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The Next<\/a>: A basketball newsroom brought to you by The IX<\/a>. 24\/7\/365 women\u2019s basketball coverage, written, edited and photographed by our young, diverse staff and dedicated to breaking news, analysis, historical deep dives and projections about the game we love.<\/p>\n
Tankathon check-in<\/p>\n
To be clear, no one in the WNBA is currently tanking on purpose (at least, the players aren\u2019t). That being said, let\u2019s see where the teams are right now in the lottery standings and where they project to end up. The Las Vegas Aces are technically the No. 8 seed right now, but I don\u2019t believe an A\u2019ja Wilson<\/a>-led team is at risk of missing the playoffs at this point in the season.<\/p>\n The chart is vaguely organized by the rightmost column.<\/p>\n 1. Lottery standings take into account results from the 2024 and 2025 seasons. Strength of schedule data is from\u00a0Massey<\/a>. Connecticut Sun<\/p>\n The gold standard for wing defenders as prospects in WNBA history is threefold: Alana Beard<\/a>, Gabby Williams<\/a> and Saniya Rivers. In college, all three were elite at the point of attack, were disruptive on the drive, could shut down assignments off the ball, and could still provide impactful help above the break and in the paint.<\/p>\n Beard and Williams were both standouts in the WNBA from the get-go. Beard finished fourth in Defensive Player of the Year voting her rookie season, and Williams earned one (ill-advised) vote in hers.<\/p>\n Rivers is right there with them. Through her first 11 games, she has already played like an All-Defensive team selection.<\/p>\n In her first game, Rivers played against the Las Vegas and guarded Jackie Young<\/a> and Chelsea Gray<\/a>. She picked the pockets of both while blanketing the former off the ball and blocking the latter. She started in her second career game as the primary defender on Minnesota Lynx guard Courtney Williams<\/a>, who shot 0-for-11 from the field. She held up well against both Paige Bueckers<\/a> and Caitlin Clark<\/a>. She guarded all three of the Atlanta Dream\u2019s backcourt starters in the Sun\u2019s shocking win on June 6.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Rivers is already one of the best backcourt isolation and point-of-attack defenders in the league. While she\u2019s still been a positive in help, it hasn\u2019t been to quite the same extent. That\u2019s natural, though: It takes time for almost every prospect to adjust to playing help at the W level. Even Beard and Williams took a couple years to get there.<\/p>\n If Rivers can hit enough shots to stick on the court \u2014 which is not remotely a given yet \u2014 we\u2019re already looking at a perennial All-Defensive player. That\u2019s an honor that should start this year.<\/p>\n Want even more women\u2019s sports in your inbox?<\/strong><\/p>\n Subscribe now to our sister publication The IX<\/a> and receive our independent women\u2019s sports newsletter six days a week. Learn more about your favorite athletes and teams around the world competing in soccer, tennis, basketball, golf, hockey and gymnastics from our incredible team of writers. <\/p>\n Readers of The Next now save 50% on their subscription to The IX.<\/p>\n Dallas Wings<\/p>\n When we last discussed what\u2019s going wrong in Dallas, we discussed Teaira McCowan<\/a>\u2019s severe regression in execution and effort<\/a>. Now to briefly turn our attention to NaLyssa Smith.<\/p>\n At the WNBA level, Smith has never been a good defender. She graded out as the second-worst defender in the league her rookie season, per Positive Residual<\/a>, and her sophomore campaign was only slightly better.<\/p>\n There has been little appreciable progress since. Smith holds up better in the post than she used to, but that\u2019s not saying much. Her execution of help assignments is sporadic at best, and even when she provides help, more often than not she overhelps off her assignment and forces Dallas into rotation. Her feel for managing space and cutting off angles in drop is the worst of any big or wing on the roster, and in hedge, she neither disrupts the ball-handler nor recovers efficiently to the roller.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n To top that off, Smith is getting to the rim less and missing more shots in the paint than she did the past couple years in Indiana. Even with the Fever, her scoring prowess came only below the free-throw line. With her turning more layups into paint middies, she has not been a positive contributor at either end. And she\u2019s started 11 games for the Wings.<\/p>\n Tune in to Locked On Women\u2019s Basketball<\/strong><\/p>\n Here at The Next, in addition to the 24\/7\/365 written content our staff provides, we also host the daily Locked On Women\u2019s Basketball<\/a> podcast. Join us Monday through Saturday each week as we discuss all things WNBA, collegiate basketball, basketball history and much more. Listen wherever you find podcasts or watch on YouTube.<\/p>\n Indiana Fever<\/p>\n When we last looked at Lexie Hull\u2019s shooting mechanics<\/a> two years ago, she was releasing the ball a little late for reasons that were hard to tell. She would go on to shoot only 21.7% from three<\/a> that season. Now it\u2019s 2025, and Hull has made 65 of her last 125 3-pointers, or 52.0%.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to say exactly what happened. Certainly some of this was natural regression to the mean, given that she\u2019d always been a superb shooter on open jumpers. Perhaps some of it was the yips, or maybe she was trying a new shot form. What is clear is that her shot has changed \u2014 but maybe not in a completely new way.<\/p>\n Hull had two 3-point shooting forms at Stanford: one where she dragged her right leg in as she transferred her weight, and one where she had more of a one-motion power transfer. She attempted far more of the former than the latter in college. The first two clips below are the leg drag, and the last two are the smoother shot.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Now, Hull still has both forms, but she takes far more of the one-motion form, and she is much smoother with it. That means not only a more consistent, but also a quicker, release, so she is less affected by defensive pressure and closeouts. The results seem to speak for themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n The first clip below is still the leg drag, but the last few are the smoother one-motion shot.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nTeamGames back in lotteryGames back of No. 8 seedStrength of schedule remaining (out of 13)1Likely finish<\/tr>\n \n Dallas Wings<\/td>\n \u2014<\/td>\n 3<\/td>\n 6th-strongest (eighth-easiest)<\/td>\n Top lottery odds<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Chicago Sky2<\/td>\n 5<\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n 5<\/td>\n No. 2 or No. 3 lottery odds<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Golden State Valkyries<\/td>\n 2.5<\/td>\n -1<\/td>\n 10<\/td>\n Bottom-two playoff seed or No. 3 lottery odds<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Connecticut Sun3<\/td>\n 18.5<\/td>\n 3.5<\/td>\n 4<\/td>\n Worst lottery odds<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Los Angeles Sparks4<\/td>\n \u2014<\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n 9<\/td>\n No. 8 seed or No. 4 lottery odds<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Washington Mystics<\/td>\n 7.5<\/td>\n 0.5<\/td>\n 13<\/td>\n No. 8 seed or No. 4 lottery odds<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2. Minnesota owns Chicago\u2019s pick.
3. Chicago owns the rights to Connecticut\u2019s pick if the Sun finish worse than the Phoenix Mercury.
4. Seattle owns Los Angeles\u2019 pick.<\/p>\n![\"Locked](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/locked-on-wbb-ad.png\")
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