While the Storm has already opened up a healthy lead in the Western Conference, the East remains a mess as we approach the end of June. The top four teams are separated by just a game and a half, and advanced statistics do little to help us make distinctions between these teams. Still, let’s take a look. As always, see our updated Statistical Analysis 101 page for explanations of these stats.

OFFENSIVE/DEFENSIVE RATINGS

Team           ORtg     Team           DRtg
-------------------     -------------------
Seattle       111.5     Indiana        94.0
Phoenix       108.9     Washington     95.9
Atlanta       102.8     Seattle        98.1
Connecticut   102.8     Connecticut    98.3
New York      102.0     Atlanta        98.4
LEAGUE        101.8     Chicago       101.0
Chicago       101.7     LEAGUE        101.8
Indiana       101.7     New York      102.6
Washington    100.5     San Antonio   105.0
San Antonio    99.8     Tulsa         105.8
Los Angeles    97.7     Minnesota     106.5
Minnesota      97.2     Los Angeles   107.1
Tulsa          94.9     Phoenix       109.3

For the most part, we’re starting to see Offensive and Defensive Ratings stabilize, so let’s consider some interesting teams.

Chicago and New York are the two closest teams to league average this season. The Sky ranks an identical sixth in both offense and defense on a per-possession basis, while the Liberty is fifth and seventh, respectively, but also just above and just below the league as a whole in both categories. In this year’s Eastern Conference, that has proven an unsuccessful combination, as Atlanta and Connecticut offer similar balance at a higher level at both ends of the floor and Indiana and Washington have won with a defense-first mentality.

The Lynx continue to lag everyone save Tulsa in Offensive Rating, which is surprising because the Lynx had the league’s second-best offense most of 2009 – even without Seimone Augustus. Minnesota’s two-point percentage (40.8 percent) almost looks like a typo; nobody else in the league is shooting worse than 44.4 percent inside the arc. All three Lynx shooting guards – Hamchetou Maiga-Ba (39.4 percent), the injured Candice Wiggins (32.1 percent) and inconsistent rookie Monica Wright (31.7 percent) – have shot under 40 percent on twos, while Nicky Anosike (42.9 percent), Charde Houston (43.9 percent) and Lindsay Whalen (40.9 percent) have all shot far worse than their career marks. You have to figure this will turn around, but right now it is proving costly for Minnesota.

On a more positive note, the Mystics have emerged as one of the league’s best defenses. Fifth a year ago, Washington has taken another leap and now ranks behind only the Fever in terms of Defensive Rating. Washington is doing it without any players, save newly added Katie Smith, considered great individual defenders, and even Smith is no longer the defensive force she once was. The Mystics are last in the league in shot blocking and only average in terms of steals, but Julie Plank’s defensive system puts players in the right place and they have executed very well.

EXPECTED WINS STANDINGS

Team        Exp. W%     Team        Exp. W%
-------------------     -------------------
Seattle        .833     Indiana        .678
Phoenix        .497     Washington     .642
San Antonio    .342     Connecticut    .602
Los Angeles    .289     Atlanta        .602
Minnesota      .283     Chicago        .490
Tulsa          .207     New York       .474

Here’s where the Eastern Conference continues to tighten up. The difference between first and fourth in terms of expected wins based on point differential is less than three games over a full 34-game season. The Sky and Liberty are both playing well from this perspective. The Hollinger Power Rankings, which take schedule into account, do suggest that Indiana is clearly the No. 1 team in the East. The Fever has played a hard slate, including two games apiece against the Storm and the Sun.

The biggest difference between actual record and expected record now has to belong to the Mercury, which is 5-9 after dropping four consecutive games but has barely been outscored on the season. After playing in Atlanta on Tuesday, Phoenix has four of its next five games at home, so don’t be surprised if the Mercury gets rolling sooner rather than later.

