2025 WNBA Regular Season

[Dillon77]

This will be a cool pic to add to the Westbeld's family album. Still wild to me that they're both rookies.

As noted in other posts, it's been a long and winding road since Kat Westbeld won the NC with ND in 2018, playing professionally any- and everywhere from Puerto Rico and various divisions in Spain to a spell in Australia and elsewhere in Europe. Never gave up over a 7-year odyssey. Rounded out her game, particularly the three ball. All power to the sisters, plus her parents who -- by all accounts --have always been supportive but not hovering.

 

[Bigboote]

Lucy did sink the 3's tonight, but for the Mystics not the Liberty...

Oops, brain fart.

 

[cancontent]

 

[Bjbod]

The Fever looked worse than I expected without Caitlin.

Maybe they can borrow Angel with some sort of 10 day contract with the Sky. Everyone knows they're interchangeable.

 

[Dillon77]

That's a big "yikes" if Mabrey and/or ON-O both can't play.

 

[FormerCTrez]

Yikes!! Injuries and illness cannot be controlled, but I’m hoping they get the W. Also, a little part of me is thinking that at the end of the season when the sun sets, the CT Sun will probably get the #1 or a high pick in the draft.

PS: It’s still early in the season, so ……

 

[JellyBean]

The Fever looked worse than I expected without Caitlin.

They looked like I expected a team to look without their key player. I think they will look a little better against the Sun, now that they got a game under their belt without Clark.

 

[hoopsdiva]

Yikes!! Injuries and illness cannot be controlled, but I’m hoping they get the W. Also, a little part of me is thinking that at the end of the season when the sun sets, the CT Sun will probably get the #1 or a high pick in the draft.

PS: It’s still early in the season, so ……

The draft odds for the non-playoff teams are determined by the team records over the last 2 seasons. So just tanking this season won't guarantee anything. Still, worst case is probably a top 5 pick (assuming the expansion teams draft after the non-playoff teams again next year) and the team with the best odds doesn't always get the #1 pick.

 

[hoopsdiva]

Liberty and Valkyries in a tight one. Anyone know why JJ isn't playing?

 

[cancontent]

Liberty and Valkyries in a tight one. Anyone know why JJ isn't playing?

I've had the unfortunate luck of missing the reason each time it's been mentioned tonight. Dang multi-tasking for work.

 

[MilfordHusky]

GS played NYL very tight, but lost in the last minute or so. GS moves the ball and plays energetic defense. Much better than the prior (28-point) loss.

 

[sivad40]

The draft odds for the non-playoff teams are determined by the team records over the last 2 seasons. So just tanking this season won't guarantee anything. Still, worst case is probably a top 5 pick (assuming the expansion teams draft after the non-playoff teams again next year) and the team with the best odds doesn't always get the #1 pick.

Also Connecticut traded their 2026 1st pick to Chicago as a part of the Mabrey trade.

 

[JellyBean]

Liberty and Valkyries in a tight one. Anyone know why JJ isn't playing?

Hammy issue.

 

[JellyBean]

GS played NYL very tight, but lost in the last minute or so. GS moves the ball and plays energetic defense. Much better than the prior (28-point) loss.

Golden State looked waaay better this game compared to their first meeting with New York,

 

[JellyBean]

Welp. Dallas enjoyed their one game winning streak. That 2nd half was crazy for both teams. It was like, I will let you score 30 on me in the 3rd quarter and then I will score 30 on you in the 4th quarter. Congrats to Chicago on their 1st win of the season. They still messed up by letting Coach Spoon go.

 

[WBBTakeover]

That was a fun game! The Sky looked much better (still have to work out some issues on defense, but the offense was clicking for the most part). Sloot played with poise and had some impressive feeds. Angel looked good/active despite what the numbers may say. Ariel Atkins played aggressively on offense and played solid D on Arike late. Bec Allen gave them good minutes as well.

Shout out to Kamilla, in particular! I remember when an esteemed Pac-12 "expert" compared her to Teaira McCowan before last year's draft. How's that take working out?

As for the Wings, welp--they could've easily have won the game had they not lost their composure late. Arike was cooking until the brain farts set in. Paige looked good in the minutes I saw her play. Don't recall seeing a ton of positive play from any of their frontcourt players. Lauren Betts would be a godsend for them.

 

[WBBTakeover]

Golden State looked waaay better this game compared to their first meeting with New York,

They did, but Jonquel not playing helped a lot. NY better hope she plays tomorrow because the Mystics are up next...

