The conclusion of All-Star Weekend officially heralds the second half of the WNBA season. Every team has between 15 (congrats, Seattle Storm!) and 18 games remaining to close out the 2026 campaign. If the first half of the season taught us anything — with the Minnesota Lynx rocketing to the top of the standings without Napheesa Collier, Marina Mabrey tying A’ja Wilson’s single-game scoring record and more — expect the remaining two months to be filled with the unexpected.
With that in mind, it’s still a fun time to try to predict what will happen the rest of the way. Go easy on me — I may not have done a 72-hour livestream over the last weekend, but we’re all still coming out of the All-Star haze.
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The eight playoff teams are already set
Four losses separate the No. 8 seed Washington Mystics from the Portland Fire, Toronto Tempo and Los Angeles Sparks, and the preseason playoff hopeful Chicago Sky and Phoenix Mercury are another two losses behind. Generally speaking, teams can make up about one game per week in the standings, so there is enough time for one of the five other teams to climb into the playoff picture. With Kiki Rice and Kelsey Plum on the way back, the Tempo and Sparks can point to improved health as a reason for their fortunes to turn, and the Sky have a better net rating than the Mystics this season, so they’re playing well enough outside of clutch situations to qualify for the postseason.
But the bet here is that Washington will still make the top eight. The Mystics have an easier remaining schedule than the rest of this field, and they have less incentive to tank since they have a pick swap with Chicago in the 2027 WNBA Draft. The playoff teams will be the Lynx, Mystics, Golden State Valkyries, Las Vegas Aces, Dallas Wings, Indiana Fever, Atlanta Dream and New York Liberty.
Connecticut Sun will finish with the top lottery odds
The race to the bottom doesn’t figure to be any more competitive. Connecticut and Chicago are within one game of each other for the worst two-year record (which is what determines the lottery odds), but the Sky don’t control their pick and thus will keep trying to win games. Toronto and Portland have won too many games already, though the Fire could slip a bit without Sarah Ashlee Barker available for the second half of the season, and Seattle and Phoenix are carrying over too many wins from 2025, when they both made the playoffs.
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If I were in the Sun front office, I’d still be wary of winning too many games and inadvertently letting Chicago (but actually Washington) slide ahead in the draft order. But Connecticut doesn’t have to tank; the Sun can comfortably play out the rest of the regular season without worrying about sacrificing their odds at the No. 1 pick, even if that player suits up in Houston after the franchise relocates.
Indiana will take a swing at the deadline
WNBA teams are generally reluctant to make midseason moves — eight in-season trades have taken place over the last two seasons, one of which didn’t even involve two active players — and Indiana hasn’t made a deadline deal since 2023. But the Fever have an important window to capitalize on this season: Kelsey Mitchell will be a free agent this offseason, Aliyah Boston‘s contract will jump from $1 million (about 14 percent of the cap) to a 20 percent supermax in 2027, and Caitlin Clark will also be eligible for a supermax raise. Indiana might not have a better chance to win a title than in 2026, before it reaches a financial cliff.
The Fever are already right up against the cap this season, so a deal will be challenging enough, but seeking out a power forward upgrade like Nneka Ogwumike, Dearica Hamby or Satou Sabally would be useful, even if they have to part with Raven Johnson and/or some picks to do so.
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The Lynx are usually the team that makes midseason trades; they acquired rotation players Myisha Hines-Allen and DiJonai Carrington at the last two deadlines. However, Collier, who’s on her way back, is a better in-season addition than any player Minnesota could bring in via trade.
A’ja Wilson will break the single-season scoring record
Wilson already holds the single-season scoring record — total points and average — which was set in 2024 when she scored 26.87 points per game and was the unanimous MVP. She’s currently averaging 26.1 points this season and could break her mark by averaging 28 points for the remaining 18 games. The Aces have a better offensive rating than they did that season and are averaging more points (91.0) as a team, so the situation is favorable for Wilson to score a lot of points. Perhaps more importantly, Las Vegas‘ defense has been terrible of late, which has necessitated higher offensive outputs — look at the last game before the All-Star break, when Wilson scored 38 and still wasn’t enough because the Aces allowed the Mystics to put up 100.
The second-year Seattle center made dunking look easy during the All-Star Game, and now that she has that one under her belt (plus a couple of dunks at Unrivaled), it should be easier to throw one down during a Storm game. Malonga always runs the floor hard, giving her opportunities to dunk in transition. It’s easier for her to leak out when she is guarding a perimeter player, and that happens more often when she is playing next to Awa Fam. Though it probably isn’t fair to say Seattle won’t be playing games of consequence in the second half, the Storm will likely be mathematically eliminated from playoff contention well before the season ends. Those games tend to be a little looser, allowing Malonga to experiment more than she would otherwise.
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Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese will be suspended for technical foul accumulation
Clark and Reese are sitting at seven technical fouls apiece, with the next one resulting in a suspension. Clark went about a month without a tech before picking up two in back-to-back games, and Reese hasn’t gone more than two weeks in between technicals this season. Although both players are in tight playoff positioning battles, it’s unrealistic to expect they can each make it another six weeks without getting whistled again; Clark has said she doesn’t want to change the way she plays to avoid technical fouls because it might hinder her performance. At this rate, it’s more likely Clark will incur a second suspension for 10 techs rather than going the rest of the season without another one. As Fever coach Stephanie White said, Clark can probably pick which games she wants to sit out and preemptively get suspended — for what it’s worth, the Fever have a back-to-back on Aug. 22 and 23, and the second game is against the Sky.
Cleveland will officially brand itself as the Cleveland Rockers
With more than a year and a half remaining until Cleveland tips off for the 2028 season, there is no rush for the expansion franchise to decide on a name. But when it does — and the organization appears to be further along than other expansion teams — making a nod to the city’s history seems like the play. In the WNBA, what’s old is new. The Portland fan base has latched on to the old Fire moniker, and the Houston Comets return in 2027 after the Connecticut Sun relocate south. When Cleveland team president Allison Howard spoke to The Athletic last summer, she wouldn’t commit to a name but said, “The Rockers have left a huge impact on Cleveland and women’s basketball” and promised to honor the Rockers legacy somehow.
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This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Minnesota Lynx, New York Liberty, Seattle Storm, Los Angeles Sparks, Washington Mystics, Atlanta Dream, Chicago Sky, Connecticut Sun, Indiana Fever, Dallas Wings, Las Vegas Aces, Phoenix Mercury, Golden State Valkyries, Portland Fire, Toronto Tempo, WNBA
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