WARP LEADERS

Player               Tm   Win%   WARP
-------------------------------------
Lauren Jackson      SEA   .784    4.4
Tamika Catchings    IND   .812    4.0
Sylvia Fowles       CHI   .730    3.7
Tina Charles        CON   .714    3.1
Sue Bird            SEA   .669    2.8
Monique Currie      WAS   .695    2.8
Crystal Langhorne   WAS   .650    2.7
Katie Douglas       IND   .681    2.7
Diana Taurasi       PHO   .660    2.7
Camille Little      SEA   .678    2.6

It’s not even the midpoint of the season, but I think we can safely say that – barring injury – Tina Charles has Rookie of the Year wrapped up. The No. 1 overall pick has been the league’s fourth-best player in terms of WARP, while no other rookie has posted more than 1.4 WARP (Chicago’s Epiphanny Prince is second). The more pressing question is how historic Charles’ debut campaign might be. Just two true rookies in league history have surpassed 6.5 WARP: Tamika Catchings (11.2; she was a year older because she missed her first season out of college with a torn ACL) and Candace Parker (10.5). Lauren Jackson (6.4) ranks third on the list; it’s kind of amazing in hindsight that she lost out on ROY honors to Portland’s Jackie Stiles (1.7).

Elsewhere, Crystal Langhorne breaks into the top 10 for the first time since the end of June on the strength of a performance that earned her Eastern Conference Player of the Week. Phoenix’s Penny Taylor drops out, though it was hardly much of a slide. She’s currently 11th in WARP.

Having already played 13 games, the Storm has moved well past the first third of its season, but this is the closest we’ll get for the league as a whole, which has completed 34.3 percent of the schedule thus far. By this point, things should be shaking out a little, yet the standings remain muddled in both conferences – aside from the Storm leading the West.

Let’s take a look. As always, see our updated Statistical Analysis 101 page for explanations of these stats.

OFFENSIVE/DEFENSIVE RATINGS

Team           ORtg     Team           DRtg
-------------------     -------------------
Seattle       111.6     Indiana        92.9
Phoenix       110.4     Connecticut    96.2
Connecticut   103.9     Washington     96.4
Atlanta       103.0     Seattle        97.7
LEAGUE        102.2     Atlanta        98.9
Chicago       101.8     LEAGUE        102.2
Indiana       101.1     Chicago       102.3
New York      101.0     New York      104.8
Los Angeles   100.4     Tulsa         106.4
Washington     99.8     San Antonio   106.7
San Antonio    98.7     Minnesota     106.8
Minnesota      97.5     Los Angeles   108.2
Tulsa          95.4     Phoenix       108.7

The first thing worth taking note of here is the league rating, which has surged to 102.2 points per 100 possessions. As we’ve discussed in the past, offenses tend to get better over the course of the season, so for the league to be scoring so efficiently overall this early is really quite remarkable. Last year, the league’s final Offensive Rating was 100.4, which was a WNBA record that might be very short-lived.

The Storm remains the class of the league offensively, but is getting heat from the Phoenix Mercury. The Mercury’s last five games are remarkable statistically. Phoenix is averaging an off-the-charts 122.4 points per 100 possessions on offense, but the Mercury’s Defensive Rating in that span is an incredible 114.7. You’ll remember that not long ago Phoenix actually ranked better on defense than on offense. Not anymore. The Mercury is nearly back to its familiar place atop the league’s offenses … but an equally familiar worst in the league in defense. That combination won Phoenix the championship last season.

As for the Storm, after battering San Antonio on the offensive glass last night, Seattle is now collecting 39.5 percent of its own misses. That would be the best offensive rebounding percentage in league history, eclipsing the 38.6 percent mark of the 2007 Monarchs.

There’s a huge gap between the Storm and the Mercury and everyone else in the league on offense, but Connecticut has emerged as one of the most balanced teams in the WNBA on both ends of the floor along with the Storm. Indiana, meanwhile, has gotten its offense going during a 6-1 stretch.

EXPECTED WINS STANDINGS

Team        Exp. W%     Team        Exp. W%
-------------------     -------------------
Seattle        .846     Indiana        .704
Phoenix        .530     Connecticut    .678
Los Angeles    .319     Washington     .625
San Antonio    .286     Atlanta        .582
Minnesota      .266     Chicago        .460
Tulsa          .220     New York       .414

After the Sun’s pair of road victories out West this weekend, the Eastern Conference is now 16-5 in interconference play this season (with three of those five West wins coming from the Storm). The dominance is no less great in terms of point differential. The other four West teams are separated by just 1.5 games in the current standings, but the Mercury’s differential separates Phoenix from the rest of this back. The Mercury has outscored its opposition on the season, while Phoenix’s last three losses have come by a combined six points, which has left Phoenix below .500 at 5-7.

