It’s time to take our weekly look at the advanced WNBA numbers, and after a 2-0 weekend with a blowout win over Minnesota and a big road victory at Phoenix, they are very positive for the Storm. The Mercury sports an identical 5-2 record and Washington has a superior winning percentage at 4-1 (.800), but the Storm is well ahead of the pack in terms of point differential. Account for the Storm’s road-heavy schedule and the latest update of the Hollinger WNBA Power Rankings has the Storm far ahead of anyone else in the league.

Offensive/Defensive Rating

Team           ORtg     Team           DRtg
-------------------     -------------------
Phoenix       111.1     Connecticut    91.2
Seattle       106.9     Indiana        93.7
Minnesota     105.5     Seattle        94.7
Washington    102.7     Detroit        95.3
Sacramento    100.3     New York       95.4
Indiana       100.2     Los Angeles    96.6
Chicago        99.8     Atlanta        98.0
AVERAGE        99.7     Washington     99.1
Connecticut    98.4     AVERAGE        99.7
New York       97.5     San Antonio   101.5
Atlanta        96.2     Phoenix       105.6
Los Angeles    89.7     Sacramento    106.6
San Antonio    88.8     Chicago       107.1
Detroit        88.3     Minnesota     107.6

The Storm’s offense has been the story in the early going, slightly outperforming their team’s defense relative to the rest of the league. Seattle has fallen prone to occasional offensive droughts, but has been as good team in the league at its best. At the other end, the Storm is far and away the best team in the league in terms of opponent field-goal and effective field-goal percentage, but falls slightly behind Connecticut and Indiana because of rebounding and free throws.

The Fever’s surge in the last two weeks has been on the strength of defense, typically Indiana’s strength. Winning with defense is a little out of the ordinary for the Sun. Meanwhile, defense has been the undoing of Minnesota and Sacramento (still hurt by a number of games against Phoenix) as well as a weak spot for the Mercury. The West is definitely the more offensive conference right now.

The league’s old guard is struggling on offense, with Detroit, Los Angeles and San Antonio – all of them conference finalists a year ago – ranking at the bottom of the league. The Silver Stars figure to climb back quickly with Becky Hammon returning to the lineup, but the Sparks may continue to have a tough time scoring without Lisa Leslie. Los Angeles did put things together at the defensive end in Sunday’s blowout win over the Monarchs.

Pace (Possessions/40 Minutes)

Team           Pace
-------------------
Phoenix        81.2
Minnesota      79.4
Atlanta        78.4
Washington     76.4
Los Angeles    76.0
New York       76.0
AVERAGE        76.0
Detroit        74.6
Sacramento     74.6
chicago        74.1
Connecticut    73.7
San Antonio    73.4
Indiana        73.3
Seattle        73.0

This is probably the last week we’ll look at pace, as things are beginning to shake out quite a bit. The only real surprise is the Mystics playing at an above-average pace under new Head Coach Julie Plank.

For those of you who are curious, these are not the actual possessions tracked by the league and compiled by our good friend Paul Swanson. They’re calculated as POS = .96 * (FGA + (.44*FTA) – OR + TO).

Expected Wins Standings

Team         Exp. W     Team         Exp. W
-------------------     -------------------
Seattle        26.6     Connecticut    23.0
Phoenix        22.4     Washington     21.7
Minnesota      14.4     Indiana        20.7
Los Angeles    13.1     New York       19.0
Sacramento     10.5     Atlanta        15.5
San Antonio     6.6     Detroit        13.3
                        Chicago         9.9

As I noted earlier, the Storm has the league’s top point differential, with the Connecticut Sun just behind on the strength of a 30-point win over Chicago (which also has the Sky at the bottom of the East standings. It’s still early). The giant gap between Phoenix and Minnesota in the West is surprising. Don’t expect San Antonio to stay at the bottom of the league for long, however.

Player WARP

Player               Tm   Win%   WARP
-------------------------------------
Lauren Jackson      SEA   .830    2.4
Diana Taurasi       PHO   .805    2.1
Nicky Anosike       MIN   .760    1.7
Sancho Lyttle       ATL   .781    1.5
Alana Beard         WAS   .794    1.4
Katie Douglas       IND   .679    1.4
Cappie Pondexter    PHO   .648    1.4
Seimone Augustus    MIN   .723    1.4
Tamika Catchings    IND   .677    1.3
Charde Houston      MIN   .711    1.1

Reigning Player of the Week Lauren Jackson continues atop the league, and now is also the leader in per-minute winning percentage ahead of friend Diana Taurasi. The most interesting name to appear on the list this week might be Katie Douglas, who has an excellent .681 True Shooting Percentage so far this season. If Douglas stays hot from the perimeter, the Fever’s offense could be much improved. I liked how Lin Dunn was using Douglas to initiate the pick-and-roll with Tamika Catchings in the fourth quarter of yesterday’s win over Detroit.

DeWanna Bonner (0.6 WARP) is the leader in the clubhouse for Rookie of the Year. Some per-minute standouts who haven’t logged as heavy minutes include the Storm’s Janell Burse (.751, 0.6 WARP) and Connecticut’s Kiesha Brown (.679, 0.6 WARP). Lastly, Sue Bird (1.0 WARP) is lurking just outside the top 10 after a phenomenal weekend of basketball.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 at 2:14 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.