WNBA Power Rankings for Each Team Ahead of Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese’s Debut Season

Joseph Zucker@@JosephZuckerFeatured Columnist IVMay 12, 2024WNBA Power Rankings for Each Team Ahead of Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese’s Debut Season0 of 12

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The 2024 WNBA season is going to open as the last two finished, with the Las Vegas Aces firmly positioned as the top team in the league.

The Aces’ three-peat bid is one of many storylines to follow this year, which is perhaps the most anticipated in the WNBA’s history dating back to its original launch in 1997.

You have a star-studded rookie class headlined by Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Cameron Brink and reigning NCAA tournament Most Outstanding Player Kamilla Cardoso. The New York Liberty’s superteam experiment is entering its second year following a WNBA Finals appearance. The Seattle Storm made an aggressive play by signing the two best free agents that actually changed teams.

Based on the surge of interest in women’s basketball, the WNBA is going to be welcoming a lot of new fans into the fold, and there isn’t a better time to take a head-first plunge into the league.

12. Chicago Sky1 of 12

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The Chicago Sky are evidence that it’s better late than never to start a rebuild.

Losing Candace Parker, Courtney Vandersloot and Allie Quigley in the same offseason should’ve forced then-general manager/head coach James Wade to look toward the future. Instead, he traded away two first-round picks along with first-round swap rights in 2025 to sign Marina Mabrey.

In return for leveraging their future, the Sky got a losing record and a first-round sweep at the hands of the Aces. Making matters worse, Wade didn’t even stick around to see the plan through, taking a job on the Toronto Raptors’ coaching staff midway through the year.

Now, there’s no doubt where Chicago’s short-term priorities lie after it dealt Kahleah Copper to the Phoenix Mercury. The goals for first-year head coach Teresa Weatherspoon are developing Reese and Cardoso along with seeing whether any of the other young players will be a fit time line-wise with the next Sky team that’s a playoff contender.

11. Los Angeles Sparks2 of 12

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There are too many question marks with the Los Angeles Sparks.

Can Layshia Clarendon (45.7 percent) maintain a level of three-point efficiency that was well above their career average? Is L.A. bringing first-round draft pick Rickea Jackson off the bench or rolling with a starting lineup that includes two rookies? How much will Brink’s impressive rim protection immediate translate to the WNBA? Will the Sparks’ perimeter defense suffer without Jordin Canada? Who’s going to pick up the scoring slack with Nneka Ogumike gone?

The franchise is at least set up really well for the future.

Brink looks like a true cornerstone on the basis of her career at Stanford, a two-way forward who’s perfectly built for the modern WNBA. Jackson has the potential to be a good secondary scorer.

Los Angeles isn’t burdened by any big contracts, either. It will have $523,930 in salary cap space for 2025.

Without a true No. 1 scorer to replace Ogwumike, though, even challenging for the No. 8 seed might be a bridge too far.

10. Washington Mystics3 of 12

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Like with the Sky, the Washington Mystics’ short-term outlook isn’t promising after increasingly getting diminishing returns on the court in 2023. Then Natasha Cloud left to sign with the Phoenix Mercury, while Elena Delle Donne is taking a hiatus from basketball altogether.

Brittney Sykes is coming off a career year. She averaged 15.9 points, 3.8 assists and 2.1 steals, finishing third in the Defensive Player of the Year voting and placing fourth for Most Improved Player. The Mystics also have to believe Ariel Atkins and Shakira Austin will combine to play more than 46 games.

The cupboard gets pretty bare when you move past those three veterans, though.

Midseason trades are rare in the WNBA thanks to the hard salary cap and having so many teams qualify for the playoffs, thus limiting the number of franchises that are “tanking.” Washington might be a team to watch in the midseason trade market, though.

The Mystics maintain Delle Donne’s contract rights after applying the core designation to her. She’d presumably have some suitors in the event she signaled a desire to make a midseason comeback.

Then there’s Atkins, who’s a free agent in 2026 and turns 28 in July. If she returns to her old All-Star form, it might be worth exploring her trade market because this is a franchise that’s more than a year or two away from challenging for a top-four seed.

9. Indiana Fever4 of 12

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A lot of new fans to the WNBA might come to quickly understand how difficult it is for rookies to meaningfully improve their teams.

Expectations for the Indiana Fever are higher than they’ve been in a long time, and Clark isn’t the only reason for that.

