WNBA winners and losers: How the league-leading Lynx, lightning-rod Fever and Caitlin Clark are faring at the season’s quarter mark

The start to the WNBA’s 30th anniversary season, which reached its quarter-way point this week, has been intriguing to say the least. Consider this: If it were to end now, the Minnesota Lynx would be the No. 1 seed without MVP runner-up Napheesa Collier practicing, let alone playing one minute of game time. They’re also without a significant portion of the roster they ran back in two Finals-destined seasons that nearly lifted Minnesota to a record-setting fifth WNBA championship.

The dynasty Las Vegas Aces are knocking at the door, while Atlanta and Dallas fill out the top four in the standings. New York and Indiana are middling, while the expansion teams (including second-year club Golden State) are holding their own directly behind.

Los Angeles could easily be the first quarter’s most glaring disappointment amid another year of incredible offensive potency and nearly non-existent defense. The Sparks are on the outside looking in, alongside the Mystics, Sky, Mercury, Storm and Sun. For some, it’s how they drew it up; for others, there are questions.

Here are the winners and losers as the league charges into its second quarter.

Winner 1a: Minnesota Lynx cruising above expectations

It’s still impressive every time Cheryl Reeve assembles a league-leading squad that exceeds the collective preseason assumptions. The Lynx (9-2) are faring just fine after losing co-Defensive Player of the Year Alanna Smith, reserve forward Jessica Shepard and back-up guard Natisha Hiedeman in free agency, in addition to Bridget Carleton in the expansion draft.

And they’re still without MVP runner-up Napheesa Collier while she rehabs a foot injury. When she spoke to reporters in late April, the target for return to on-court activities was June. There has been no further timeline update.

Minnesota leads the league nearly across the board. The 13.9 net rating is five points higher than the second-best Wings, and around pace to their league-leading 12.1 net a year ago. They’re a better rebounding team (league-best 37.7 to middle-of-the-pack 34.2 a year ago), and lead the league in rebound percentage (53.9), effective field goal percentage (55.5) and true shooting percentage (58.6) through Monday’s games.

Winner 1b: Olivia Miles, early ROY lock

Olivia Miles, the No. 2 draft pick the Lynx acquired in a 2025 trade with the Sky, is a major part of the success. The point guard doesn’t look like a rookie, to fans or to her teammates and coach. She leads the league in win shares (2.2), pacing safely over four-time MVP A’ja Wilson (1.9). If the award were given over the first quarter of the season, she would be a lock for Rookie of the Year, and could arguably be discussed as an MVP contender.

Should her current averages extrapolate through the season, she would join Candace Parker, Caitlin Clark, Satou Sabally and Sabrina Ionescu as the fifth player with at least 17 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists and 1 steal per game. Miles is doing it on the best efficiency of them all at 51.9% from the field. She was named Western Conference Player of the Week on Tuesday as the third rookie in Lynx history to do so. Over a 3-0 week, she shot 64.1% from the field, 64.3% from 3-point range and 87.5% from the free throw line while averaging 22 points, 7.7 assists, 4.7 rebounds and 1.3 blocks.

Loser: Indiana Fever and hot-take magnet Caitlin Clark

Also impressive in a starkly different way: how it seems as if the Indiana Fever can never get out of their own way. It’s certainly not the Fever’s fault that they have taken the mantle of “America’s Team,” a squad with outsized expectations and enlarged microscopes because they employ Caitlin Clark. It’s also not the organization’s job to mitigate that death spiral of online conversation.

But my gosh, it seems like they could be handling it all a heck of a lot better. They continue to be the topic of conversation for, among a grocery list of issues: declining to make Clark available post-game as required by the league’s media policy, receiving a warning about proper injury designations and revoking a reporter’s media credential without publicly commenting.

Winning would solve a lot … except that’s not happening much, either. The Fever (6-5) moved up from the eighth and final playoff spot with Clark’s game-winning 3 against the Mystics on Monday night. They’ve crossed the 100-point threshold twice, and lost both of those games. For a team pushing to reach the Finals, losing to Washington, Golden State and Portland, as they’ve done so far, won’t cut it.

While it’s more of a three-quarter-way thing to point out, keep an eye on the Fever’s finales. They play Minnesota at home and on the road in a three-day span to finish off the season.

Winner: Everyone who likes offense

The league’s emphasis on freedom of movement resulted in clunky play over the season’s first weeks. It has also led to a historically high offensive rating of 106.9 points per 100 possessions, according to Basketball Reference.

The top eight all surpassed the 108.4 offensive rating of the 2025 third-place team, Indiana. Dallas (114.4 ORtg) and Minnesota (113.4) are on pace to break the record of 113.0 set by Las Vegas in 2022. Only three teams (Chicago, Seattle and Connecticut) are averaging fewer than 100 points per 100 possessions.

