Latest WNBA stats as we near the midway point of the season …

OFFENSIVE RATING

Team          ORating---------------------Seattle         104.5Phoenix         103.4Indiana         103.3Los Angeles      97.9Detroit          97.3Minnesota        97.1Washington       97.0Sacramento       97.0Chicago          96.8Connecticut      96.2San Antonio      95.7Houston          94.2New York         93.4

What a strange distribution. There are three elite offensive teams in the league – the Storm, Phoenix and Indiana. Then the difference between them and anyone else is larger than the difference between fourth and 13th (last).

New York’s offense is really struggling. The Liberty miss Erin Thorn’s outside shooting very, very, very badly right now. Los Angeles was part of the elite group when we last did this exercise two weeks ago. The Sparks miss Chamique Holdsclaw, but unlike Thorn, she’s not coming back.

DEFENSIVE RATING

Team          DRating---------------------Sacramento       90.6Indiana          90.9Detroit          92.6San Antonio      95.1New York         96.3Seattle          99.2Connecticut      99.2Chicago          99.2Phoenix          99.3Los Angeles      99.8Washington      101.0Minnesota       104.4Houston         105.1

Another strange distribution. There are several distinct groups. Sacramento and Indiana are elite, Detroit is a slight bit off that pace, San Antonio and New York are above-average and Minnesota and Houston are bad. Everyone else is right about the same. The Storm’s Defensive Rating has shown tremendous improvement since the last time we looked at these numbers. Holding New York to 53 points has a way of doing that.

POINT DIFFERENTIAL

Again, the standings based on expected wins (as calculated from point differential):

WEST          ExpW   EAST          ExpW------------------   ------------------Sacramento    22.3   Indiana       26.3Seattle       20.4   Detroit       21.5Phoenix       20.2   Chicago       14.5San Antonio   17.4   Connecticut   14.2Los Angeles   15.8   New York      14.1Minnesota     12.9   Washington    13.9Houston        8.3

The Fever is far and away the league’s top team with Detroit slipping lately. In the East, while the official standings show Washington and Connecticut well back off the back, differential shows them as right with Chicago and New York.

Of course, it’s worth noting that one lopsided victory can have a big impact on point differential.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 at 6:49 pm and is filed under stats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.