{"id":95140,"date":"2025-07-26T22:07:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T22:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/95140\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T22:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T22:07:09","slug":"aces-have-an-impossible-jewell-loyd-problem-to-solve-in-the-second-half-of-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/95140\/","title":{"rendered":"Aces have an impossible Jewell Loyd problem to solve in the second half of the season"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m sure if Jewell Loyd had a choice, her stat line from Friday night would never be spoken of again. It’d be buried in some vault somewhere and anyone who mentioned it would be magically cursed to some horrendous fate. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but Loyd was awful against the Lynx. The Las Vegas Aces guard failed to score a single point in the 31-point loss, going 0-for-10 from the floor. She added three rebounds, one assist, one steal and five fouls.<\/p>\n

This now marks three consecutive games in which Loyd has failed to score in double figures. After a decent stretch before the All-Star break, Loyd is now playing her worst basketball of the season.<\/p>\n

So, what’s Vegas supposed to do at this point?<\/p>\n

Jewell Loyd’s struggles endanger Vegas’ playoff chances<\/p>\n

The trade that sent Kelsey Plum to Los Angeles and brought Jewell Loyd to Vegas was viewed as a loss for the Aces when it happened<\/a>, but I’m not sure anyone saw it going this poorly.<\/p>\n

The 2022 and 2023 WNBA champions sit just 12-13 on the year and a big part of that has been Loyd’s inability to produce as Plum’s replacement<\/a>. Loyd is averaging 10.4 points per game, on track to be the lowest total of her WNBA career. She’s shooting just 36.3 percent from the floor; if nothing changes, Loyd will rank in the bottom 20th percentile in field goal percentage for the third year in a row.<\/p>\n

Loyd’s efficiency issues have been tough on Vegas. The team is 2-4 when Loyd shoots 20 percent or worse from the floor, whereas the team is 5-2 when she shoots 50 percent or better. Those wins have shown what Vegas can look like when the team is hitting on all cylinders, but it’s just been incredibly rare for it to actually do such a thing because Loyd just keeps firing up clunkers.<\/p>\n

And at this point, it’s really unclear if there’s any solution for Vegas. Bench depth is a concern for the team, especially with Dana Evans shooting just about as bad as Loyd. The team already traded away its best asset \u2014 a 2027 first-round pick \u2014 for NaLyssa Smith, so there’s not really much Vegas can do on the trade market. Maybe there’s a move they can make on the margins, but it’s just hard to see a scenario where the team can upgrade from Loyd.<\/p>\n

It seems like Vegas just has to ride this out, with very little faith that Loyd actually bounces back. Her lack of efficiency this year isn’t a new thing, and she’s been especially brutal when driving, ranking 117th in the league in field goal percentage in the restricted area<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s a tough situation for Vegas, one that feels \u2014 and potentially is \u2014 hopeless. Loyd just hasn’t been the answer at all. Vegas would have been better off trading Plum away in a deal that didn’t land Loyd and then using the cap savings to go after a player like Sami Whitcomb or giving the Sun a trade offer they couldn’t refuse for Marina Mabrey. Alas, the past is the past. Vegas just has to push forward with Loyd and see what happens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I’m sure if Jewell Loyd had a choice, her stat line from Friday night would never be spoken…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":95141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-95140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114921815689864959","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}