WNBA Roundup, June 10: First Quarter Report Card

Hello, hoopheads! With the first quarter of the season behind not only the league, but 14 of 15 individual teams after a couple more played their 11th games last night, and tonight’s games not being the greatest, it feels like a great time to take stock of what’s happened so far and issue my first quarterly report card. In other words, strap in for a long one, because this is gonna take a while. These grades are 100% subjective and as much about my expectations and the team’s vibes as wins and losses. Otherwise it would just be the standings. Winning certainly doesn’t hurt, though. Since I’m still committed to my mission to address all 330 regular-season games, we’ll be starting off with brief previews of tonight’s two games that incorporate my first-quarter judgments of the four teams in question, then heading through the rest of the league in alphabetical order. This also means we get to start with my least favorite team, but the good news is they’re literally the worst in addition to being figuratively the worst.

The Sun have lost three straight and six of their last seven games, with the only win in that span coming against a Sparks team on the second night of a back-to-back, 3,000 miles from home and without Kelsey Plum. Connecticut’s final season before becoming the Houston Fauxmets (or Comets, if you insist on calling them by their fraudulent name) might go down as one of the worst in league history, as the Sun’s net rating of -14.6 points per 100 possessions would be the fifth-worst ever according to Her Hoop Stats. They own the league’s worst offense (91.3 points per 100 possessions), its 12th-rated defense (105.8 points per 100 possessions) and are dead last in both effective field goal percentage (45.3%) and opponent effective field goal percentage (53.9%). I’ve loved every second of it.

Toronto is graded on a curve not only because it’s an expansion team, but one in a season with another expansion team and immediately after the Golden State Valkyries raised the bar to a level that is perhaps not fair for other expansion teams to have to live up to. That said, Toronto is doing its best 2025 Golden State impression so far and would be the No. 8 seed in the playoffs if they started today. Toronto is seventh in net rating at Her Hoop Stats, one of eight teams with a positive mark and just ahead of the Indiana Fever. The defense is pretty bad (14th in the WNBA allowing 106.4 opponent points per 100 possessions), but the offense is pretty good (106.9 points per 100 possessions, tied for 4th) and that means their games tend to be fun to watch. They’ve also made some fun expansion team history, with Brittney Sykes and Marina Mabrey becoming the first expansion duo to score 30 points in a game and Nyara Sabally joining them in a different game to form the first expansion trio to score 20. That’s all more than enough to earn an A grade, even if the Tempo weren’t also winning more games than they aren’t.

The Sparks were one of the WNBA’s best teams over the second half of last season, and to hear them tell it, their offseason moves — most notably trading budding star Rickea Jackson for Ariel Atkins and signing former Sparks legend Nneka Ogwumike — were going to harness the best aspects of that half-season (an incredibly potent offense) and improve the 2025 team’s glaring flaw (awful defense). Judging by that standard, I really don’t think there’s any other grade to give them, because the Sparks are dead fucking last in the WNBA allowing 109.4 points per 100 possessions. That’s a full three more points than the Tempo in 14th, and while the changes in officiating have led to a league-wide offensive explosion, it’s still worth noting that it would be the highest mark over a complete non-Wubble season in league history (Indiana gave up 110.1 points per 100 possessions in a 22-game Wubble season). The offense is still incredibly efficient when Plum is on the floor, and this isn’t anything against Atkins or Ogwumike personally, but LA basically put itself in a pass/fail scenario by messing with something that worked in the hopes of fixing something that didn’t, and it sure hasn’t passed the test yet.

