With three weeks left in the WNBA regular season, it’s time to begin keeping an eye on where the Storm stands in the race for playoff positioning in the Western Conference. With a win and a San Antonio loss on Saturday, the Storm moved into third place in the conference.
Team W L GB
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Minnesota 20 6 -
Phoenix 15 10 4.5
Seattle 14 12 6.0
San Antonio 13 12 6.5
Los Angeles 11 15 9.0
Tulsa 1 23 18.0
Minnesota has clinched a playoff berth and Tulsa has been eliminated, but the other three spots remain up for grabs among four teams, including the Storm. Right now, the Storm’s magic number to clinch a playoff berth is a combination of six Storm wins plus Los Angeles losses.
Tuesday’s game against San Antonio looms large in the playoff picture. A win would give the Silver Stars back the edge for third place, while a Storm victory would not only extend the lead to 1.5 games but give the Storm the edge in the head-to-head tiebreaker.
To try to get a sense of how much schedule will matter the rest of the way and give a sense of the possible outcomes, I built an Excel spreadsheet with a macro that simulates the remainder of the season 500 times. The simulator also breaks two-team ties correctly, but isn’t yet equipped to handle ties of three or more teams. Based on season performance to date, here’s how we’d expect things to play out, first in the East:
Team W 1 2 3 4 LOT
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Indiana 23.7 .94 .05 .00 .00 .00
Connecticut 21.3 .05 .91 .04 .00 .00
New York 17.7 .00 .03 .61 .27 .09
Atlanta 17.1 .00 .02 .22 .50 .25
Chicago 15.8 .00 .00 .12 .25 .63
Washington 7.2 .00 .00 .00 .00 1.00
Team W 1 2 3 4 LOT
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Minnesota 26.0 1.00 .00 .00 .00 .00
Phoenix 21.0 .00 .70 .24 .05 .00
Seattle 19.1 .00 .20 .50 .27 .03
San Antonio 18.2 .00 .10 .24 .57 .09
Los Angeles 15.4 .00 .00 .02 .12 .86
Tulsa 1.6 .00 .00 .00 .00 1.00
The top two spots in the East are almost locked up. There’s a little more variability after that,but we’d expect the Liberty and the Dream to round things out. In the West, there are virtually no scenarios where the Lynx finish anywhere but first. The Mercury has the inside track on claiming the second seed and home-court advantage, with the Storm currently ahead of the Silver Stars for third.
However, we know in the West that Lauren Jackson and Candace Parker returning from injuries has changed the playoff picture, as has Danielle Adams‘ absence. If I subjectively adjust the true team strength the rest of the season to reflect that, here are the results:
Team W 1 2 3 4 LOT
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Minnesota 26.2 1.00 .00 .00 .00 .00
Phoenix 20.9 .00 .72 .25 .03 .00
Seattle 19.1 .00 .22 .50 .23 .05
San Antonio 17.8 .00 .05 .21 .52 .22
Los Angeles 16.0 .00 .01 .05 .24 .71
Tulsa 1.4 .00 .00 .00 .00 1.00
This doesn’t make an enormous difference, which is probably instructive in and of itself. With just eight games remaining,it takes a lot to substantially alter a team’s outlook. But the Sparks do double their chances of making the playoffs. I for one am not ready to write Los Angeles off just yet.
A couple other notes on the simulation, using the subjective version:
- The Storm won at least 20 games 40 percent of the time.
- Eight percent of the time, Minnesota won out to match the WNBA record of 28 wins tied by the Storm last season.
- Tulsa finished with just one win 64 percent of the time, but there was one simulation out of 500 where the Shock ended up with three wins the rest of the way.
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can you explain the excell sheet? I am not getting “W -1-2-3-4-5-lot” columns. thanks for expanding my understanding of “The Stat Man Sees>>>”
That’s the average wins each team finishes with, and the percentage of simulations where they finished in each spot (lot being the lottery).