The Las Vegas Aces Aren’t Just Back-To-Back Champs — They Might Be WNBA GOATs
Was this 2023 Las Vegas Aces team the greatest the WNBA has ever seen?
When the Las Vegas Aces got the last defensive stop of the 2023 WNBA Finals on Wednesday, a whole bunch of records and stats immediately appeared in the league record book.
First, there was the championship, which Las Vegas seemed particularly ready to relish given the injuries the team faced and a snub of A’ja Wilson in MVP voting. There was also the fact that the Aces did it for a second straight season, becoming the first back-to-back WNBA champion in 21 years. (Before Las Vegas won, defending champs were 0-6 in the Finals in the years since.) There were new records for most total wins (42) and highest point differential (+608) in a single season, albeit in a longer schedule than teams used to play. And last but not least, there are legitimate arguments that this Aces team was the greatest the WNBA has ever seen.
Of course, we now live in an era where the term GOAT is used liberally and often applied without regard for historical context.
But, there are ways to measure this sort of thing. One method is using Elo ratings, which estimate a team’s quality at any given point in the season based on its wins and losses, point margins, game locations and strength of schedule. Updating the Elo model I used at FiveThirtyEight with 2023 results — you can download that data here — we find that the 2023 Aces surpassed the star-studded 2000 Houston Comets for the highest end-of-season Elo rating in WNBA history:
What stands out on the list above is that each of the top eight teams (including the Aces) won the WNBA title, as did 16 of the top 20. But the highest-rated team to not win the title also came from 2023: the New York Liberty.
All season long, fans and observers had been anticipating a potential WNBA Finals showdown between the two superteams. Back in early August, my colleague Javon Edmonds and I noted that the Liberty might be the only squad standing in the way of the Aces’ pursuit of GOAT team status — and at times, it did perhaps appear that the Liberty were the kryptonite to Las Vegas’ superpowered lineup. In fact, both the Aces and the Liberty surpassed the 2000 Comets’ peak Elo at various times during the 2023 season, and the Liberty actually went into the playoffs with a slightly higher rating than the Aces:
It’s very possible that the Liberty could have been No. 1 on the all-time Elo list if they had beaten the Aces in the Finals. (I’m sure the sting of that missed statistical opportunity is what really caused some of New York’s players to duck the media in the aftermath of Game 4.)
But in the end, Las Vegas proved they were better than their rivals, past and present, outscoring New York 346-314 in the series and winning the Finals in four games (and with just eight active players, too). Decisively beating another one of the greatest teams ever was a fitting end to the Aces’ championship journey — and it might just have ensured their place in history as the best team the league has ever produced.
Alex Azzi contributed editing.
Filed under: WNBA