 

[MilfordHusky]

Arike had 37/5/7/1 on 14-25 shooting, but was 0 in the +/- and forced a couple of shots late in the game.

Paige had 15/5/8/3/3 and was +7.

Cardoso had 23/8/1/1.

Sloot passed her wife for #1 in Chicago career scoring. Congrats!

 

[nwhoopfan]

Sloot got off to a slow start in the assists department this year, but it's hard to accumulate those when your team is hardly scoring. I think she has 20 in the last 2 games. It looks a lot less likely she can catch Bird than it did a couple years ago, but she's still adding to her total for the second most assists in WNBA history. Next closest active player (Chelsea Gray) is 1200+ behind Sloot, nobody is remotely a threat for quite a while. We'll see how players like Clark and Bueckers progress.

 

[bballnut90]

Arike had 37/5/7/1 on 14-25 shooting, but was 0 in the +/- and forced a couple of shots late in the game.

Paige had 15/5/8/3/3 and was +7.

Cardoso had 23/8/1/1.

Sloot passed her wife for #1 in Chicago career scoring. Congrats!

Reese with multiple big plays down the stretch too despite a not so pretty stat line. Really entertaining last 5 minutes with some great playmaking on both sides. A couple of the shots down the stretch by Arike were painful but she was just brilliant tonight. Maybe this game will break her out of this slump going forward.

If Sloot doesn't retire next year she should pass Bird for #1 all time.

Also worth noting, Paige is putting up some stellar numbers. Her last 5 games:
15.6 points, 4.2 rebounds, 7.6 assists, 2.2 steals, 1.0 block, 3.45 A/TO ratio, 45.9% FG, 38.5% 3pt.

Dallas is struggling to start the year but Paige is navigating the league extremely well. Dallas will be an attractive landing spot for free agents next year, similar to how Indiana was this past season.

 

[bballnut90]

Sloot got off to a slow start in the assists department this year, but it's hard to accumulate those when your team is hardly scoring. I think she has 20 in the last 2 games. It looks a lot less likely she can catch Bird than it did a couple years ago, but she's still adding to her total for the second most assists in WNBA history. Next closest active player (Chelsea Gray) is 1200+ behind Sloot, nobody is remotely a threat for quite a while. We'll see how players like Clark and Bueckers progress.

If Clark stays healthy, she should obliterate the all time assist record. Assuming she can match her rookie average, she'll break the current record in year 9 or 10 when she's in her early 30s.

Both her and Bueckers have a distinct advantage of playing 44 games per summer where as Bird's seasons were almost always just 34 games. That said, Clark has a career average of 8.5 assists per game where Bird's career average is 5.6.

 

[Jumper33]

Congratulations to Sloot for a major accomplishment, and to the Sky for their first win. It was a very entertaining one, though I was hoping to see Paige and the Wings take it. Cardoso looked way more aggressive in this game than her previous few. Felt like Arike made about a hundred shots, then she missed her last few.

 

[WBBTakeover]

Congrats are in order! Kamilla scores a career high in points on the same night that Sloot becomes the Sky's all-time leading scorer. Both were sporting Indigo Girls A'Ones.

"It's gotta be the shoes!"

 

[Dillon77]

Congratulations to Sloot for a major accomplishment, and to the Sky for their first win. It was a very entertaining one, though I was hoping to see Paige and the Wings take it. Cardoso looked way more aggressive in this game than her previous few. Felt like Arike made about a hundred shots, then she missed her last few.

Agree that this was the most positive and aggressive (on offense) that I've seen Cardoso professionally.
Sloot was steady and Atkins hit some clutch shots at the end of the game to help seal it.

This one was in reach for Dallas, so that will have to sting a bit. Paige B., Arike O and Myisha Hines-Allen all distributed the ball (8, 7, 6 assists respectively) and, yes, Arike even shot 50% or above, although -- as noted -- she missed some key jumpers late. Sometimes she has the time to square her form for a "normal" jumper, but takes the quasi-jumper off one leg. Don't see that go down that often.
Still, looking a bit more cohesive....

 

[Dillon77]

SGS played NYL very tight, but lost in the last minute or so. GS moves the ball and plays energetic defense. Much better than the prior (28-point) loss.

Valkyrie guards hopefully learned a lesson today: trying a low cross-court (skip) pass against the Liberty is death, with Stewie and Fiebich in the lineup. Plus, don't try passing (back) into the middle off a drive: Stewie and Cloud have both made a side business picking off passes in the passing lanes. Happened at a critical time yesterday.

Outside of that, I thought they learned big lessons and applied them (Of course, not having JJ to play against helped! )