So What
Happens Now?
Here's the most important things in the world going into the second half of the season.
POSTBREAK
Last night, I thought back to last year, when everything I believed about postseason success in sports began to be challenged.
I lived in Las Vegas, and it was my first year trying to bet the WNBA seriously. I hated the Aces' offseason moves, so I was skeptical before I watched them play a second. They traded Kelsey Plum and replaced her with Jewell Loyd, a player I thought had nothing left. For most of the year, even the biggest Aces optimist had real reservations about taking the team seriously. They were the “puncher’s-chance team,” based almost entirely on pedigree. We couldn’t chalk it up to bad injury luck, either. I wrote them off, which seems absurd in hindsight, and told my friends they weren’t close to the three-peat team. I was sure they depended too heavily on their starters and were constantly being bailed out by A’ja.
Then they went on a 16-game win streak and ended up winning the Finals.
And I kept fading them.
In my head, they resembled some of the recent Bucks teams. They had an all-time great leading them, plus a better supporting cast and infrastructure, yet something fundamental seemed to be missing.
The Aces' run last year changed how I look at the second half of a season in any sport. It was also why I got to the Knicks a little earlier than others, even if it was only by about three games. Sometimes a team's flaws simply stop defining it. After the Hawks series, I realized something had clicked. I have another piece coming on the recipe for contention, and a major ingredient is cohesion and continuity. True balance is rare: everyone understands the role and accepts it. Any workplace has people with different priorities, habits, and levels of investment. WNBA locker rooms are no different, and those differences eventually show up on the court. Complete alignment is hard to find.
I never thought Sam Darnold could win a Super Bowl. Collectively, we treated the early part of his career as proof that he had no chance. Some people doubted he could even win a playoff game entering this year.
So, you might be asking, “Aids, what is the point of this introduction?”
The point is that it’s time to look for what might click in the WNBA and how it could reshape the playoff race. These teams resemble the Aces at this point last year. They have the bones of a championship roster but are still missing the secret sauce: basketball balance.
The trailer.
THE SOCIAL CUT · SWIPE THROUGH THE STORY
The short version lives on Instagram. The full case is below.
Where everybody stands.
AT THE ALL-STAR BREAK · 2026
MIN22–6.786W7
GSV19–8.704L1
LVA18–8.692L1
DAL18–9.667W1
IND17–10.630W3
ATL16–10.615W3
NYL15–12.556W2
WAS14–12.538W2
PDX11–16.407L2
TOR10–16.385L3
LAS10–16.385L5
PHX10–18.357W2
CHI9–18.333L2
CON7–20.259L2
SEA6–23.207L6Championship odds.
CIRCA SPORTSBOOK · JUL 2026
Lynx+110Aces+375Liberty+685Valkyries+800Dream+1100Fever+1400Wings+1600Mystics+15000Sparks+25000Fire+75000Mercury+75000Sky+75000Tempo+100000Storm+500000Sun+50000001Dream
The Atlanta Dream’s odds immediately stood out to me. If any team reminds me of the Knicks, it’s Atlanta. They have a solid eight-player rotation that rivals the top three teams in the market, but this season's clunkiness and low points have left people viewing them as a second-tier contender. Last NBA season, the Knicks lost 121-106 to the Jazz as nine-point favorites after cutting a 19-point third-quarter deficit to two. I remember thinking that night that there was no way the team I had just watched could be taken seriously in the playoffs.
But what if their worst losses don’t matter? What if those unwatchable stretches were necessary growing pains? What if all that matters is whether they mesh for the games that count? Can basketball balance, basketball yin-yang, actually be reached?
The simplest explanation is a clearer understanding of roles and an alignment of agendas. Everyone is learning how to play with Angel and her unusual skill set. A few games before the break, I realized Angel doesn’t care about scoring the ball. That is her silent superpower. She leans into her strengths instead of taking the bait defenses offer her. Whatever you think of her confidence, she has a Draymond-meets-Andre-Drummond impact with more offensive upside than either.
