Ranking the W 2024: The countdown continues, from 25 to 11
Our expert panel's ranking of the best WNBA players for 2024 is heating up, as #RankingTheW starts to pick between the league's stars
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Yesterday saw the start to this year's Ranking the W with places 50 up to 26. Now we're starting to reach the upper echelons of the list with 25 to 11.
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.
Honorable mentions and No. 50 to No. 26 on the list can be found in earlier articles. Now on to the next entries.
#25 Diana Taurasi
As much as Caitlin Clark having already appeared at No. 27, this could be a controversial result as well. There'll be those wondering how their G.O.A.T. could possibly be this low, and equally some feeling she's this high more on history and reputation than current performance at 41 years old. As you'd expect, Taurasi definitely isn't the player she once was. The performance levels aren't there night in and night out anymore, and she tends to miss multiple games due to injury or play through them looking only half-fit. The shooting efficiency isn't as scary as it once was, and the less said about the defense the better. But she can still light up the scoreboard on the right night, is still a gifted passer and emotional leader for the Mercury, and her ability to get to the free-throw line as a jump shooter remains extraordinary. She averaged 16 points per game last season at 41 years old. If our panel gave her credit for former glories, maybe she's earned it.
#24 Jordin Canada
Oh what a difference a jump shot can make. Seattle pretty much gave up on Canada after four years, and even last season she was playing on the veteran minimum for the Sparks. Then suddenly she was hitting threes at around a league average percentage, on meaningful volume, and everyone remembered how good she was at everything else. She's always had pretty much everything else a point guard needs, combining quickness and distribution with a solid penetration game and thoroughly annoying defense. It was just let down by defenders being able to sag off and let her shoot. Hitting threes makes everything else easier, both for Canada and her team. Now in Atlanta with star teammates on the wing alongside her, she needs to show that one season of shooting wasn't a fluke and she'll cement her place as one of the best point guards in the league.
#23 Ezi Magbegor
The first Storm player to appear on our list - they were the only franchise not to have a single player in the 50-26 range - this ranking shows how highly regarded the 'forgotten' member of Seattle's reloaded roster already is. Still only 24 years old, even though it feels like she's been around forever, Magbegor continues to grow as an interior presence on the defensive end and an increasingly versatile offensive weapon. Her minutes, scoring and rebounding averages have increased every season she's been in the league as the cast of characters around her and Jewell Loyd in Seattle has often been in flux. Now she'll have to fit in with new stars again, but our panel isn't anticipating too many difficulties. Adding a more frequent 3-point shot to her arsenal last year makes it even more straightforward to play Magbegor alongside anyone, and there are four genuine star threats you have to worry about when you face the Storm.
#22 Kelsey Mitchell
This may not be the #22 many people will be turning up to see in Indiana Fever games, but it won't take Kelsey Mitchell long to introduce herself. Toiling away without much help on universally bad teams in Indiana since 2018, Mitchell has just kept proving over and over again that she can score on anyone. A career 37% shooter from three, often creating those shots herself off the dribble when defenses are focused on her, she's been the primary bright spot on several of those near-unwatchable Fever teams. Last year, despite the arrival of Aliyah Boston, not an awful lot changed for Mitchell. The shooting volume remained similarly high, the accuracy was exceptional from deep, and she even made her first all-star appearance. The question now is how well everything will fit together with Caitlin Clark added to the mix. Clark isn't used to playing with so many exceptional talents, and both she and Mitchell like to have the ball in their hands a lot. In an ideal world, everyone opens up the court for each other and life becomes easier for all of them. But it could take a while, and defensively a Clark/Mitchell backcourt looks shaky. It'll be fascinating to see where they all are in a year's time.
#21 Allisha Gray
Long underappreciated, Gray pushed her way out of Dallas after six very good years and flourished even further last season in Atlanta. An excellent two-way wing who can produce offensively both on and off the ball, she's an easy fit on any team and took her scoring average up to 17 points per game last year, making her first all-star appearance. She and Rhyne Howard form a scary tandem on the wing for the Dream, and the question now is whether they can combine with the veteran additions in Atlanta to take the team to the next level and genuinely contend.
