccurate.
After over 10,000 votes, the results are in. We’ll be releasing them from No. 50 to No. 1 this week along with commentary on each player and their rank. Let us know your thoughts on what surprised you, who’s been overvalued and who’s been snubbed, or anything else about the project. We’ll be using the hashtag #RankingTheW on social media or you can leave comments on the articles themselves.
Let's get started with the top 10.
#10 Arike Ogunbowale
Arike is a somewhat divisive figure in the WNBA sphere. In the era of players like Allen Iverson, she'd have been a universally beloved and lauded superstar. Her handle, her shooting, her ability to create her own shot at will can all be absolutely electrifying to watch. They're also thoroughly valuable skills for any player at any time. But we live in an era of basketball where efficiency is a much more prominent topic. Ogunbowale's field-goal percentage floats around 40% every year, and her 3-point percentage tends to be near the league average of around 35%. She also dominates the ball a lot, which can draw criticisms of not keeping her teammates involved or looking for a better shot than the one she wants to toss up instead. However, as her ranking here illustrates, she's very, very good at what she does. She's appeared on at least one MVP ballot in all five seasons she's been in the WNBA, been an all-star the last three years, and it's just not that easy to average 20 points per game in this league (her current career average is over 20, and would put her third all-time behind Cynthia Cooper-Dyke and Breanna Stewart). She's raised her assists incrementally the last two years, and her style didn't stop Satou Sabally from having a breakout season or Natasha Howard and the Dallas centers from making significant contributions. It just may take a slight increase in those percentages - even if it comes with a decrease in attempts - for her to move up a list like this.
#9 Jonquel Jones
There are four WNBA MVPs in our top ten, and Jonquel is the first to appear. She didn't have a perfectly smooth first season in New York in 2023, struggling through injury recovery to begin with while working out where she fit on a very different roster from the one she left behind in Connecticut. But by the end of the season and into the playoffs we were seeing the real Jonquel again. A dominant and smooth interior scorer who's also one of the best rebounders in the league and comfortable stepping out beyond the arc, she's incredibly difficult to stop when at full strength. Her long limbs and agility also make her an effective rim protector, and if she and Breanna Stewart get a complete year together fully healthy, they should be able to compensate for some of the Liberty's defensive issues elsewhere. She is 30 years old now, so it's possible we've seen her peak, and New York may try to manage her minutes a little to reserve her energy for the playoffs, but Jonquel Jones at 100% remains one of the best players in the world.
#8 Jackie Young
The last two years have been special from Jackie Young. She was already a very good player, who drew praise from the purists who enjoyed her driving game, her defense, and her contributions all around the box score. But ever since she'd entered the league, she'd been held back by her lack of an outside shot. She'd take a few, but rarely, and they'd only very rarely actually go in. It's incredibly hard to be an elite perimeter player in modern basketball without being a genuine threat from outside. You simply compromise your own team's offense too much by teams being able to ignore you. Then Becky Hammon and her new coaching staff arrived in Las Vegas, and Young took the leap. She shot 43% from three in 2022 on far higher volume than she'd ever taken before, then somehow improved on that in 2023 by taking five per game and hitting 45%. She didn't just find a way to hit enough that teams couldn't ignore her - she rebuilt her jump shot and became one of the best 3-point shooters in the game. Most of the rest of her game remained the same. She still does everything else, including defending the primary perimeter weapon on the opposing team most nights. She takes a few more shots now that she's a threat from anywhere, but that's about it. One of only three guards in our top 10, that's how good Jackie Young with an elite jump shot is.
#7 Nneka Ogwumike
The only player in the top 15 of our list who's changed team this offseason (and also the oldest in that group), there's pretty obvious value to just being very good and very reliable over and over again for a long time. If you look at Ogwumike's career stats, the frankly absurd year she had in 2016 where she shot 67% from the field, was named MVP and won a ring in LA jumps out. But otherwise you see incredible consistency throughout her career. She finishes with high efficiency inside, catching almost anything thrown at her as a roller into the paint. She's developed more range as her career has gone on, and while she doesn't take too many she can't be ignored beyond the arc. She's a strong defender and good rebounder. Also, importantly for someone hitting an age where many players are on the downslope of their careers, she stepped up her offensive production in LA over the last couple of years when there wasn't as much help around her to take the shots - all without any real drop-off in efficiency. She'll likely be a bit more comfortable in Seattle with more talent alongside her - and definitely ought to win more games - but she appears to still be essentially the same player she's always been. Which is a very good one.
#6 Napheesa Collier
As I mentioned yesterday, especially this high in the list we're splitting hairs between exceptional talents. Whether anybody is too high or too low is up for everybody to decide on their own. But is No. 6 maybe even a little low for Collier? In her first full season back after giving birth, all Collier did in 2023 was average 21.5 points per game on 49% from the field, finish seventh in the league in rebounding, and carry a young Lynx squad to a near-.500 record and a playoff spot. She was also a comfortable fourth in MVP voting last year and is still only 27 years old. You could understand if she felt she shouldn't be appearing until tomorrow's article. The 3-point shooting has been a little disappointing the last few years, falling off a cliff to 25% back in 2021 and only recovering to around 30% since. Her first two years in the league (36% and 41% respectively) showed what she's capable of from distance, and if she can get that back she'll be a more dangerous all-court player. A little help on the glass and defensively from Minnesota's additions in the offseason could also take some of the weight off her shoulders and hopefully leave her fresher for crunch time. Also an extra year removed from the pregnancy, and at an age when many athletes peak, there could be another level for Collier to reach. If she hits it, the voters might make her top five next year.
So who's left for the top five, and what order will they be in? Will our voters' decisions match MVP voting from last season? Join us tomorrow for the final stage of the list, as we go all the way up from No. 5 to No. 1.
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.
The wnba is here stay🏀🏀🏀🏀