The Sky has been the hard-luck team in the East, winning 1.5 fewer games than an average team with the same point differential. Either way, though, Chicago trails the four playoff favorites in the East. Separating among this group is a little trickier. Atlanta’s point differential doesn’t match the team’s record, but the Dream has played nine out of 13 games on the road so far and should fare better as the schedule evens out.

WARP LEADERS

Player               Tm   Win%   WARP
-------------------------------------
Lauren Jackson      SEA   .780    3.7
Tamika Catchings    IND   .820    3.5
Sylvia Fowles       CHI   .755    3.2
Monique Currie      WAS   .756    2.7
Sue Bird            SEA   .676    2.7
Camille Little      SEA   .729    2.6
Tina Charles        CON   .708    2.3
Penny Taylor        PHO   .681    2.3
Diana Taurasi       PHO   .636    2.1
Katie Douglas       IND   .660    1.4

The three players at the top of the WARP leaderboard may be separating themselves from the pack, as they appear in the same order as they did in our last update two weeks ago. That means a potential MVP showdown at KeyArena when the Fever visits Friday. Tamika Catchings has been slightly better than Lauren Jackson on a per-minute basis, but the odd thing about that is they’ve reversed their usual patterns. Catchings is shooting 48.1 percent from the field this year, while it’s Jackson who is down at 42.0 percent, largely because nearly a third of her attempts have been beyond the arc.

11 games into the season, it’s becoming clear Monique Currie is in this leaderboard to stay. Currie’s 50 percent three-point shooting is somewhat fluky, but even if we take her down all the way to 33.3 percent she’s still among the league’s best players because she’s maintaining a solid True Shooting Percentage while using more than a quarter of Washington’s possessions as the go-to player for the Mystics in Alana Beard’s absence.

Interesting question posed to me by Dick Fain before yesterday’s Storm game: Was Sue Bird’s five-game stretch before Sunday, when she averaged 17.2 points and 6.6 assists on 53.3 percent shooting, better than her performance as the Storm’s lead scorer when Jackson was injured late in the 2008 season? I’d say yes, because of the combination of scoring and playmaking Bird has maintained lately – not to mention an assist-to-turnover ratio of nearly five during that run.

This is the first appearance in the top 10 this season for Mercury teammates Diana Taurasi and Penny Taylor, driving the team’s recent offensive efficiency. Meanwhile, we wave goodbye to Candace Parker for good after season-ending shoulder surgery. While her team was struggling, Parker was off to a strong start to the year. We’ll hope to see her back at 100 percent to start 2011.

The expectation entering the season was that it would be another year where parity ruled the WNBA, what with a strong crop of rookies and Sacramento players dispersed to the league’s weaker teams in 2009. Those newcomers have surely helped, but what we’ve seen in the early going is a surprising amount of imbalance. That’s true between the East and the West (five of six East teams are .500 or better; just the Storm is in the West), in terms of individual games (look at all of last week’s blowouts) and the early team ratings.

Let’s take a look. As always, see our updated Statistical Analysis 101 page for explanations of these stats.

OFFENSIVE/DEFENSIVE RATINGS

Team           ORtg     Team           DRtg
-------------------     -------------------
Seattle       111.6     Indiana        89.0
Chicago       104.6     Connecticut    92.6
Connecticut   104.3     Atlanta        94.8
Phoenix       102.2     Washington     97.3
LEAGUE        100.0     Seattle        98.0
Atlanta        99.5     Chicago        98.8
Los Angeles    99.4     LEAGUE        100.0
Indiana        99.1     Tulsa         103.0
Tulsa          97.2     New York      103.4
New York       96.9     Phoenix       104.7
Washington     96.9     San Antonio   105.6
San Antonio    95.0     Minnesota     106.8
Minnesota      92.4     Los Angeles   107.9

One team that has found balance is Indiana, which surged from last in the league in offense to seventh on the strength of an 89-51 win at Minnesota on Sunday. That was the Fever’s third consecutive victory, and Indiana is starting to look like the juggernaut that reached the WNBA Finals last season. The Fever’s defense remains far and away the league’s best.

