WNBA power rankings: Did the Minnesota Lynx win the trade deadline?

New York Times

2 days ago

The Golden State Valkyries are hosting Birdwatchers Night on Monday in San Francisco. Every fan will receive binoculars to keep an eye on a large violet egg that has emerged at Chase Center, one that will presumably hatch the first mascot — the guess is a raven, given the ties to Norse mythology — in franchise history. And for good measure, the team's social accounts have been tracking the movement of the egg over the past few days.
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Maybe that all sounds a little silly for a professional basketball organization, but it could also be the latest bit of ingenious branding in what has been a remarkably successful debut season for Golden State. From the ever-present Valkyrie violet to the Ballhalla nickname to the fans who dot the stands with horned headgear, Golden State has nailed every detail in creating a distinct identity and building a community in Year 1. Fourteen straight sellout crowds would agree.
Of course, the Valkyries' primary success has come on the court, where they are primed to be the first expansion team in league history to make the playoffs in their first year, even with All-Star Kayla Thornton out for the season. Golden State enters Monday's contest against Connecticut with a net rating of zero, perfectly average in a league in which expansion teams have historically been awful. The Valkyries have the fourth-best defensive rating in the WNBA and just held a Los Angeles Sparks team that had scored at least 100 points in five of its last six games to 59. That victory over Los Angeles — one coach Natalie Nakase called a must-win pregame — clinched a 3-1 series win and the postseason tiebreaker over Golden State's closest current competition for the eighth seed.
Owner Joe Lacob's five-year championship plan is increasingly plausible. As most of the league enters free agency this offseason, the Valkyries still have Carla Leite and Kate Martin on rookie contracts, as well as reserved or restricted rights on Veronica Burton, Janelle Salaün and Cecilia Zandalisini. Their 2025 first-rounder, Justė Jocytė, is also yet to arrive in the Bay. Furthermore, with the team's initial success and amenities, Golden State seems to be an attractive destination for the best players on the market.
As the WNBA enters its era of expansion, the Valkyries are the ideal template for the next five teams in terms of how to build on and off the court, and they're just getting started. Golden State is still in its incubation stage, and the next phases will be well worth keeping a close eye on.
A week ago, the Indiana Fever were rolling on a five-game winning streak, making their way up the standings as they awaited the return of Caitlin Clark. Now, Indiana is without all three of its point guards after Sydney Colson and Aari McDonald suffered season-ending injuries Thursday. That put the point guard duties on the committee of Mitchell, Sophie Cunningham and Lexie Hull against the Chicago Sky, with Steph White electing to keep at least two of the trio on the court at all times. All three thrive as play finishers, but only Mitchell has the scoring gravity to bend a defense — that allows her to make plays for others while still looking to score.
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Against the Sky, whenever Mitchell got two feet into the paint, she drew a crowd and could dump off to a big or kick out to one of her shooters. She is the fastest player in the league with the ball in her hands and can easily create in transition, provided one of her teammates runs with her. And Mitchell had the good point guard sense to hand the ball to Hull early in the game instead of taking a pull-up jumper on the break; Hull had missed her last 12 3-point attempts and was 0-for-2 from the field to start the game, and the assist from Mitchell seemed to turn her around.
Indiana has three more games against lottery-bound teams before the schedule picks up, allowing the Fever to figure out yet another iteration of their roster. That will also give Odyssey Sims some time to pick up the system and Clark more time in her rehab. More than likely, Mitchell will still be the best point guard option. The eight assists she had against the Sky will have to be a more regular occurrence.
After trading for NaLyssa Smith, the Las Vegas starting five of Chelsea Gray, Jewell Loyd, Jackie Young, Smith and A'ja Wilson had a net rating of plus-18.1 points per 100 possessions. Nevertheless, the team went 4-3 with Smith in the starting lineup, and Becky Hammon replaced Loyd with Kierstan Bell, giving the second unit a little more oomph with an All-Star hub.
The Aces have gone 6-1 since the switch, but the starting group is basically a net even (plus-8 through 60 minutes). It prompts the question of whether Las Vegas needed to do anything, or whether the schedule merely got easier, as the Aces have wins over the Dallas Wings, Sparks, Seattle Storm and Connecticut Sun in that stretch.