Aliyah Boston averaged 14.5 points, 8.4 rebounds and 1.3 blocks in 2023, and she should thrive thanks to the arrival of a more natural playmaker. As good as Kelsey Mitchell is, she has always been more of a combo guard than a true facilitator.

NaLyssa Smith nearly put up a double-double 15.5 points and 9.2 rebounds) per game as well while seeing her field-goal percentage climb from 41.9 to 47.7.

Now you’re adding Clark, the all-time leading scorer in Division I history and an offensive talent unlike any we’ve seen in a long time.

Still, every rookie faces an adjustment period, doubly so for guards because they have the ball in their hands so much on offense and get left on an island on defense. Clark is bound to have a big target on her back, too.

8. Phoenix Mercury5 of 12

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No team is more top-heavy in the WNBA than the Mercury. Just look at how this roster was constructed from a salary cap perspective. You have the six protected veteran slots, two draft picks, and then nine players signed to training camp deals.

Depth is clearly going to be an issue for Phoenix.

Compounding matters, Diana Taurasi has declined as you’d expect a star in her 40s would, yet she hasn’t adapted her game to account for her diminishing skill set.

Taurasi played 27.3 minutes per game and had a 29.4 percent usage rate in 2023, per Basketball Reference. She also averaged the fifth-most three-pointers per game (7.2) despite only being a 34.2 shooter from that distance.

Not to mention, the Mercury hired a first-time head coach (Nate Tibbetts) who hasn’t ever worked in women’s basketball. That’s not the kind of gamble you’d expect for a team that’s built to win right now.

The veteran quartet of Taurasi, Copper, Cloud and Brittney Griner is good enough to not just push for the playoffs but challenge for the No. 4 seed. But we’ve seen this same experiment blow up in the Mercury’s face before.

7. Minnesota Lynx6 of 12

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You don’t want to be too down on the Minnesota Lynx when they have a legendary coach (Cheryl Reeve) and a bona fide star (Napheesa Collier) on the roster. In her first full season back following her pregnancy, Collier was fourth in the MVP voting, a first-team All-WNBA honoree and a member of the All-Defense second team.

Still, the Lynx may not have addressed their biggest issue in the offseason.

Minnesota was 10th in defensive rating (105.7), per WNBA.com. Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman are both solid defenders out of the backcourt, but neither is elite on that side of the floor. The biggest knock on first-round draft pick Alissa Pili is that she’s a bit undersized (6’2″) for the 4 and not built to guard smaller players on the perimeter.

The team needs Diamond Miller to take a step forward, too, following an uneven rookie season. She finished with a 49.8 percent true shooting rate, per Basketball Reference, and averaged nearly as many turnovers (2.3) as assists (2.5).

6. Dallas Wings7 of 12

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This ranking reflects where the Dallas Wings could finish 2024 at full strength rather than how they’ll start it.

It’s a microcosm of Satou Sabally’s WNBA career that she finally stayed healthy and turned a corner last year, only to suffer a shoulder injury while on national team duty that will knock her out for a significant portion of this season.

The long-awaited breakout for Sabally finally arrived in 2023 as she averaged 18.6 points, 8.1 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 1.8 steals. She was the WNBA’s Most Improved Player and the fifth-place finisher in the MVP voting.

With Sabally back healthy, the Wings are good enough to be in the top-four conversation. The question is how much ground — if any — they lose in the standings without the 6’4″ forward on the floor.

Arike Ogunbowale can only shoulder so much more the scoring burden with Sabally out. Maybe Jaelyn Brown’s 21-point outburst in the preseason win over the Fever was a preview of what’s to come. Otherwise, this is when Dallas will need 2023 first-round pick Maddy Siegrist to start delivering.

5. Atlanta Dream8 of 12

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The biggest problem for the Atlanta Dream is that they still look like they’re one star away.

Rhyne Howard was pretty much the same player in 2023 she was as a rookie. Her traditional stats and advanced metrics were roughly equal from one year to the next.

A franchise can certainly do much worse than building around a two-time All-Star who’s only 24. But Atlanta has a firm ceiling right now unless Howard can take an All-WNBA leap into the elite tier.

Likewise, a supporting cast that includes Jordin Canada, Allisha Gray, Cheyenne Parker-Tyus will get you to the playoffs but probably not much beyond that. And with Canada, she’ll have to show her 33.3 percent clip from beyond the arc wasn’t just a one-year aberration.