The Storm has actually opened up its advantage on the rest of the league on offense. The Storm ranks in the top three in all four offensive Four Factors, leading the league in both offensive rebounding and turnover percentage. In the wake of Sunday’s loss at KeyArena, Phoenix has slipped to fourth in the league in Offensive Rating, and I’m not sure I’ve seen the Mercury so low since I started doing this weekly updates in 2008. Probably not.

At the other end of the spectrum, while Los Angeles has been unlucky during its 1-6 start (more on that in a moment), the Sparks are badly in need of improvement at the defensive end of the floor. The Lynx and the Silver Stars, who have slumped lately, could use help at both ends. Seimone Augustus can’t return fast enough for Minnesota.

EXPECTED WINS STANDINGS

Team        Exp. W%     Team        Exp. W%
-------------------     -------------------
Seattle        .839     Indiana        .760
Tulsa          .388     Connecticut    .760
Phoenix        .378     Atlanta        .625
Los Angeles    .312     Chicago        .619
San Antonio    .227     Washington     .516
Minnesota      .128     New York       .345

The difference between the two conferences is arguably even more stark when viewed through the prism of point differential and expected winning percentage. Right now, it looks like a very good team is going to miss the playoffs in the Eastern Conference, while a slow start shouldn’t really hurt Los Angeles much. The Sparks have been playing close games, which is something that Minnesota and San Antonio can’t say.

Connecticut and Indiana, sporting identical +7.9 points per game margins to lead the East, face off in a home-and-home series this weekend that should help determine the conference’s favorite at the quarter pole.

WARP LEADERS

Player               Tm   Win%   WARP
-------------------------------------
Lauren Jackson      SEA   .823    2.8
Tamika Catchings    IND   .848    2.5
Sylvia Fowles       CHI   .779    2.3
Sue Bird            SEA   .690    2.0
Camille Little      SEA   .744    1.9
Angel McCoughtry    ATL   .675    1.8
Candace Parker      LAS   .683    1.7
Monique Currie      WAS   .705    1.6
Tina Charles        CON   .694    1.5
Katie Douglas       IND   .660    1.4

According to friend of StormTracker Paul Swanson, Tamika Catchings posted a single-game PER of 64.6 (average is 15) in Sunday’s blowout win over the Lynx, scoring 27 points in 26 minutes on just 14 shooting possessions. That she still didn’t win Eastern Conference Player of the Week is testament to how well Fowles is playing and how overdue she was for the honor (the first of her career). Lauren Jackson’s Western Conference Player of the Week nod was the 16th of her career, now the most in league history, and surely not the last if Jackson keeps up this level of play.

WARP rounds out the top five with a pair of Storm players, and only partially because the team has played nine games already. On a per-minute basis, Camille Little has been better than anyone besides the three MVP candidates listed above. More on this later. Sue Bird had an incredible pair of weekend games, going from primarily a scorer (22 points, six assists at Los Angeles) to a distributor (12 points, season-high 11 assists, no turnovers vs. Phoenix) with ease. Bird’s assist-to-turnover ratio is north of 3.5, a mark that has been topped just twice in WNBA history. Aussie Michelle Cleary had an incredible 5.5 mark in her lone WNBA season in 2000 backing up countrywoman Michele Timms in Phoenix, while Miami’s Debbie Black posted a 4.3 assist-to-turnover ratio in 2002. Bird’s previous career high was 2.2, achieved last season.

Katie Douglas, a key figure in the Fever’s offensive surge last week, makes her first appearance of the season on this list.

Last week, we wondered what would happen when the Storm – the early-season leaders in Offensive Rating despite poor outside shooting – turned it on from downtown. We got our answer last week, as the Storm put together two big offensive games. They now lead the league by a considerable margin by scoring 108.8 points per 100 possessions. How about the rest of the WNBA advanced statistics? Let’s take a look. As always, see our updated Statistical Analysis 101 page for explanations of these stats.