Seattle’s been almost as bad as Connecticut on the the court, and is the only team other than the Sparks to lose to the Sun so far. There’s no delusion about the fact that the Storm are in the beginning stages of a rebuild, but this grade isn’t about the on-court results. This F is about the lack of visible progress in that rebuild so far. I’m still very high on both Awa Fam and Dominique Malonga, who the Storm took in the top-three of the last two WNBA drafts and neither of whom can legally by a drink yet in the U.S., but they’ve only spent about 13.5 minutes on the court together so far according to WNBA dot com’s lineup data, so it’s really impossible to say how they fit or if they’re even playable together. That’s largely a result of Fam missing the start of the season while finishing up her season in her native Spain while Malonga missed eight games due to a concussion, but it doesn’t change the lack of visible progress. Additionally, while it’s still very early in her career, 2026 first-round pick Flau’jae Johnson (acquired in a draft-night trade with the Golden State Valkyries) has hit just 31.9% from the field, 34.9% inside the arc and 27.6% from deep so far while averaging almost as many turnovers (2.2) as assists (2.4). Between the lack of progress in the youth movement and the team just being a miserable watch, with the 14th-ranked offense and 8th-ranked defense in the WNBA, the only other grade I could give is incomplete, and that would just be me overcompensating for the fact that we haven’t seen Fam and Malonga play much together.

Atlanta’s on-court results are worthy of an A in a vacuum, but the Dream have had to grind things out on the offensive end a bit more than they’d like (or I’d like, as someone who picked the Dream to win a title). Atlanta’s 8th in the WNBA in offensive rating (104.1 points per 100 possessions) according to Her Hoop Stats and 2nd in defensive rating (96.9 points allowed per 100 possessions), good for the 3rd-best net rating (+7.2, tied with Las Vegas), and tied for the second-best record in the league. Still, a coach like Karl Smesko, known as an offensive guru, can’t love that his team is 11th in 3-point percentage or 8th in effective field goal percentage. Getting Brionna Jones back on the floor will help, but the Dream could also really use more makes from deep from Allisha Gray (32.8%, her lowest since 2018 and down from 38.4% last year) and Naz Hillmon (25.5%, down from 32.1% last year). Hillmon, who won Sixth Player of the Year in 2025 despite spending the final third of the season as a starter, might benefit from a move back to the bench when Jones is ready to go, or even if rookie Madina Okot can handle a heavier load. Hillmon’s averaging 9.1 points per game and making 41.9% from the field while starting every game this season and put up very similar numbers in her 17 starts last year (9.6, 42.9% and 28.4%), but she was much more efficient in the sixth-player role, still averaging 8.0 points despite playing about 10 fewer minutes per game and making 49.4% from the field and 35.4% from deep as a reserve in 2025. 

The Sky haven’t improved all that much from the last two miserable seasons as far as wins and losses are concerned, and I am of the belief that trading Angel Reese to the Dream is going to haunt the franchise for many years to come, but I think the Sky are worthy of leniency in grading for a couple of reasons. First of all, while they’ve been losing games, they’ve generally been competitive, and last year’s team often wasn’t (particularly when the hypercompetitive Reese missed time). I think that’s a meaningful and tangible improvement. Secondly, there’s not much they can do about the fact that Rickea Jackson tore her ACL, Azurá Stevens missed the start of the season, and neither DiJonai Carrington nor Courtney Vandersloot has played yet. I’m not sure Chicago really could’ve done much better than it has with the hand it’s been dealt.

The Wings are the WNBA’s most improved team by a wide margin, but took it on the chin in last night’s 100-76 loss in Minnesota. That was a potent reminder that Dallas still has a lot of work to do to reach the WNBA’s top tier, but the Wings have climbed out of the doldrums and are among the most consistently entertaining watches across the W thanks to the league’s 4th-ranked offense. Paige Bueckers is about as popular as a WNBA player gets and headlines a team full of likable characters, perhaps most notably emergent star Jessica Shepard, who’s had both of the the triple-doubles in the league so far this season, including the league’s second-ever 20/20/10 game. No need to overthink this one. Keep up the good work, Wings.