#20 Rhyne Howard
And here's the other half of that dangerous Dream pairing, right next to her teammate. There was very little between them in the voting, but Howard may be slightly higher because at 24 years old she still has so much room to grow (whereas Gray is 29 and likely the finished article). Howard can already score from anywhere and fills the box score with rebounds, assists and steals as well, her all-court game and explosive stretches making her an all-star in both her WNBA seasons so far. Her efficiency does need to improve, with 39% from the field and 35% from three last season both an improvement on her rookie year, but still not good enough for someone with her talent. There are also times when she settles for the three too much when the opportunity is there to hurt opponents in other ways. But she has time. Her ceiling remains exceptionally high.
#19 Brionna Jones
When they need it, our panel have good memories. Jones missed most of the 2023 season due to a ruptured Achilles, forcing Connecticut to reshape themselves without her. But for several seasons, Jones had proven what a force she could be in the paint for the Sun. A skilled and efficient finisher inside, and a strong defensive presence at the other end, Jones emerged after three seasons of virtual anonymity to begin her WNBA career. In the COVID-enforced bubble season in 2020, with space opened up by Jonquel Jones sitting out, Brionna stepped forward and showed she could produce as a starting-caliber center in the WNBA. She's only reinforced that impression in the years since, making a couple of all-star appearances and then looking good again last year before the injury struck. Reports coming out of Connecticut suggest she's expected to be good to go for 2024, and our panel clearly expects her to recover fully from the injury. If she's healthy for the entire season, there's every chance she'll fully deserve her ranking.
#18 DeWanna Bonner
Teammates find themselves ranked alongside each other again, with Bonner narrowly edging ahead of Jones on the list. When Jones got hurt last year there were some fears about how the Sun would cope without one of their stars, but ultimately they barely missed a beat. A huge part of that was Bonner stepping up to have one of the best seasons of her career at 35 years old, taking on more of the offensive load while handling bigger players on the defensive end. Her efficiency was good last year despite those weights, finishing above her career averages, and she's cut out many of the heaves from deep beyond the 3-point line to help with that. She reportedly contemplated retirement in the offseason, and then flirted with several other teams as a free agent, but ultimately returned to Connecticut for another swing at winning with the Sun. They'll be delighted to have her back.
#17 Kahleah Copper
Please bear in mind, we're into the midst of the WNBA's crop of real stars at this point, splitting infinitesimal hairs between exceptional talents. They're all great. That said, Copper might have a case to argue that 17th is a little low. It took her several years to develop in the WNBA but she's another player who took a giant leap in 2020's bubble season, emerging as a true star talent who's only gone from strength to strength ever since. An elite wing scorer with a lightning first step who's also taken her perimeter shooting to exceptional levels in recent years, Copper has become one of the most dangerous offensive weapons in the league. She cost Phoenix a couple of good players, the No. 3 overall pick in this year's draft and a 2026 first-round pick to prise her away from Chicago this offseason, who were only trading her because she asked out. Now playing off multiple veteran stars it'll be interesting to see how the pieces all fit together in Phoenix, and where Copper finds herself in the pecking order. Expect it to be pretty damn high.
#16 Skylar Diggins-Smith
One of the more interesting questions when we set up this exercise was where a player like Diggins-Smith would land. Where do you rank a player who was exceptional when we last saw her, finishing top-10 in MVP voting in four of her last five seasons and on All-WNBA teams in all five of them, but who just had her second child and missed an entire year, and will turn 34 during the upcoming season? Turns out you rank her pretty highly, but with a tiny hint of "prove it to us again" keeping her out of the top 15. Even while her relationship with the Mercury was disintegrating back in 2022, Diggins-Smith was the Mercury's best player and one of the best guards in the league, scoring on all levels and running the offense very effectively. She's also become a much better defender than she was in her early days in the league. She looked pretty much back to her regular levels in Seattle's opening preseason game (evidence our panel didn't have when casting their votes, of course), which is a good sign for her performance in 2024. How the Storm manage to mesh is going to be one of this year's most intriguing WNBA storylines, and Diggins-Smith will be a huge part of that. Of course, she may not particularly appreciate being ranked third on her own team...
#15 Brittney Griner
This was another somewhat tricky ranking, given the obvious turmoil in Griner's life in recent years and just how bad the Mercury were last season. Griner is clearly a generational talent, a physical specimen the women's game has essentially never seen, capable of dunking within the flow of a game and with great touch on all her offensive moves. But there's always been a sense that any team with Griner should be a contender almost automatically, regardless of her level of support, and that's never quite been the case. She came into the league as a destructive game-changing defensive force even before considering her offense, but that has faded somewhat as her career has gone on and opponents have adapted. Her rebounding has also always seemed less effective than it ought to be considering her size and athleticism. But this is all a matter of finding minor issues with a major talent. Griner returned last year after everything she'd been through in Russia and wasn't quite her old self, but was impressively close. Surrounded by more star talent this year in Phoenix and further removed from her overseas ordeal, our panel expects her to be great again.