General manager Dan Padover was a two-time Executive of the Year with the Las Vegas Aces when he joined the Dream following the 2021 season. Since arriving, he has done well to forge an identity for a team that was totally rudderless.

But Padover needs the Dream’s version of A’ja Wilson, whom he selected first overall in 2018 with Las Vegas, to bring everything together.

4. Seattle Storm9 of 12

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You can see how the plan comes together for the 2024 Seattle Storm and just as easily how things backfire spectacularly.

Skylar Diggins-Smith was a first-team All-WNBA guard when we last saw her on the court. But she’s also 33 after having spent an entire year out of the league. Not to mention, she had a — let’s call it eventful — 2022 season with the Mercury when they fell well short of expectations.

Like Diggins-Smith, Nneka Ogwumike will turn 34 midway through this season and she’s likely to have a slightly lesser role offensively than she had throughout her Sparks tenure. Those two factors mean it may not be as simple as carrying her 19.1 points and 8.8 boards per game in 2023 up north to Seattle.

The Storm are also in win-now mode while finding themselves in a position where they’ll have to lean heavily on young, still unproven players (Jordan Horston, Dulcy Fankam Mendjiadeu and Nika Mühl) off the bench. Their cap situation isn’t much different from that of Phoenix.

A top four of Diggins-Smith, Ogwumike, Jewell Loyd and Ezi Magbegor can basically match up with anybody that isn’t Las Vegas or New York. It’s when you go beyond that where the cracks start to get exposed.

3. Connecticut Sun10 of 12

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2023 should’ve been a down year for the Connecticut Sun after they lost their head coach and best player. There were probably some fans who thought Paige Bueckers was eventually making the roughly 45-minute trip from Storrs to Mohegan Sun Arena as a 2024 lottery pick.

Instead, the Sun won 27 games and Alyssa Thomas performed at an MVP-type level.

It’s true Connecticut didn’t necessarily get a lot better this offseason. The team didn’t get much worse, though. DeWanna Bonner and Brionna Jones both re-signed, while it swapped Rebecca Allen for Moriah Jefferson in a sign-and-trade.

Maybe this is when the bottom drops out for the Sun.

According to WNBA.com, they had a minus-22.7 net rating in the 169 minutes Thomas was off the floor last season. And that second figure isn’t a typo; the 32-year-old really only rested for 169 minutes for the entire regular season.

If Thomas gets injured or goes backward in any way, things will take a turn quickly for Connecticut.

Absent that, the Sun should be right about where they were in 2023.

2. New York Liberty11 of 12

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The Liberty went through some growing pains to open 2023, which was expected when they added a pair of MVPs (Breanna Stewart) and signed one of the best playmakers in WNBA history (Vandersloot).

By the time the playoffs rolled around, New York was peaking. It won 14 of its final 16 games and had the WNBA’s highest net rating (plus-15.6) over that span.

There’s no getting around the scale of the Liberty’s subsequent collapse in the WNBA Finals against an opponent that was down multiple starters.

Stewart’s performance in particular left a lot to be desired. She had her lowest playoff scoring average ever (18.4) and shot a paltry 19.6 percent from beyond the arc across 10 games. It was surprising to see a star who had so routinely risen to the occasion in the past fail to do so last summer.

New York’s front office understandably didn’t panic and is counting on continuity to boost the franchise’s championship quest. The Liberty should be the biggest threat to dethrone the Aces as long as their stars stay healthy.

1. Las Vegas Aces12 of 12

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Quite simply, the Aces are the best team in the WNBA until somebody else proves otherwise.

Parker’s retirement is an obvious blow to the defending champions because she seamlessly slotted into a supporting role in their starting lineup. But Las Vegas didn’t fall off too much without her in the second half and into the playoffs.

That was due in large part to the individual brilliance of Wilson. After Parker’s foot injury, the two-time MVP averaged 25.4 points, 9.7 rebounds and 2.4 blocks while shooting 58.8 percent from the field. In the playoffs, she averaged a double-double (23.8 points and 11.8 rebounds) en route to winning her first WNBA Finals MVP.

When it comes to filling the void left behind by Parker, Megan Gustafson will likely need to step up, and the general uncertainty over the future Hall of Famer’s playing status may have led Vegas to targeting her in the first place.

Gustafson has grown into a dependable role player and floor-spacer, averaging 7.9 points and shooting 34.9 percent from beyond the arc in 2023. Getting to play off Wilson might help her have her best season yet.