Hello, hoopheads! The WNBA celebrated its 29th birthday on Sunday night with a game that was at once a throwback to the league’s inaugural game and an instant classic as the Los Angeles Sparks took down the New York Liberty in the league’s 6,792nd game 29 years to the day after the Liberty beat the Sparks in the first. Despite it being a dagger to my Liberty-loving heart, one couldn’t have come up with a better script than the Sparks erasing a 17-point deficit and winning on a 3-pointer at the buzzer by Nneka Ogwumike, the former WNBA MVP and champion with the Sparks who returned to the franchise this offseason after leaving the team that drafted her and shepherding the players through the most important period in league history as WNBPA President. That Ogwumike even spent two of her seasons away from Los Angeles will always look to me like the part of her career stats page that reflects her work in getting the players paid (closer to) what they’re worth. Those seasons in Seattle coincide with the period when Ogwumike and essentially all of the W’s other veteran players were coordinating their contracts to end at the same time as the old CBA, which not only gave them significant leverage in negotiations but allowed for the complete reorganization of the league’s salary structure without having to worry about reworking 120 existing veteran contracts. That gambit and Ogwumike’s leadership paid off in spades, of course, as the $950,000 salary that Ogwumike is due for this season is more than double what she was paid for the two years she spent with the Storm ($399,500 total). It was truly fitting that a night which saw the league celebrating not only where it’s been, but where it’s going, ended with Madame President authoring a moment that will remain a staple in WNBA highlight reels if we’re all still here celebrating season 60 in 2056. Even if Bestie will still be mad about it.
Elsewhere on Sunday, the Washington Mystic Babies proved that they are the last team you want coming into your gym when you have even a share of the WNBA’s longest win streak, backing up Friday night’s three-point win in Brooklyn with an even more stunning 84-79 win at Minnesota. I say that not only because the Lynx have been the league’s best team so far while the Libs have only been one of the best, but because the Mystics’ valiant effort looked pretty much dead to me after a sequence which saw the Lynx get three offensive rebounds on a possession ending with a layup, then get a steal that led to free throws and a 76-70 advantage with 2:40 to play. If it was an NCAA Tournament game, I would’ve considered saying goodnight to the Mystics on Bluesky. I actually did say “goodnight, Mystics” to Bestie, but the Mystics didn’t hear me, as they responded with a 12-0 run and ended the Lynx’s three-game win streak while handing them just their second loss in 13 games. That win streak was tied with the Atlanta Dream for the longest in the league coming in, giving the Mystics two wins in a row over the team on the league’s longest win streak after snapping the Liberty’s eight-game streak on Friday.
The WNBA’s 30th trip around the sun continues tonight with a four-game slate that includes the Connecticut Sun, although you likely won’t be surprised that my tentative plan is to save them for the end, write a couple sentences about their opponent, say something mean about the Sun and then yearn for their demise. That there are games tonight at all is a sign of the league’s transformation, as Monday has traditionally been a leaguewide rest/travel day, but the W frankly has too many broadcast partners who want exclusive windows for their national broadcasts to be taking a whole night off every week. I don’t think we’ll be seeing all that many leaguewide days off in the future as the schedule and league membership continue expanding.
With none of tonight’s games being all that compelling a matchup, we might as well start with the one that’ll be seen by the most people, in which the Phoenix Mercury (5-12) visit the Indiana Fever (9-7) (7:30 ET, USA Network/local affiliates). The Fever are looking to avoid a third straight loss, having fallen in consecutive games to the Atlanta Dream on Thursday and Saturday while letting them score 221 points and put up offensive ratings of 122.7 and 124.2 points per 100 possessions. Those losses dropped Indiana to 2-5 against teams ahead of it in the standings (0-1 against both Dallas and New York, 1-1 against Golden State and 1-2 against Atlanta), but the Fever are 7-2 against everyone else, so they should be in better shape facing the rudderless Mercury for the next two games and either the Mercury or Sparks five times in the next six. Caitlin Clark finished with 26 points on 11-for-18 from the field on Saturday, but committed 7 turnovers during a miserable second half which saw the Dream outscore Indiana 57-37. The third-year star remains the WNBA’s living Rorschach test, with the blots of ink often seeming to change shape multiple times over the course of a single game. Phoenix snapped a four-game skid on Saturday in a 20-point win over Seattle, but the Mercury have lost 12 straight to teams currently at or above .500 (two-thirds of the league) since opening the season by throttling the Las Vegas Aces.
The only one of tonight’s four matchups featuring two of the 10 teams currently with .500-or-better records sees the Toronto Tempo (8-8) visit the scorching hot Atlanta Dream (11-4) (7:30 ET, local affiliates/League Pass), who are starting to consistently play like the team that I believe in enough to have picked them to win a title and continue reminding you of it. The Dream’s three-game win streak — their first of the season after four straight win-win-loss cycles to start 2026 — has seen them score at least 100 points in all three games, tying the longest such streak in WNBA history, while Saturday’s win over Indiana featured a franchise-record 113 points. Atlanta is up to 4th in offensive rating at 108.0 points per 100 possessions according to Her Hoop Stats, while its defense rose from 4th to 2nd at 100.3 points allowed per 100 possessions following the Liberty and Golden State Valkyries’ rough outings on defense yesterday. The Tempo bore the full brunt of the Dream at both ends of the floor in the first game of Atlanta’s win streak, a 102-77 rout north of the border in which the Dream posted a silly 89-52 margin from the second through fourth quarters. With this meeting shifting to Atlanta, the Tempo having fallen to dead last in defensive rating — behind even the Sun! — at 109.1 points allowed per 100 possessions and set to be without both Kiki Rice (ankle) and top scorer Brittney Sykes (foot) again, it could be a long night.
In the final game of the night, the Dallas Wings (10-6) visit the Seattle Storm (3-14) (10:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass) with a chance to surpass last season’s win total five games before the halfway point of the season. The Wings matched the 2025 squad’s 10 wins by taking a 93-92 thriller against the Chicago Sky on Saturday, although they probably would’ve been looking at a second straight loss and fourth in six games if not for a very bad foul call against Chicago in the final seconds. As it stands, Dallas is 3-3 since winning four straight and six of seven, having alternated the wins and losses over this .500 stretch while also going 3-0 at home and 0-3 on the road. Seattle has lost 10 straight, tying the longest streak in franchise history. The 2023 Storm also lost 10 in a row during the 2023 season en route to an 11-29 (.275) finish (only the 2000 expansion Storm were worse). But hey, at least the Storm aren’t the Connecticut Sun (2-15), who host the Chicago Sky (4-11) (7:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass). I hope Sky rookie Sydney Taylor, who has 72 points in her last 3 games (24 points per game), singlehandedly outscores the Sun while they drop an eighth straight and inch closer to not existing anymore. I told you I was gonna be mean to the Sun. Some things never change.