WNBA's Race for the Bottom: Lottery or 8th Seed?

We take a detailed look at the battle for 2024's eighth and final WNBA playoff spot, and whether the teams involved should actually want to win the fight

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When the WNBA season paused for the Olympic break there was one glaring split in the standings between the top-five and the rest, a split which was backed up by a gap of over nine points in net rating. On win-loss record Phoenix appeared a solid sixth, with Indiana and Chicago settled in the final two playoff spots below them before a three game gap to the rest. It looked like there was a chance that the eight postseason participants were essentially already decided and the remainder of the season would be a battle for positioning. Since then, things have changed. There's still a clear top-five in the standings (although whether it’s just a top-five in performance level is now rather more debatable), but a charge from Indiana and mediocre play from Phoenix has created a two-team group at the next tier. Meanwhile, Chicago have gone backwards and the chasing pack has gotten healthier and won a few games apiece, creating a real contest for that final playoff spot. Or is the true contest a chase to avoid it? Let's take a closer look at the race for the bottom - whether that's for the bottom of the standings, or the bottom of the playoff spots, is in the eye of the beholder.

Firstly, I want to make it clear that I am in no way suggesting that players or coaches are going out on the court trying to lose. I fully believe that every player is doing their best to win games every time they play. Maybe occasionally a coach doesn't play the absolute optimum rotation to win a game that night, but even then it's only because a young or inexperienced player needs minutes to develop, both for their own future and that of their franchise. We haven't even seen much of that yet this year, with most teams still leaving their end-of-the-bench players glued to the end of the bench. Everyone's trying to do their best. When I discuss the positives of losing in the rest of this article, I'm purely talking about the overall future of the franchises, and how they might ultimately benefit more from losses than wins. This element of the argument frequently seems to be lost on people, hence this paragraph. Now let's move on.

The fight for the final playoff spot looks like it now involves four teams. Los Angeles could still theoretically make a late run, but despite a recent upset win over New York they've lost nine of their last ten games so a charge doesn't seem likely. That leaves us with Chicago, Atlanta, Washington and Dallas. The Sky have lost seven in a row, which is how we've ended up in this situation. Meanwhile, Jordin Canada has finally played a stretch of games for the Dream, Washington have won four of five despite Shakira Austin getting hurt again, and the Wings are looking more like their old selves now that Satou Sabally is back on the floor. Two games separate all four in the standings.

Complicating matters further is the fact that these teams' 2025 first-round draft picks are all tied up with each other. Washington owns Atlanta's pick, although only after it passed through Dallas's hands as part of the Allisha Gray trade, then going to the Mystics so that Dallas could draft Stephanie Soares. That one's simple at least. Atlanta gain absolutely nothing by missing this year's playoffs because Washington are getting their pick anyway, so the Dream can happily target 8th without any reservations. Washington, on the other hand, would quite like Atlanta to miss out to enhance their own chances in the lottery. Washington also still hold their own pick, and have made it pretty clear that they're building for the future rather than for right now. So missing the playoffs themselves as well, to have two shots in the lottery, could definitely be more valuable to them than a brief playoff experience.

Chicago and Dallas are a little more complicated. Dallas own swap rights to Chicago's 2025 first-round pick, handed over as one of the many, many pieces James Wade gave away in order to sign-and-trade for Marina Mabrey back in 2023. So whichever of the two teams' picks ends up better, Dallas gets it. Chicago gets the other one. The decision on the swap doesn't have to be made until after the lottery draw is completed. So there is some benefit to Chicago in missing the playoffs. If they finish eighth, they’ll be locked into the No. 5 pick (or No. 6 if Golden State are slotted ahead of them); if they miss the playoffs, it’ll be higher. But because of the swap rights Chicago can't possibly finish with the No. 1 overall, so there is less value to being in the lottery than in a standard situation. Meanwhile for Dallas, they obviously maximize their lottery chances if both they and Chicago miss the playoffs, but would still have a shot in the lottery even if they could grab the final playoff spot. As a team that finished 22-18 last year to earn the No. 4 seed, they may well view themselves as having more of a chance to actually pull off a playoff upset than the other teams we're discussing here. Although the complete lack of effort they appeared to make to re-sign Odyssey Sims after having to release her from her hardship contract appeared to suggest they were accepting this as a lost season.

The WNBA's lottery system also adds an additional level to all of this. The WNBA uses two-year combined standings to decide lottery placement, so it's not just a matter of how many games a team can lose before the end of the season on September 19. However, you do obviously need to miss the playoffs this year to be involved in the lottery (Phoenix currently sit second in the combined standings, for example, but won't be involved in the draw because they've made the playoffs). Los Angeles are five games clear of any of these other teams in the two-year standings, so look virtually locked in for the top spot and a 44.2% chance at the No. 1 pick (assuming draw rules and odds remain the same as in recent years). But Chicago and Washington are in a flat tie at 29-44, Atlanta are a game 'back' at 30-43, and Dallas a game 'behind' that at 31-42. So there are two games separating the four-team group in the regular standings, and two games between them in the lottery standings as well. Obviously, there's additional value to finishing in a lottery position if it comes with better odds of then winning the draw. As it stands right now, Dallas would miss the playoffs but their pick would also have the lowest chance of jumping up to No. 1 in the draw (10.4%). So unless they're going to go on a losing run to improve those odds, they might as well go on a winning run to take a shot in the postseason. If you see what I mean.

