The 2024 WNBA season restarts this week. It’s been nearly a month since the league took its annual Olympics break, and now there’s almost six weeks before playoffs and the end of the regular season.
Minnesota hosts Washington Thursday, August 15. The Lynx is currently in fourth place behind New York (1), Connecticut (2), and Seattle (3) in the overall standings. The top eight teams advance to the playoffs in late September.
Lakeville native Rachel Banham was part of the season’s biggest trade as she, Moriah Jefferson, and the Sun’s 2025 first-round pick were traded to Chicago for Marina Mabrey in July.
Before the swap, the veteran guard told the MSR that the 2024 W season “is a lot more well-rounded this year with all the different teams. I think the gap is just closing,” stressed Banham.
Yet for some teams such as Atlanta and Chicago, who are battling for that eighth and final playoff spot, is there enough time to make a final push?
“We have to come back in shape,” noted Atlanta’s Aerial Powers. “Come back with a focus on winning games.” The eight-year veteran Powers is 17 points away from 2,000 career points. She and Tina Charles were Atlanta’s two offseason free agent signings, and the Dream also traded for Jordin Canada and Crystal Dangerfield.
At All-Star Weekend last month in Phoenix, we talked with Beyond the W’s Akiem Bailum about his impressions of the season thus far.
“I think that the first half was definitely entertaining,” observed Bailum. He said he was disappointed that Dallas “didn’t live up to expectations after what they were able to do last year going to the semifinals.”
“I think Minnesota was in a lot of ways a surprise, because I think a lot of folks were probably already writing [them] off” before the season began, he continued. “Minnesota has had a really good year.”
“I believe the [New York] Liberty looked like the team to beat. And Connecticut once again is good. Seattle was expected to be good,” said Bailum.
“I think one of the stories is going to be can the Liberty still maintain what they’ve been able to do in the first half,” noted the reporter. “I never worried about Vegas even when they were struggling early. I knew Vegas was going to be fine,” he added of the two-time defending champions.
On the Chicago-Connecticut trade, “This could be a situation potentially where both teams benefited,” said Bailum. “I think the Sky as long as they still have Chennedy [Carter] and as long as they still have Angel [Reese], I think that they definitely will be fine.
“If you’re the Connecticut Sun, you’re thinking about winning a championship because you’re so close,” he surmised. “I’m thinking maybe both teams won, but really we will see exactly how that plays out the second half.”
The remaining portion of the season “absolutely is going to be exciting,” predicted Bailum.