OFFENSIVE/DEFENSIVE RATINGS

Team           ORtg     Team           DRtg
-------------------     -------------------
Seattle       108.8     Atlanta        91.8
Atlanta       103.7     Indiana        93.9
Connecticut   102.8     Connecticut    94.1
Phoenix       101.8     Washington     97.0
Chicago       101.7     Phoenix        98.2
New York      100.6     AVERAGE        99.6
AVERAGE        99.6     Seattle        99.7
Washington     98.1     Tulsa         101.0
San Antonio    97.2     Chicago       102.1
Los Angeles    96.9     San Antonio   102.3
Tulsa          96.5     New York      104.7
Minnesota      94.2     Minnesota     106.5
Indiana        92.9     Los Angeles   106.7

Around the league, offense went up significantly over the first week, and we’ve nearly reached the point per possession mark that the WNBA climbed over for the first time in 2010. We probably have another week or two of noteworthy offensive gains before things settle in.

One team that is still struggling to score is the Indiana Fever. It’s early, but so far this year’s incarnation of the Fever is looking more like the all-D, no-O 2008 team than the more balanced attack that reached last year’s WNBA Finals. We’ll see if Shavonte Zellous helps after she was acquired from Tulsa last week for the low cost of a second-round pick.

At the defensive end, the Dream, Fever and Sun have all been stout. The Storm improved its Defensive Rating significantly in the blowout win at San Antonio, but is still a hair below average. Surprisingly, Phoenix has been nearly as good on defense as on offense so far this season. The big disappointment at the defensive end is Los Angeles. The Sparks are missing Lisa Leslie’s size in the paint, but there’s no way a team with a frontline of DeLisha Milton-Jones, Candace Parker and Tina Thompson should struggle so much on D. In fairness, schedule has been part of the issue; L.A. has already played three of the league’s top four offensive teams among its five games. Still, the Sparks will need to improve.

EXPECTED WINS STANDINGS

Team        Exp. W%     Team        Exp. W%
-------------------     -------------------
Seattle        .763     Atlanta        .803
Phoenix        .549     Connecticut    .730
Tulsa          .421     Washington     .553
San Antonio    .349     Indiana        .487
Los Angeles    .270     Chicago        .467
Minnesota      .164     New York       .368

As usual, this is expected winning percentage based on point differential. The big story thus far is the disparity between the two conferences. There are three East teams better than the second-place team in the West, and the West’s bottom three teams are all worse than New York. Connecticut is just 3-2, but all three wins have come by double-digits, including a 26-point drubbing of the Lynx.

Early in the year, schedule and home/road balance can also skew this. For a more complete perspective, check out John Hollinger’s statistical power rankings, which were previously kept by petrel on RebKell but now are being automated at ESPN.com.

WARP LEADERS

Player               Tm   Win%   WARP
-------------------------------------
Lauren Jackson      SEA   .779    1.8
Monique Currie      WAS   .738    1.6
Sylvia Fowles       CHI   .751    1.6
Angel McCoughtry    ATL   .740    1.5
Tamika Catchings    IND   .777    1.3
Candace Parker      LAS   .696    1.2
Camille Little      SEA   .707    1.0
Tina Charles        CON   .691    1.0
Crystal Langhorne   WAS   .587    1.0
Sue Bird            SEA   .606    0.9

Check out the Storm! Three players in the top 10, with Lauren Jackson in her rightful place atop the league. In truth, the Storm having already played six games while some others are stuck on five (or four for New York and Phoenix) is something of a factor. You might be wondering why Camille Little and Sue Bird but not Swin Cash. The answer has a lot to do with steals. Little has 12 of them already, while Cash has just one all season in more minutes. That boosts Little’s Defensive Rating and hurts Cash’s. Expect that to even out a bit going forward. As for Bird, despite not shooting the ball well she ranks highly because she’s got a 3.0 assist-to-turnover ratio and has been strong on the glass for a point guard.

Sylvia Fowles has really become an offensive force during her third season. Fowles is shooting 63.3 percent from the field, but what really stands out is her 94.1 percent accuracy from the free throw line. Given how often Fowles gets fouled (pun intended), that’s a lot of extra points she’s scoring at the line. As a result, her True Shooting Percentage (.720) is best among the players on this list by a wide margin.