The Valkyries don’t get to be graded on the expansion team curve anymore, but I did bump them up a bit from where they’d be if Iliana Rupert was available and these were their results. There’s no doubt that not having their presumptive starting center and one floor-stretcher at that position throws a wrench into coach Natalie Nakase’s plan on offense, but the Valkyries are actually 3rd in offensive rating and 2nd in the league in 3-point percentage (37.9%) despite Rupert’s absence forcing them to start a non-scorer in Kiah Stokes (9th on the team in points despite being 3rd in minutes). Imagine where their offensive rating might be if they weren’t shooting so poorly inside the arc (43.3%, worst in the league)! The real problem is that Golden State’s defense hasn’t been living up to its reputation of late. The Valks are 7th in defensive rating and have given up six straight offensive ratings in the triple-digits after keeping three of their first six opponents under 90 points per 100 possessions. If that trend continues, the results are almost guaranteed to deteriorate.

I’m not the one who decided the Fever were title contenders either last year (when they finished 6th, despite eventually making the semifinals and almost beating the Aces) or this year (when they’re tied with an expansion team for 7th and behind that expansion team in net rating). That would be the Caitlin Clark Industrial Complex, which includes oddsmakers who can’t afford to price Indiana realistically because people will bet on her success in droves whether or not Indiana is actually one of the WNBA’s best teams. The Fever, however, haven’t shied away from championship expectations. If they want to talk about winning a title, they should be graded as such, and this is nowhere close to a title contender so far. Indiana is 9th in offensive rating (101.4 points per 100 possessions), which is supposed to be the end of the floor that makes it elite, and 6th in defensive rating (101.2 opponent points per 100 possessions). It would be the No. 7 seed in the playoffs if they started today, winning a tiebreaker with, again, an expansion team, to avoid the No. 8 seed. The Fever are 0-5 when allowing opponents to score at a rate higher than 96.2 points per 100 possessions (allowed ratings of 101.2 or higher in all of those games). Having to hold opponents to an offensive rating under 100 to have a chance to win is just a major problem in a league which has seen the other 14 teams post triple-digit offensive ratings 58% of the time this season. If I felt I could give a team with a winning record a straight up F, I would. D- is gonna have to do and the Fever have to do better if they want to be taken seriously.

The Aces would have gotten an A+ if they were 9-2, having not let the Mercury catch them napping on Ring Day, or even if they’d kept that game from being a humiliating home-court rout (although it was, in its way, a fitting tribute to the 2025 champs). Vegas has been every bit the dynastic force we’ve come to expect while going 8-2 since then, driven by the best player in WNBA history, A’ja Wilson, who is somehow quietly leading the league with 25.9 points per game while ranking 4th with 9.6 rebounds per game. The GOAT’s reeled off 9 straight 20-point games, the second-longest streak of her career and quickly climbing the all-time list, which she leads with 20 straight regular-season 20-point games spanning 2023 and 2024. Jackie Young has also been scorching hot recently after a brief spell in which she went scoreless twice in a row while playing “with a heavy heart,” by her own description. They’re 2nd in offensive rating (107.8 points per 100 possessions), 4th in defensive rating (100.6 points allowed per 100 possessions) and tied for 3rd in net rating (+7.2 points per 100 possessions), although there’s all but a three-way tie for 2nd between the Aces and Dream at +7.2 and the New York Liberty at +7.3. Don’t be one of the people who looks up in October and realizes they slept on this team.

The Lynx have been so good — with the WNBA’s best offensive rating (109.8 points per 100 possessions), defensive rating (93.3 points allowed per 100 possessions) and a net rating (+16.5 points per 100 possessions) that would be the best since the Houston Comets had a +17.3 rating in 2000 (the only one better was the Comets’ mark of +17.4 in 1998) — that I actually don’t think it’s a safe assumption that Napheesa Collier’s return makes this team better. I know that sounds insane, and that she’s the second-best player in the league when healthy, but I just told you this team is playing like the third-best team in WNBA history. They’re essentially playing perfect basketball, so how much better can I assume Phee makes them? This is obviously not a real problem, but I don’t think I’m wrong, and that’s a testament to what Minnesota has done so far. Rookie of the Year Olivia Miles will not make me look silly for calling her that for months before it becomes official, Natasha Howard is going to be an All-Star to make my two-game overreaction come true, and the closest I can come to saying anything negative is there’s literally nowhere to go but down. Last season’s Lynx also provided a lesson in the danger of peaking too soon, but I don’t think the antidote to that is intentionally playing worse at the start.