Just as a side-note, we also have no official information on how the Golden State Valkyries expansion team could affect any of this. WNBA and NBA history tells us expansion teams tend to be slotted just after the lottery teams in their first college draft, although even that could mean No. 3 (behind the teams actually selected by the lottery draw) or No. 5 (behind all the teams involved). But this isn't something specifically stipulated in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. It seems very unlikely that the Valkyries would be given any odds in the lottery (and incredibly unlikely that they'd just be handed the No. 1 overall pick), but until we have official information it's worth mentioning as part of this conversation.

What chances do any of these teams actually have of making any noise in the playoffs, anyway? It's not guaranteed that the No. 8 seed will be facing New York, but the Liberty have a three-game lead over Connecticut and Minnesota and have won 10 of their last 12, so it certainly seems likely. The four contenders for No. 8 are a combined 1-11 against the Liberty, with only Chicago managing to beat them way back in May. All four teams look rather different from earlier in the season due to health and trades, but it's not like they've turned into world-beaters (or even the third-best team in the league, which is what net rating says Indiana have been since the break). Chicago are 1-8 since the Olympics, while the other three have had moments of promise but are around .500 in games since returning. They look better, but like they'd still need some significant lucky breaks or unlikely performances to beat the best team in the league. The current first-round playoff format also means they wouldn't even be guaranteed a home playoff game, because they could exit 2-0 in the first two games on the road (although that obviously also means that one upset in those games would result in a decider back on their own floor). This is all part of why missing the playoffs could be the favorable outcome - the alternative has a strong possibility of just being two quick losses in Brooklyn. Is that really worth it?

Who's actually the favorite to finish in eighth, regardless of whether it's a good idea or not? ESPN's ‘Playoff Tracker’ currently gives Atlanta a 54% chance to get in, Chicago 37%, and doesn't list the remainder. That seems pretty generous to both right now, considering how close Washington and Dallas have climbed in the standings. Four of Atlanta's seven remaining games are against other teams in this group, so they may still have their destiny in their own hands, but Chicago (three), Washington (three) and Dallas (two) have some games remaining against their close competitors as well. Dallas's path looks the toughest, because they have a two-game road trip to Atlanta and Chicago before closing the season out with five games against New York (twice), Seattle, Indiana and Las Vegas. Unless those teams have locked in their own playoff positions (which doesn't currently look likely), and start resting players as a result, that's a murderer's row of teams to face when you're desperate for results. The other teams we're discussing only have a maximum of three games left against the league's current top-six teams.

For the sake of completeness we should discuss tie-breakers, which may well come into play at the end of all this. The Schedule Grid that you can find on our 2024 Season Summary page at Her Hoop Stats is useful for this, because the first tie-breaker is head-to-head (or head-to-head-to-head, and so on, in a tie between more than two teams). Inevitably, several of these are still to be decided conclusively due to the aforementioned games remaining between the teams, but again it doesn't look good for Dallas. They're 0-3 against Washington, so that one's over; 1-2 vs Chicago, so can at best tie that up; and 1-1 against Atlanta with the decider tomorrow night. The Wings desperately need to go 2-0 against the Dream and Sky this weekend if they want to give themselves a chance. The others are all pretty messy. Atlanta, for example, could still win or lose the tie-breakers against both Washington and Dallas, and tie or lose against Chicago. There are no games between these four teams on the final day of the regular season on September 19, but the penultimate slate of games on September 17 does feature that final Chicago-Atlanta contest. That could easily end up deciding the eighth spot.

However, we started this with the question of whether teams should want that eighth playoff spot. I spent most of last season repeating a mantra that Indiana needed to finish no higher than ninth in the standings, at all costs. Given how that situation played out after they accomplished the feat, I feel pretty vindicated in my position. This year, I'm less adamant. The scales for Indiana were between a couple of playoff games and the top odds in the Caitlin Clark lottery (because of the awful record they were carrying through from their 2022 season). None of the group of four we've discussed are going to have the top odds unless LA do something unlikely, and for all the talent of Paige Bueckers and Kiki Iriafen the prize also isn't as definitively transformative. The top two contenders for that final playoff spot - Atlanta and Chicago - also have zero chance at the No. 1 pick, due to trades. So Atlanta absolutely should be trying to finish eighth, and I could understand if Chicago viewed a playoff experience for their young squad as more valuable than what could easily be only one or two spots in the draft order. But the chances of any of these teams getting past New York are pretty damn small, and their chances of winning a championship in 2024 are microscopic. So if you offered them improved odds of a better pick in 2025 instead of that No. 8 seed and dosed their front offices with truth serum? I think most of them are taking the lottery ping-pong balls.

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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.