The Las Vegas Aces Are the Greatest Team in WNBA History, Unless…
The Aces are on a winning streak and have clinched a playoff spot with six weeks to go in the season; only one thing (or team) can stop them now.
(co-byline: Javon Edmonds / The Messenger)
With six weeks remaining in the regular season, the WNBA already has its first playoff team. After a 93-72 win against the Atlanta Dream on Tuesday, the Las Vegas Aces improved to 24-2 and clinched a postseason berth.
The defending champions got off to a 14-1 start this season, tying the 1998 Houston Comets and 2016 Los Angeles Sparks for the best start through 15 games in WNBA history. Both Houston and Los Angeles won the WNBA championship in those years. Will history repeat itself for the Aces? It’s more than possible.
At 24-2, the Aces have tied that Comets team for the best start through 26 games in history, and are on pace to break the 2014 Phoenix Mercury’s record of 29 wins in a season. They’re also tracking for the best single-season offensive rating (116.7 points per 100 possessions), net rating (+19.1 points per 100 possessions) and schedule-adjusted points per game margin (+13.8) in WNBA history. No team since the WNBA’s original dynasty — the Houston Comets with Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes and Tina Thompson — has been this good.
Vegas lost two-time MVP Candace Parker to a broken foot eight games ago, the only major bump in the road for the Aces this season. Parker’s injury hasn’t derailed them, though, as they are on an eight-game winning streak without the 10-time All-WNBA selection. The Aces have won each of those games by at least 10 points, two games behind the 2000 Comets for the longest such streak.
With the addition of two-time All-WNBA guard Chelsea Gray in 2021, and Parker this past offseason, the Aces are the WNBA’s superteam. Vegas currently has two league MVPs, four All-WNBA players and the reigning Most Improved Player on its roster. No team in league history has ever had that much talent on its roster at once, and the numbers show it.
According to Basketball-Reference’s Win Shares metric, which puts a single-number value on every player’s contribution to her team, the Aces not only have the league’s top player — Wilson, with 6.8 Win Shares — but also four of the top five players in the WNBA overall, with Jackie Young (5.5), Gray (4.8) and Kelsey Plum (4.4) rounding out the rest of the league’s most productive stars.
The only team with a perceived chance to challenge the Aces for the championship are the New York Liberty. After the offseason signings of former MVP forwards Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones, and Courtney Vandersloot—who ranks third all-time on the WNBA’s assist leaderboard— to join All-WNBA guard Sabrina Ionescu, the Liberty became instant contenders and trail the Aces by four games for best record in the league.
Last year, the WNBA began using a eight-team playoff bracket that is seeded regardless of conference, ensuring the league’s best teams will make the postseason without the handicap of playing in a tougher conference. With the highest seeds matching up against the lowest seeds, all signs point toward a collision of titans in the WNBA Finals, when either the Aces can claim the title of the best team the league has ever seen — or the Liberty can play a legendary foil to Las Vegas’ pursuit of history.
Filed under: WNBA