My beloved Liberty had one of the hottest four-game offensive starts in league history, then spent a three-game skid in the weeds on that end of the floor while the defense was mediocre throughout all of those early games, but they’ve been starting to look like the title contender the oddsmakers (and their talent level) pegged them to be during a five-game win streak. That streak will be put to the test tomorrow night in Atlanta in a game likely to determine which Eastern Conference team faces Minnesota for the Commissioner’s Cup, but I think I was a bit harsh, if anything, on a team with the league’s second-best net rating (+7.3 points per 100 possessions) and third-best defensive rating (99.0 points allowed per 100 possessions), particularly given that Sabrina Ionescu has only played one game and several other players missed time early. That the Libs are 6th in offensive rating with a mark of 106.3 points per 100 possessions, which would’ve been the league’s 2nd-best last year (when they were 3rd at 104.7) really just speaks to the offensive explosion I mentioned above. It also makes the fact that the Liberty have held five of their last six opponents to offensive ratings of 96.4 or worse that much more impressive.

Phoenix has been better over the last three games after getting embarrassed in a 34-point home loss to the Minnesota Lynx, winning the first two of those games to briefly tease an Aces-like turnaround after a Lynx beatdown before falling in a hard-fought game last night in Ballhalla. Point guard Monique Akoa Makani’s return to the lineup after missing the first seven games has definitely helped, particularly over these last few games as she’s gotten up to game speed, but this is still a team that went to last year’s Finals and it looks like there won’t be much drama in the outcome of my preseason prediction it will miss this year’s playoffs. Phoenix is 11th at both ends of the floor and thus, unsurprisingly, 11th in net rating, and it’s hard to come up with bright spots in the first portion of the season. I suppose 28-year old rookie Jovana Nogic still qualifies, but she’s 0-for-10 from deep over the last three games after making 27 of her first 53 attempts in the WNBA (50.9%). That’s brought her down to 42.9% for the season, which is still good on 4.8 attempts per game, but it’s fair to wonder where her percentage will settle with regression to the mean seeming to have begun setting in.

The Fire, like the Tempo, are being graded on the expansion team curve, and by those standards they’re doing a pretty good job despite dropping four out of the last five games and being 12th in offensive rating (99.3 points per 100 possessions), 13th in defensive rating (106.3 points allowed per 100 possessions) and 13th in net rating (-7.0 points per 100 possessions). They’ve got an engaged fanbase that clearly loves a team that is competitive and trying interesting things, even if it’s not particularly good yet. I’d like to continue seeing more of Sarah Ashlee Barker, and I’m still not convinced Bridget Carleton is best cast as a team’s No. 1 option although she’s been doing an admirable job, but I think Portland is off to a fine start. I just also expect its record to get significantly worse over the remaining three quarters of the season, because bottom-four at both ends of the floor is a tough way to live.

The Mystics are one of the youngest teams in WNBA history, so it’s not surprising to me that they’re very inconsistent. That is, to my understanding, a hallmark of young people. When they play well, however, it’s not hard to see the long-term vision. At the very least, Sonia Citron, Kiki Iriafen and Shakira Austin look like a trio that can have a whole lot of success if they stay together for the next several years. I’m also not really concerned with this team’s wins and losses, given its youth, but I couldn’t bring myself to go any higher with the grade because I don’t think we’ve seen a whole lot of progress from where the team finished last season. At some point, the Mystics would really do well to find at least one more genuine star among their quartet of first-round picks the last two years other than Citron and Iriafen. It’s far too early to give up on any of those players — Georgia Amoore, Lauren Betts, Angela Dugalić and Cotie McMahon — but none has made anything close to the instant impact of last year’s rookie All-Stars. Dugalić has probably been the best of the four, but has also had the least opportunity to make an impact while getting just 13.3 minutes per game.