For the first time all year – and certainly not the last – it’s time to turn our attention to WNBA advanced stats. As veteran StormTracker readers know, we’ll be going over these stats on a weekly basis (usually on Monday) throughout the regular season to offer a more accurate perspective on how teams and players are performing. For a primer on the statistics used here, check out our updated Statistical Analysis 101 page.

OFFENSIVE/DEFENSIVE RATINGS

Team           ORtg     Team           DRtg
-------------------     -------------------
Seattle       105.5     Atlanta        87.9
Connecticut   102.2     Indiana        92.4
San Antonio   101.6     Washington     93.2
Atlanta        99.1     Connecticut    94.6
New York       98.5     Phoenix        95.6
Washington     98.4     San Antonio    95.8
AVERAGE        97.4     Seattle        96.8
Minnesota      96.0     Tulsa          96.8
Chicago        95.9     AVERAGE        97.4
Phoenix        95.1     Los Angeles   102.4
Tulsa          94.0     Minnesota     102.4
Indiana        92.3     Chicago       106.1
Los Angeles    91.5     New York      106.6

Would you believe that the best offensive team so far this season has been your Seattle Storm? The Storm has made up for inaccurate shooting (the team is 12th in effective field-goal percentage) by ranking in the league’s top three in all three of the other Four Factors, including the league’s lowest turnover rate on offense.

Of course, the most important caveat looking at these statistics is that it is incredibly early. Ridiculously early. Phoenix has played two games thus far, and something tells me the Mercury’s offense won’t be worse than its defense by season’s end. At the same time, the Storm’s Offensive Rating will probably slide a little, but that should be accompanied by an improvement at the defensive end. Besides simply sample size, schedules have yet to come anywhere close to evening out.

Some other notable numbers: New York has been all offense thus far, ranking fifth in Offensive Rating but dead last in the league in Defensive Rating. There’s a giant gulf between Tulsa, which ranks eighth in Defensive Rating but has been better than average, and the bottom four teams in the league, all of whom are giving up a ton of points.

EXPECTED WINS STANDINGS

Team        Exp. W%     Team        Exp. W%
-------------------     -------------------
Seattle        .754     Atlanta        .773
San Antonio    .622     Washington     .658
Tulsa          .467     Connecticut    .642
Phoenix        .418     Indiana        .526
Minnesota      .335     New York       .260
Los Angeles    .260     Chicago        .253

As usual, this is expected winning percentage based on point differential. Usually, we’ll show expected wins, but since some teams have played two more games than others so far, we’ll look strictly at winning percentage for now. The Storm and Atlanta have paced the league, with the East far more impressive than the West in terms of differential so far. It’s early.

PACE

Team           Pace
-------------------
Tulsa          85.1
Phoenix        83.6
Atlanta        82.2
Minnesota      81.7
Los Angeles    81.2
San Antonio    79.6
Connecticut    77.7
Seattle        77.0
Washington     76.1
New York       76.1
Indiana        75.2
Chicago        73.2

I wanted to show this in large part to highlight just how fast Nolan Richardson has the Shock playing thus far. Tulsa is averaging 1.5 more possessions per 40 minutes than the Mercury. Beyond that, who has played whom makes a big difference right now. The Storm’s pace, for example, was much faster against Phoenix than in the team’s other two games.

WARP LEADERS

Player               Tm   Win%   WARP
-------------------------------------
Monique Currie      WAS   .819    1.2
Lauren Jackson      SEA   .797    1.0
Tamika Catchings    IND   .763    1.0
Angel McCoughtry    ATL   .756    1.0
Charde Houston      MIN   .716    0.9
Michelle Snow       SAS   .832    0.8
Sylvia Fowles       CHI   .648    0.7
Shay Murphy         IND   .760    0.7
Tina Charles        CON   .722    0.7
Crystal Langhorne   WAS   .624    0.7

Monique Currie is making an early case for Most Improved Player, shooting 50% from the field, better than 40% from three-point range and better than 90% at the free throw line. More on her in tomorrow’s Insider Preview as the Storm prepares to host the Mystics. Currie might have had a claim for Eastern Conference Player of the Week, but it’s hard to argue with the selections of Lauren Jackson and Angel McCoughtry. Give Michelle Snow a lot of the credit for San Antonio starting so well, and Tina Charles looks like an elite player within her first month in the WNBA. Still, it’s definitely early.