Tankathon Check-in
To be clear, no one in the WNBA is currently tanking on purpose (at least, the players aren’t). That being said, let’s see where our teams are right now in the lottery standings and where they project to end up (chart vaguely organized by rightmost column):
1. Per Massey
2. Seattle owns Los Angeles’ and Las Vegas’ picks
3. Minnesota owns Chicago’s pick
4. Chicago owns the rights to Connecticut’s pick if the Sun finish worse than the Mercury
Connecticut Sun
If the season ended today, who would be on the All-Rookie team? Obviously Paige Bueckers, Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen. Monique Akoa Makani ought to be on there, given she’s fourth in points and third in scoring efficiency among qualified rookies while being arguably the best guard defender in the class.
The last spot could go to Janelle Salaün, who has been inconsistent but hit some big shots for Golden State. Or Saniya Rivers, already a borderline-elite defender who has been tasked with shot-creation duties for Connecticut. If you’re not too concerned about playing time, one of a few Dallas players like Aziaha James or JJ Quinerly (who I will discuss in the coming weeks) or Luisa Geiselsöder have good cases.
But a different Sun might have a strong case by season’s end: Leïla Lacan. The No. 10 pick in the 2024 class was a draft-and-stash last year and a late arrival this summer while finishing up obligations on the Euro side, but immediately stepped into Connecticut’s closing lineup. Much like her fellow first-year teammate in the backcourt, she opened her W career giving Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young hell at the point of attack, while adding a couple being shots for good measure.
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In Lacan’s second game, she had some great reps defending Skylar Diggins-Smith and spent much of the fourth quarter running pick and rolls with Tina Charles to torment the Storm by creating both driving shots for herself and kick-out threes for Jacy Sheldon.
Lacan is now averaging 8.5 points, 2.5 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.2 steals on 52.1% true-shooting in 24.8 minutes. The 3-pointer has been rough, with her shooting just 3-for-19 from deep. That should even out; we had pre-draft concerns about whether she could be a good shooter, but after hitting 31.3% from deep over the past three seasons in the French league, she’ll almost certainly be better than this. But the defensive versatility we saw has certainly showed up, and her ability to get to the rim and finish has been excellent. Things are still plenty rough for the Sun, but the backcourt core is one of the better young groups in the league.
Indiana Fever
I’m not saying Stephanie White has lost her fastball. But she’s been making some odd decisions this season.
For starters, she has been having the team hedge as their primary ball screen coverage. That’s certainly a coverage Natasha Howard is comfortable in, but it asks a lot more from Aliyah Boston and Damiris Dantas’ lateral coverage in space than she is capable of. The Fever guards aren’t necessarily made for that coverage, but they aren’t made to hold up in space alone the way they have to after the hedge recovery. Perhaps Boston isn’t as good playing primarily drop coverage than the flashes she had last season, but the very traditional push coverage (where the screen defender plays up to touch) has been leaving the driving lanes wide open.
Even when there are positive defensive plays in the reel below, they require a defensive highlight from a help defender who shouldn’t need to have that level of play just to stop an easy offensive opportunity.
White also insisted on subbing Caitlin Clark out in end-of-game defensive possessions, at least when Clark was still healthy in the early going, while using Kelsey Mitchell as her point of attack defender. The issue is that Clark has been better defensively this year than Mitchell, the latter having been one of the worst defensive guards in the WNBA for years.
In recent weeks, White insisted on trying to make lineups with Clark and Aari McDonald work, despite the fact that McDonald does not work well off the ball and isn’t the type of traditional floor general that would help take advantage of Clark’s off-ball shooting gravity. The two had -6.0 net rating in 36 minutes together, per PBP Stats, and Indiana was +8.3 when one played without the other.
White also called a timeout against Connecticut last week in the middle of a play just to complain to the refs about a no-call when the ball was being brought up the court, much to the Fever players’ visible confusion.
New York Liberty
And lastly, in today’s installment of “Mike Thibault is a wizard,” Natasha Cloud wasn’t bad at St. Joseph’s, but she was a bad scorer; her best season by scoring efficiency was a 47.1% true-shooting senior year. Since 2017, two years after he drafted her in Washington, she hasn’t had a true-shooting under 50.1%. That is a truly ridiculous level of offensive development. Thibault may be capable of true sorcery.
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