Bell came out on fire in her first game as a starter, scoring 19 points in a 26-point win in Dallas. She hasn't even totaled 19 points in the six games since, and Hammon is giving more of her minutes to Loyd anyway. The upshot of this move has been in Loyd's shooting percentages. Since coming off the bench, Loyd's field-goal percentage has increased from 36.3 to 45.2 overall and 35.4 to 41.2 on 3s.
Las Vegas still has a negative point differential for the season and hasn't beaten a team that has a winning record since June. Swapping Bell for Loyd might just be a cosmetic adjustment, but if it hasn't hurt the Aces, there is no need to make another change.
🚨 A'JA WILSON BECOMES THE FIRST PLAYER IN WNBA HISTORY TO RECORD 30+ POINTS AND 20+ REBOUNDS IN A GAME! 🚨
Wilson secures her 20th REB of the game!
CON-LVA | League Pass | WNBA Rivals Week presented by @Ally pic.twitter.com/EVY97FHzjp
— WNBA (@WNBA) August 11, 2025
Despite being without Napheesa Collier all week, Minnesota is 3-0 since trading for DiJonai Carrington, with wins at Seattle and the New York Liberty and against the Washington Mystics.
Carrington is known for her perimeter defense, and Kayla McBride celebrated being able to pass off tough defensive assignments like Sabrina Ionescu onto Carrington for stretches. Carrington has six steals and two blocks through three games and has been a crunch-time fixture because Cheryl Reeve trusts her to hold up on that end.
The underrated impact for the Lynx has come on the offensive end. Minnesota doesn't really have a guard who puts pressure on the basket; Courtney Williams likes to get to the midrange, and Kayla McBride does her damage from long distance. Carrington applies rim pressure with her drives and her offensive rebounding.
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When the Lynx blew the game open against New York in the fourth quarter, Carrington had two cuts to the basket and an offensive rebound that led to a second-chance 3-pointer for Alanna Smith. Her 3-pointers are gravy as a career 28.6 percent 3-point shooter, but since Carrington moves off the ball, she at least doesn't compromise Minnesota's spacing too much.
Carrington is an ideal trade-deadline acquisition because she doesn't take away from what the Lynx already do well. She generally waits for her opportunities in transition or off ball and amplifies the defense. Minnesota's flow hasn't changed with Carrington on the floor, and it shouldn't, considering how strong the team already was before her arrival.
How did Paopao fall to the second round of the 2025 draft? The sweet shooter out of South Carolina is hitting 44 percent of her 3s as a rookie (4 of 8 this past week), and the Dream are 4.7 points per 100 possessions better with her on the court, fourth best on Atlanta. Paopao comes from a system where she didn't get a lot of touches, so she can maintain high efficiency on low usage, and that extends to her assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.04.
But what stood out this week is her Gamecock defensive education: Paopao made several defensive hustle plays to help seal the Dream's win in Phoenix on Sunday after Rhyne Howard was ejected.
The 5-foot-9 guard blocked 6-foot-1 Kahleah Copper at the rim with 2:18 to play. Paopao helped secure possession on another Copper miss with less than a minute to play, and then she stole the ball on a Sami Whitcomb pass to ice the game on the ensuing play. Getting quality rotation minutes out of a rookie is one reason the Dream are sitting in a tie for second place in the standings.
Paopao block on Copper 🫨
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— talkingwbb.bsky.social (@talkingwbb.bsky.social) August 10, 2025 at 7:52 PM
'The game was still in the balance at that point,' coach Karl Smesko said Sunday. 'For (Paopao) to lock in, get a hand on the ball, get the steal, I thought that was a big play in the game.'
The Aces are 1-8 against the Liberty over the last two seasons and have been mostly unable to deal with New York's size. The Liberty are less imposing without Breanna Stewart in the lineup, as well as having Kennedy Burke and Nyara Sabally unavailable, and they'll be coming to Las Vegas on the second night of a back-to-back.
This is the Aces' opportunity to right the ship and prove their starting lineup shift can make a difference against the league's best teams. New York doesn't seem to be too concerned with any of its results at less than full strength, but the Liberty are in danger of falling in the standings — nothing like a matchup against one of their biggest rivals to wake them up.
(Photo of Sabrina Ionescu and DiJonai Carrington: Ishika Samant / Getty Images)
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