Rhyne is the clear leader, but Gray knows when it's her turn. She is such an underrated driver. Please drive the ball more, Allisha Gray. Canada runs around like a serval, wreaking havoc. Jordin reminds me a little of Josh Hart, not in style but in impact. Zach Lowe famously says Josh Hart runs around and does Josh Hart things. Jordin Canada does Jordin Canada things. Naz is the unsung hero, the ultimate connector. If they reach the heights I think they can, she won’t get enough praise, but her impact will be critical. So I say this knowing it contradicts how I have thought about sports my whole life: what if, despite some of the ugliest stretches I’ve watched this year, everything clicks?
02Wings
Despite having a lower ceiling than the Dream, the Wings are closer to basketball balance. I believe that to make a playoff run, a team has to be a little weird. It needs talent that opponents cannot easily replicate. You can make that case for every NBA Finals team this decade. Each had something distinctly its own. There is no traditional or prototypical model for building a champion.
Weirdness creates problems, and the Wings have enough unusual parts to do that. It also helps that in most series, they will have the best player or come very close. But having the best player means little if nothing around her makes sense. The two teams I compare to the Wings are both older Dallas teams, which is a coincidence rather than the reason for the comparison.
The Dirk Mavericks and the Luka Mavericks are the two teams that come to mind. Both centered everything around a uniquely gifted scorer, but the secret sauce was the cohesion among everyone else and how they complemented the star. Paige is a smaller guard but still a unicorn. I’m sorry, but I’m going there: her scoring has a Michael Jordan-like dominance. I’m 23, so I know Jordan mostly through stories and old footage, but watching Paige can create that same sense that one player is a mile ahead of her contemporaries.
She also has a mean back-to-the-basket mid-post game that I’m obsessed with watching. Come playoff time, she will have no problem scoring the ball. She’s truly legit.
But the real differentiator for this team is the unique array of talent they have. Jessica Shepard, Arike, Azzi, and the rest of their bench each have a different but specific purpose. It’s hard to find a team in sports that has 0 redundancies, but the team they will be rolling out in the postseason is sure close.
Arike is the real wildcard. I have started to come around on her this season because I think she has finally found her role. “Role” can sound confining or diminishing, but the best version of this team has her as the second option, which is still a major responsibility.
Ironically, her older brother, Dare, is an NFL running back, and Arike herself embodies that uncomfortable, painful physicality. I see a lot of Westbrook in her. Obviously, Westbrook is truly a genius and all-time great, and I’ll probably have to argue about that another day, but her skillset matched with her weaknesses embodies what makes Russ so polarizing.
I have a love-hate relationship with her as a player, so I’ll start with the criticism. For a long time, her style actively worked against winning basketball. She is so talented that she simply tried to do too much. I would watch her and wonder, “Who on earth does she think she is?” It felt like watching someone imitate Kobe without the discipline that made Kobe's approach work.
Now for the love. She may be the most important player on the Wings. She can be a legitimate first option, but her shot selection and hero-ball tendencies have held her back. In a secondary role, she is overqualified, which is why this team's ceiling can be so high.
03Liberty
This team could genuinely become last year's Aces. I won’t spend too much time on them because we have not seen the whole group together nearly enough. Last year, I thought they were overachieving through injuries and necessary roster turnover. Meesseman's immediate impact felt almost miraculous.
This year is almost the opposite story. They have an embarrassment of riches after finding a gem in Astier. They are the winners of the “if everyone is healthy” championship. We have yet to see the full group together, so it is hard to know whether the roster is almost too talented to fit. Sabally's role has been awkward, and at times she has been reduced to a shot chucker. They also need Fiebich. She is the ultimate connector, a complement to all that talent, a little like MPJ without the audacious shot selection. Keep an eye on this team because it fits last year's Aces profile better than anyone else here. Given the caliber of the roster, the season has been disappointing, with some inexplicably ugly performances. That naturally raises questions about the coaching, and I hope DeMarco can answer them. The job may have looked easy from the outside, but he stepped into enormous expectations and immediate pressure. The Liberty are a genuine superteam, and it is possible they wake up one day and everything clicks. Astier is good, Laney-Hamilton is back, and yet something is still missing. Now they simply have to mesh.