Approximately one-quarter of the way into the schedule, there are already half as many 100-point team performances (17) as all of last season (34), putting the league on pace for 68. New York became the first team to average at least 100 points through the season’s first four games.

Officiating remains a talking point thus far, led by the oft-lamented issue of consistency. That’s to be the case in any league, though everyone agrees there should be some basic tenets followed. There are four coaches on the officiating task force created in the offseason: Minnesota’s Cheryl Reeve, Indiana’s Stephanie White, Phoenix’s Nate Tibbetts; and Toronto‘s Sandy Brondello. Reeve, White and Brondello have said they are on the right path to cleaning up the physicality and inconsistency the group wanted to address.

Loser: Injury status reports are full

It’s a tale as old as sports themselves: injuries impacting playoff hopes. The Lynx are doing swell without Collier, and other teams have also treaded water without key players. But it’s difficult to overlook how many stars have missed time and how that might impact a 44-game season that can go by rather quickly.

First-year Liberty head coach Chris DeMarco utilized five different starting lineups over 12 games while juggling day-to-day injuries. They’re 8-4, sitting in fifth with a cushion to Indiana (6-5). But New York knows this story well after its early exit, a partial byproduct of not playing together much in-season due to injuries.

Sabrina Ionescu, who missed a few weeks with an ankle injury she sustained in preseason, has only played in one game. The All-Star guard stayed in New York for the two-game road trip while working through a back issue.

Splashy free agent signing Satou Sabally played in seven games, but is coming off the bench in her ramp-up from the concussion she sustained in the WNBA Finals with Phoenix. Jonquel Jones even missed the game against her former Connecticut Sun with an illness. And Betnijah Laney-Hamilton missed a couple of games.

Fever center Aliyah Boston missed her first game in eight years with a lower leg injury. In all, there have been 111 individual player injuries resulting in 435 missed games (including season-ending injuries), according to The IX injury tracker.

Double winner: Wings, expansion teams

First-year Wings head coach Jose Fernandez came into Dallas with “really high standards.” There would be no moral victories in his iteration of the previous basement-dwelling franchise. Their offseason influx of talent could, and has, delivered.

Dallas (7-4) has its best start through 10 games since the franchise moved to the city in 2016. It didn’t reach double-digit wins until the final day of the 2025 season, when it capped a 10-34 campaign. Former Minnesota forward Jessica Shepard is having a career year as a regular starter, averaging 17.1 points, 14.5 rebounds and 7.4 assists per 40 minutes. Guard Azzi Fudd is coming into her own after a slightly rocky rookie start.

The Wings are second in offensive rating (108.9), a lifeboat given a 102.2 defensive rating, are fourth-best from beyond the arc (35.8%) and lead the league in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.02). They already have back-to-back wins against New York and Las Vegas, though they’ve lost twice to Atlanta and twice to Minnesota.

The expansion teams are also holding their own, a boost when it comes to keeping fans in seats throughout the entire season. It can’t be vibes alone for the turnstiles to move; it has to be about winning, too. Toronto’s $1 million backcourt of Brittney Sykes (20.1 ppg, fifth) and Marina Mabrey (17.6 ppg, 11th) has delivered. The Tempo (6-5) would make the playoffs if the season ended on Tuesday.

And Portland (6-7) head coach Alex Sarama’s unique approach, coupled with the chemistry of being a “bunch of overlooked players” with “a chip on our shoulder[s],” as forward Megan Gustafson said, placed them solidly as one of the league’s better early surprises.

Double loser: Sparks, Mercury

The double losers are both outside of the playoff picture and likely irritated by it for different reasons.

Listen, the Sparks (5-6) reaching the WNBA Finals was always a bold claim. But it wasn’t that far out of line, given the offense they can put on the floor and the offseason focus on defense, arguably the reason they missed the postseason again last year.

That side of the ball has gotten much better, sitting at the bottom of the league with a 111.8 defensive rating. It’s two points lower than the second-to-last Connecticut Sun. No standout performances by Kelsey Plum (25.5 ppg ranks second), Dearica Hamby (15.9, 17th) or Nneka Ogwumike (15.5 ppg, 19th) are going to solve that.

Plum called out her team’s defensive effort this weekend, an indication that the team isn’t taking pride in that side of the ball or putting in the work to see the proper results. Until that happens, the Sparks will underperform their roster.

As for the Mercury, their disappointment stems from coming off a runner-up finish. They’ve dealt with their own injuries, but haven’t backfilled the production of losing Satou Sabally. It is increasingly realistic that veteran MVP candidate Alyssa Thomas does not win a championship.

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