Hello, hoopheads! The first calendar month of the season is in the books, which means the sixth edition of the WNBA’s in-season tournament, the Commissioner’s Cup, is upon us (it also means I’m going to be extremely obsessed with Mina the Hollower for the foreseeable future). For those who need a refresher course: teams will play each team in their conference once between today and June 17, with the team with the best winning percentage in cup games in each conference then playing for the trophy on June 30. Reaching that title game has been a pretty reliable predictor of postseason success over the first five years of the Cup’s existence, with nine of the 10 teams who played for the title advancing to at least the WNBA semifinals. The only exception was in the first season when the 2021 Seattle Storm lost a single-elimination second-round playoff game in overtime with Breanna Stewart sidelined. The Commissioner’s Cup championship game served as a WNBA Finals preview in both 2023 (New York over Las Vegas) and 2024 (Minnesota over New York), with the loser going on to win the WNBA title on both occasions — perhaps not a very good omen for another New York basketball team facing a team in the postseason Finals that it beat for an in-season tournament title. Both of last year’s title game participants, the Minnesota Lynx and Indiana Fever, saw their postseasons end in the semifinals.
The first game in 2026 Commissioner’s Cup play sees the Seattle Storm (3-6) visit the Dallas Wings (5-3) (8:00 ET, USA Network/local affiliates), who have a chance to win three straight games for the first time since the Joe Biden administration. Granted that’s not all THAT long ago, but three also isn’t that long of a win streak. Dallas comes in having won four out of five since consecutive losses dropped it to 1-2, with its last two wins having come against the last two WNBA champions — at New York last Sunday followed by a home win over Las Vegas on Thursday. The latest win gave Dallas its fifth of the season a full month before it got there in 2025, and there were only five more wins to come during that miserable campaign. Another win tonight would give the Wings their first three-game win streak since August 2024 and would match their longest win streak since a five-game run in July 2023 (their last winning season and playoff appearance).
The WNBA’s most improved team still isn’t one of the best on defense, sitting 11th in defensive rating at Her Hoop Stats, but it hasn’t taken long for the last two No. 1 overall picks, Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd, and the rest of the new-look Wings to become the league’s top-rated offense with a mark of 109 points per 100 possessions. Dallas has scored at a rate of at least 106.2 points per 100 possessions in all six games it’s played against teams other than the Atlanta Dream (perhaps the league’s best defensive team) and had a rating of 116.7 in all five wins. Even in a season seeing an offensive explosion, 116.7+ points per 100 possessions is going to win pretty much every game (teams with a rating of at least 116 are 21-3 so far). Bueckers leads the team averaging 19.4 points per game, but has been overshadowed in the last two games by Fudd breaking out (she had the first two 20-point games of her career against the Liberty and Aces) and former Minnesota Lynx forward Jessica Shepard making history (she had the league’s second 20/20/10 game against the Aces and owns both of this season’s triple-doubles).
Seattle is among the WNBA teams that have declined by the most, which is understandable given that the only notable returning veteran (Ezi Magbegor) hasn’t played this season. The Storm come in having lost four out of six, with all of their wins coming against either the Connecticut Sun (2-1) or Washington Mystics (1-1). Making matters worse, they’ll once again be without center (and the centerpiece of their rebuild) Dominique Malonga as she recovers from her second diagnosed concussion of 2026. Seattle hasn’t been abjectly terrible like, for instance, the Sun, and the Storm can hang their hats on a defense which has the WNBA’s fourth-best rating (99.7 points allowed per 100 possessions). The other end of the floor is a mess, however, as Seattle is 13th out of 15 teams with an offensive rating of just 98.1. Playing without Malonga for the last five games certainly hasn’t helped, but this team isn’t going to be an offensive juggernaut this season unless it imports a new roster. Natisha Hiedeman leads non-Malonga Storm players averaging 13.0 points per game, but has finished five of eight games this season with 11 or fewer points (she scored 19, 20 and 24 in the other three).
Tonight’s second game sees the Minnesota Lynx (6-2) visit the Phoenix Mercury (2-7) (10:00 ET, Peacock/“NBCSN”/local affiliates), and for the second time in a couple weeks, I am perplexed by the Lynx not being a bigger road favorite. The previous time, they were 2.5-point road favorites against the Chicago Sky and won by 10, so take that for it’s worth (nothing). This time, they’re 1.5-point favorites. This is, mind you, a Minnesota team which has the league’s best record, having won a league-best four in a row as well as six of seven since dropping its season opener, while Phoenix comes in having lost five straight and seven of eight. It is also a Lynx team which ranks fifth in offensive rating (105.7 points per 100 possessions) and leads the WNBA in defensive rating (93.2) while Phoenix is ninth on offense (102.2) and 10th on defense (103.6). It’s fair to note that Phoenix’s biggest weakness, defending the perimeter — it’s last in opponent 3-point percentage and allows the highest percentage of opponent scoring from deep — isn’t necessarily one Minnesota is primed to exploit. The Lynx are ninth in 3-point percentage and 12th in percentage of points coming from beyond the arc. There has also been a tendency, so far, for teams riding high to be quickly taken down a peg. I think that probably has something to do with losing being the most reliable motivator in the early stages of a long season. That said, I still think the Lynx are a significantly better team than Phoenix and also that they’re playing better and the Mercury are playing worse than when the Lynx won 88-84 in the desert on May 12, avenging last year’s semifinal loss (Minnesota’s second game, Phoenix’s third).