Hello, hoopheads! The WNBA’s seen its share of bizarre moments over the course of its first three decades — there were dildos being thrown on courts by crypto idiots 11 months or so ago — but not even the most imaginative fanfic author could’ve foreseen the W’s 30th season solving an iconic mystery from a movie released the year of the inaugural campaign. That’s what happened yesterday, however, and now it will always be known that the answer to Austin Powers’ famous question, “who throws a shoe?” is, in fact, Betnijah Laney-Hamilton. The Occam’s Razor take on shoegate the Random Task Affair is that Laney-Hamilton, frustrated with being relegated to the bench for the fourth quarter of another terrible outing for her individually and for the team, momentarily lost her mind and committed a Mrs. Doubtfire-esque run-by shoeing. The biggest reason I have to doubt that explanation is it appeared to be a fairly long-distance shot and Laney-Hamilton is 4-for-18 from the field (1-for-10 from deep) over her last six appearances, during which time she’s scored 9 points in 89 minutes, with 10 turnovers and a -49 rating while the team has gone 1-5. Laney-Hamilton did make a couple shots to snap her three-game pointless/reboundless streak, but she’s been so erratic lately that it’s hard to imagine her hitting Marina Mabrey square in the back from distance on purpose. The most generous read I can come up with for BLH is that she tried harder to get Jonquel Jones’ shoe back to her than the Liberty (13-11) tried over the first 30 minutes of an embarrassing and all too familiar loss. Even in that scenario, Laney-Hamilton made one of the more bizarre decisions you’ll ever see on a basketball court bench, one I’ve certainly never seen in the countless times players have lost shoes while hooping, Whatever was going through her head, it may well have cost the Liberty the game, not that they deserved to win it anyway. I suppose the upside of Laney-Hamilton’s chicanery sucking up all the oxygen in the room is that we were spared yet another round of “Breanna Stewart made it clear that this effort was unacceptable” stories, because I’m frankly tired of reading them. It’s time for the Liberty to either put forth their best effort for 40 minutes on a consistent basis or shut the fuck up about it. The excuses are both tired and exhausting.
The last game last night provided the only home loss on the four-game slate, as the reigning WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces (17-7) suffered their second one-sided loss to the Indiana Fever (14-9) in an eight-day span (not seven days, as was stated on the postgame, as both games were on Sundays…). Indiana improved to 4-5 against teams who currently have winning records, and unlike the previous win over Las Vegas, this one featured A’ja Wilson and Caitlin Clark playing for their respective teams. It was also Las Vegas’ third 30-point loss this season, which leads the league and is within two of tying the single-season WNBA record. Like the Liberty’s ultimately superficial rally in a clunker, getting run off the floor is rather familiar for the Aces, who lost four games by 25+ points last season before eventually going nuclear hot and winning the WNBA title. No other WNBA champ had ever lost more than two games by 25+ points during the regular season, and particularly given that the Aces are in much better shape than they were this time a year ago (currently a half-game out of first place), I see no reason to start worrying about their penchant for getting blown out not. It was just pretty incredible to see them have an 82-point swing in results from the first half of a back-to-back (48-point win) to the second half (34-point loss).
Tonight’s schedule features a pair of games, the first of which has the potential to incite a vibe shift when the Los Angeles Sparks (10-11) visit the Atlanta Dream (13-10) (7:00 ET, USA Network/local affiliates). If you processed the records that I just showed you, you already know that the Sparks can pull even with the Dream in the loss column with a win, which would also get Los Angeles to the halfway point of its season at .500 despite the 2026 feeling quite a bit more bad than good for the Sparks so far. That came to a head yesterday afternoon with the firing of former Utah Star(zz?) and Cleveland Rocker Raegan Pebley as general manager in the midst of her third season in the position. A third straight win would also pull the Sparks within a half-game of the Washington Mystics (11-10), who currently sit in the fateful No. 8 spot in the standings, and they could even do it in style with a third straight 100-point performance to tie a WNBA record most recently tied by the Dream a couple weeks back. All of that is to say that even with Cameron Brink and Kelsey Plum still sidelined, even as the owners of the league’s worst defense and even having been embarrassed during a recent losing streak that included the most porous two-game span in WNBA history, I have to say that the Sparks have earned a passing grade for the first half by keeping themselves in the thick of the playoff race. They, like the Aces, are much better off than they were a year ago, when they went 15-9 after a 6-14 start. If LA repeats that finish, it’ll be in the playoffs at 24-20 and I’d be willing to bet not as the No. 8 seed.
Atlanta, on the other hand, has lost six of seven after getting torched by the Portland Fire (10-13) at home on Saturday while giving up 60% from the field, 102 points and an offensive rating of 122.9 points per 100 possessions according to Her Hoop Stats to a Fire team sitting 12th in field goal percentage (43.1%). The Dream were without Angel Reese, who’s questionable again with a right leg injury, as well as Brionna Jones, who’s also questionable to make her highly anticipated season debut due to a right knee injury (in her case, being listed as questionable the night before the last two games has been a step in the right direction). Shorthanded or not, the Dream had an effort problem much like the Liberty’s in that Saturday loss, while their generally reliable defense allowed its second rating over 120 points per 100 possessions in the last five games (out of four all season) and third rating over 105 in that span (out of eight all season). The last thing that Atlanta needs to see is its defense slipping into a slump after the Dream snapped a seven-game streak of offensive ratings under 105 points per 100 possessions in Saturday’s loss. The good news for both my favorite team (the Liberty, of course) and my picks to win it all (the Dream) is that they’ve got about as much season in front of them as behind them in which to figure things out, and it’s much more important how you’re playing at the end than in the middle. I’m also of the belief that the three-week FIBA World Cup break in September, after which there’s about a week of regular-season play, will essentially serve as a soft reset to the season and send us into the postseason knowing almost nothing with certainty. Fun! But while it might not matter what happens in this game in the long run, I think Atlanta needs the win to keep the vibes from turning pretty negative in the short term.
Tonight’s second game could have been one of the juiciest thrashings on the schedule, but Napheesa Collier won’t be making her season debut when the Phoenix Mercury (8-16) visit the Minnesota Lynx (17-6) (9:00 ET, Peacock/NBCSN/local affiliates). This is, of course, a rematch of the 2025 semifinal series in which Collier suffered the second of the ankle injuries she had surgically repaired in the offseason and has been rehabbing thus far in 2026, while the Lynx’s wire-to-wire lead in the regular-season standings went up in flames in four games. It’ll probably still be a thrashing with Phee on the sideline. The first-place Lynx, who held off the Liberty on Saturday, are 15-4 since a 2-2 start and the WNBA team least susceptible to low-effort games (hello, all-time WNBA coaching wins leader Cheryl Reeve!). The Mercury, on the other hand, are just plain bad. They were on the wrong end of the most lopsided win in Aces history on Saturday (by a 106-58 margin) and have lost three in a row after briefly igniting hopes they could get back into the playoff race with three straight wins. That streak was, fittingly, a mirage in the desert for a Mercury team currently sitting 11th in offensive rating (100.7 points per 100 possessions) and 12th in defensive rating (106.1 opponent points per 100 possessions) at Her Hoop Stats. Minnesota is third (108.8) and first (96.8) on offense and defense, respectively, and while it doesn’t need extra motivation to show up and take care of business, it’s got plenty any time Alyssa Thomas and the Mercury are across the floor. It’s just a shame that Phee won’t get the chance to exact her revenge personally, but I suspect that’s in part a result of Reeve being too smart to let Phee make her return in an environment that has the potential to be pretty volatile.