#14 Sabrina Ionescu
After a rookie season ruined by injury and a rocky second year on a patchwork Liberty squad, Ionescu has started to come into her own as a WNBA talent in the last two seasons. We're now starting to see the exceptional offensive player that electrified crowds in college, shooting nearly 45% from 3-point range last season and still ranking seventh in the league in assists per game, despite much of the ballhandling and distribution responsibilities being moved to Courtney Vandersloot. Most of the highlights you'll see of Ionescu will be flame throwing from deep, but she has enough of an off-the-dribble game to keep defenses honest and wonderful vision as a passer. This is not a player who's purely out there to throw up shots every time she touches the ball, especially now that an array of stars has been added around her. Significant questions still surround her defense, which might well be what's kept her out of our panel's top 10 and the lowest-ranked player who made an All-WNBA team last year. With Las Vegas as their most glaring rival for the foreseeable future, the Liberty will want Ionescu on the floor but have to find ways to slow down the opposing guards.
#13 Kelsey Plum
Talking of those Aces guards, here's the first to appear on our list, and the first of Las Vegas's star names. She may have gotten the nod ahead of Ionescu because she's been performing at top-end levels a little longer - three consecutive years of at least 39% from behind the arc on high volume - and has those two championship rings on her fingers (or will once they have the second ceremony next week). Plum has also worked hard to raise her defensive levels, and hasn't flinched at the developing talent around her taking away some of her spotlight. Her shot attempts went down a little last season but it was still the second-highest average of her WNBA career, so she's hardly having to take a backseat. Like Ionescu, Plum's known for her ability to fill it up from deep, but has a creative game off the dribble as well and does her fair share of running the offense for the best team in the league. To some extent, 2023 was a small step back for her individually, with her scoring average coming down 1.5 points and going from first-team All-WNBA to not appearing on either squad. That likely came from voters feeling like they had to choose between all the Las Vegas talents, and her teammates having such good years. As her ranking here shows, our voters didn't think she dropped off much, and don't expect her to fall in 2024 either.
#12 Chelsea Gray
Yet again teammates find themselves next to each other on our list (I promise this is just how they landed in the voting). Gray's 31 years old now but seems to be ageing like a fine wine, pushing her performances to an even higher level in recent years. She hits highlight reels for her flashy and creative passing but there are plenty of basic ones as well, organising the Aces and getting the ball exactly where it needs to be. Beyond that, Gray has become one of the league's absolute crunch-time killers. A player who wants the ball in her hands when the game is on the line and who repeatedly steps up to hit the big shot. She's been fourth in field-goal attempts on the Aces in both their championship seasons, but that's because she's happy to sit back and facilitate in lots of games for the first 35 minutes or so. When it comes to the crunch she's much more likely to call her own number, and no one minds considering how often she answers that call.
#11 Satou Sabally
To be fair to our panel, much of our voting was completed before the Wings admitted in late April that Sabally's shoulder injury was serious enough that she's not expected to return this season until after the Olympic break. The Wings only play 15 of their 40 regular season games after the break, so I have to assume that if the severity of her injury was common knowledge before voting began, she would not be this high. Availability has been the primary issue holding back Sabally's entire WNBA career, with each of her first three seasons limited by various issues before her explosive breakout in 2023. This ranking shows just how good she was last year, effective from either forward spot, with her tall frame too big for wings and her mobility and range too much for posts. She's a good rebounder and passer as well, shot 36% from deep last season, and her versatility makes her a particularly useful weapon to fit in on any team. Now they just need her to stay on the court. The injuries have been a blight on her WNBA career, and with Germany developing an increasingly meaningful national team set-up - and hosting both EuroBasket Women and the FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup in coming years - that could draw her away more as well. Hopefully, the WNBA continues to see her flourish for many years to come.
So who made it into the top 10? Who might unexpectedly be kept outside the top five? Join us tomorrow for the next stage in #RankingTheW, as we continue the countdown from 10 to 6.
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Diana Taurasi at #25 😂 I’m all for honoring legends but please. And Sabrina at 14?? Satou below Arike?? Do yall even watch the games?