Hello, and welcome back to our weekly check-in on the WNBA’s advanced statistics. Because the season got off to such a slow start, with the Storm playing just two games through the first 13 days of the schedule, we’re starting this analysis a little bit later than usual. That should make the opening numbers a bit more reliable, though they are still subject to significant fluctuations and affected quite a bit by team schedules. For example, I doubt the San Antonio Silver Stars are quite the juggernaut their numbers make them out to be, though they are certainly the most positive surprise of the early season.

OFFENSIVE/DEFENSIVE RATINGS

Team           ORtg     Team           DRtg
-------------------     -------------------
San Antonio   114.4     Minnesota      93.9
Connecticut   110.9     San Antonio    94.4
Los Angeles   108.4     Seattle        96.3
Minnesota     105.9     Los Angeles    97.5
Phoenix       105.1     Chicago        97.8
Chicago       101.7     Indiana        98.8
LEAGUE        101.4     Connecticut    99.5
Indiana       100.9     LEAGUE        101.5
New York      100.2     Atlanta       102.2
Washington     97.0     New York      106.1
Tulsa          94.5     Tulsa         107.0
Atlanta        93.9     Phoenix       111.5
Seattle        89.4     Washington    111.8

On offense, it’s the WNBA Finals curse, as both the Atlanta Dream and the Storm have struggled to score in the early going. I discussed the Storm’s situation in more depth today on StormBasketball.com. New York and Indiana are a copule of other teams that have gone from the top of the rankings last year on offense to near the bottom this year. Traveling in the other direction have been Connecticut, Los Angeles and Minnesota, the latter two after adding key pieces in a healthy Candace Parker and Maya Moore. The Silver Stars, a good offense last year, have been elite in 2011. If Danielle Adams is half as good as she’s looked so far, San Antonio will remain tough to stop.

On the other end, the Silver Stars have made huge strides defensively with Dan Hughes back on the sidelines. (Two games with Tulsa don’t hurt.) The Lynx showed defensive promise and now have Taj McWilliams anchoring their D and more size behind Rebekkah Brunson. Washington has tumbled dramatically on defense following a coaching change, while the Dream’s defense has yet to be as stout as in the past.

EXPECTED WINS STANDINGS

Team         Exp. W     Team         Exp. W
-------------------     -------------------
San Antonio    35.2     Connecticut    27.5
Minnesota      26.3     Indiana        17.6
Los Angeles    25.1     Chicago        16.8
Seattle        14.2     Atlanta        11.6
Phoenix        11.7     New York        9.8
Tulsa           5.4     Washington      7.8

This looks at the standings in each conference based on the average numbers of wins a team with the same point differential would be expected to have over a full season. I’ll boldly predict the Silver Stars are unlikely to win 35 games in a 34-game schedule.  What this does show is the improve of the Western Conference, which boasts three of the league’s top four teams by differential. Right now, the bottom of the Eastern Conference appears very soft, though Atlanta figures to pick things up at some point.

PACE

Team           Pace
-------------------
San Antonio    81.6
Atlanta        80.8
Phoenix        79.8
Minnesota      77.4
AVERAGE        76.6
Tulsa          76.3
New York       76.0
Los Angeles    74.9
Chicago        74.7
Connecticut    74.6
Washington     74.6
Indiana        74.3
Seattle        74.1

Believe it or not, the Silver Stars’ fast pace has little to do with playing the Shock twice. Tulsa has actually slowed to below league average to take advantage of Liz Cambage’s half-court skills. With a smaller unit, San Antonio seems to be speeding things up. The rest of the leaders are fairly familiar, while the usual teams focus on executing in half-court games.

Usually, we’ll have player analysis in this space, but my spreadsheet still needs some work. I’ll try to add that in later in the week.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 20th, 2011 at 7:05 pm and is filed under WNBA, stats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.