It was right around the time everyone left them for dead that the Las Vegas Aces began showing signs of life. At the start of August, the Minnesota Lynx rudely welcomed them back from the All-Star break by nearly doubling them up in Vegas; the 111-58 game was the second-biggest loss in WNBA history, and the worst defeat at home.
The score alone was insulting, but the Lynx mocked the Aces by example, too. Where Vegas’s level of engagement wavered from one possession to the next, the Lynx never relented. Kayla McBride, a former Ace, made eight threes on eight attempts in just the first half. Early MVP favorite Napheesa Collier exited with an injury 26 minutes into her night, but chipped in 18 points and a couple of steals before she left. The real gut punch was an 18-point, 14-rebound performance from free-agent signing Jessica Shepard, a plus-46 on the night and the prize of an offseason that saw the Aces only get worse. Minnesota’s report card belonged on the fridge. Vegas? “We did everything at a grade F today,” head coach Becky Hammon said after the game, sporting the same jaded frown she’d now worn for the better part of a calendar year.
The loss to Minnesota dropped Vegas to 14-14 on the season, not quite bad enough to miss the playoffs altogether, but still bad enough to make homecourt advantage feel like a real long shot. “We have to move on,” Hammon said, as if trying to foreclose questions about the many things that went wrong that evening. “We have another game tomorrow. We have to get the win tomorrow.”
So they did, and they never stopped. Three weeks later, the Aces have notched Win No. 25 before suffering Loss No. 15. With a 79-74 playoff-clinching win against the Sky in Chicago on Monday, they extended their winning streak to 11 games, one shy of tying a franchise record set in 2012, when they were the San Antonio Silver Stars and their star player was Becky Hammon. Suddenly the Aces are the WNBA’s third seed, poised to host a first-round postseason series and maybe more; a win against the Atlanta Dream on Wednesday night would give them the second-best record in the league.
Everything is going right in Vegas. Chelsea Gray, not the same since the foot injury that cut her 2023 postseason short, has rounded back into form. Last night's game in Chicago was actually one of the rockier showings of the win streak: The Sky took the lead with a little over a minute left in the fourth quarter, but Gray paid homage to her former self with a long clutch three to settle things back down. “She looked different at the beginning of the season because she wasn’t being Chelsea Gray. She looks like Chelsea Gray now,” Hammon said after Vegas’s win against the Dream last week.
To paint the Aces' resurgence as a team magically clicking into place wouldn’t do Hammon and the players justice—this is the product of some real tinkering. Guard Jewell Loyd has been banished to the bench in favor of Kierstan Bell, whose role on the team had been something like “team mascot” until now. The team has skewed small for a few seasons, and rather than chase size at the cost of everything else, Hammon has finally moved away from offense-killing Kiah Stokes, swapping in deadline acquisition NaLyssa Smith at center. Smith is, generously, an erratic defensive player, but the Aces have made her minutes work. If Gray moves with exactly the fleetness of a 32-year-old coming off a foot injury, she’s still strong enough to defend in the post, and both she and A'ja Wilson can cover up Smith's lapses. (It was in that Dream game last week that Gray spent some time matched up against Brittney Griner, who is almost a foot taller.) It seemed odd—and maybe still does seem odd—to give up a first-round pick for a player whose theoretical value has so far outstripped her actual value, but Smith has been the more aggressive frontcourt partner Wilson has long needed. Last night, Smith followed Gray’s go-ahead three with an emphatic block on Kamilla Cardoso that may have sealed the game.
It also helps that a lot is going wrong for other teams. The Seattle Storm began August with a crushing string of close losses. The Indiana Fever were treading water without Caitlin Clark, but another set of injuries has all but felled their backcourt rotation. Missing Breanna Stewart for a third of the season, the New York Liberty have sunk all the way to the five-seed, and seem less likely to cruise to the Finals again. Stewart returned to game action on Monday night, but New York’s unsatisfying, eked-out win against 9-28 Connecticut suggests the Liberty might have some issues that Stewie alone can’t solve. The one-seed is still safely Minnesota’s, but a different race looks more competitive than it did before. Collier missed seven games with an ankle injury after leaving that Aces beatdown. She resumed her MVP campaign with a 32-point game in her return this past weekend, but Wilson is doing her best to make sure the MVP race is no coronation.
Monday was a quieter night for her, but in this stretch Wilson has averaged 26 points and 12 rebounds per game. Against Connecticut, early in the win streak, she had the first 30-20 game in WNBA history, and this past Saturday against the Mystics recorded her 10th 30-point game of the season. “She’s gonna be the greatest player to ever play this game when it’s all said and done,” Hammon said on Monday night. The Aces may look a little different, but A'ja's signature move is the same: a couple fakes, and some patience, until she can catch the other team with their guard down.
