We’re just about halfway through the 2026 season, and the standings are looking a bit different than anyone planned for at the beginning of the summer. The bottom half of the W’s teams has managed to stay fairly consistent to what we’ve seen throughout June, but the best in the league continue to shake it up and surpass each other with every passing day. Here’s how it looks as of now.
Teams on the Rise
Dallas Wings
The Dallas Wings are currently on a five-game winning streak, highlighted by road wins against the New York Liberty and Toronto Tempo. Since preseason, the Wings—led by Paige Bueckers, with the help of No. 1 pick Azzi Fudd, Arike Ogunbowale, and new additions Jessica Shepard and Alanna Smith—have been regarded as a dark horse championship contender, and, barring some early season struggles, they’ve proven to be just that. Bueckers and Shepard were named All-Star starters, and the dynamic offensive duo is playing like it: on Tuesday in New York, Shepard dropped her third triple-double of the season, recording 22 points, 12 rebounds, and 11 assists on 11-16 from the field. Three days later, in Montreal, Bueckers scored 34 points, putting on a show for the biggest regular season crowd in WNBA history.
With these kinds of performances, plus Fudd continuing to find a groove, the Wings are looking dangerous. Bueckers is playing like the most clutch player in the league, and when she’s hot, there’s no stopping the 2025 No. 1 pick.
The team admittedly has a fairly easy schedule waiting for it in the next few weeks, but at the end of the day, wins are wins, and multiple low-ranked teams have demonstrated that they can step up to put on a show. If the Wings can continue with their success and continue to build momentum for when playoff time comes around, we could very well be watching a team with great potential to take down the Liberty or Las Vegas Aces on the biggest stage.
Indiana Fever
The Fever have had an interesting 2026 season, to say the least. After the team’s deep playoff run last year, the Winsidr team—and most others—were very high on Indiana, and we ranked them fourth coming into the season. Since then, though, the team has struggled both on and off the court, dropping as low as ninth on our power rankings.
Indiana seems to finally be finding its stride, sitting at 14-9, good for 5th in the WNBA. The team has been without All-Star point guard Caitlin Clark for much of the last two weeks, but has still managed to pick up big wins against the Aces and Phoenix Mercury, in addition to beating the Aces again with Clark back on the floor, this time by more than 30 points. 2026 All-Stars Aliyah Boston and Kelsey Mitchell have been balling, the former recording 19 points and 11 rebounds and the latter 27 points against A’ja Wilson and Las Vegas.
Indiana is far from where they were projected to be before the season kicked off, but the past few games have been a start. If the team can manage to pick up some revenge wins against the Golden State Valkyries and New York Liberty this week, the league will look entirely different than it did just a few days ago.
Teams on the Decline
New York Liberty
New York only dropped one spot since last week’s rankings, but the 2024 Champions seem to be struggling greatly. In its last 10 games, New York is a shocking 3-7, racking up losses against should-be unworthy opponents like the Seattle Storm, Washington Mystics, and Los Angeles Sparks while somehow defeating the Minnesota Lynx and the Aces twice, including for the Commissioner’s Cup. There lies the Liberty’s biggest issue: they play up or down to the level of their opponents rather than sticking to the brand of basketball we all know they can and should be playing. Stars Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones—both named 2026 All-Stars—have made multiple pointed statements about the necessity of playing with heart, but it hasn’t stuck yet.
The Liberty are now 7th in the WNBA and have to play the Wings and Fever before the All-Star break. Injuries to Satou Sabally and Leonie Fiebich will only make this stretch harder, and New York’s search for consistency and chemistry will have to wait even longer. Roster-wise, this Liberty team is a championship contender, but judging by play alone, they have a lot to work on before even thinking about a playoff run, let alone reaching the Finals.
Atlanta Dream
The Atlanta Dream continue to struggle, losing to the Mystics, Valkyries (for the third time in a week), and Portland Fire, and picking up a win against the Seattle Storm since Volume 4. The All-Star trio of Rhyne Howard, Allisha Gray, and Angel Reese have each had their ups and downs, and both of the guards have struggled with efficiency in this stretch (Howard scored 10 points on 3-9 shooting and Gray scored 20 points on 8-18 against the Fire). Reese also missed the Dream’s last game with an ankle injury sustained in the team’s win against Seattle two days prior.
Much like the Liberty and Fever, the Dream were lauded as serious title contenders ahead of this season, given that the team finished as a three seed in 2025 and went on to add Reese. The Dream have the opportunity to pick up some wins in the next two weeks before the All-Star break, but this brutal losing period is bound to leave a mark on how the team is perceived for the rest of the season: when faced with serious competition like the Golden State Valkyries, the Dream folded and couldn’t even use lower-ranked teams to build morale back up. It’s now or never for Atlanta; they just need to hold it together until Bri Jones returns, and we can get a full glimpse of what this team can really do.
Surprising Takeaways
As mentioned earlier, the real surprise of the season is how consistent, yet unpredictable, things on the bottom have been. Last week, the Sun took a shocker against an Olivia Miles-less Lynx team 90-89, but still remain near the bottom due to the team’s inability to string together wins or make any meaningful bounds forward against the other struggling teams. The Mercury looked to be trending in the right direction for a bit there, but a 48-point loss to the reigning champions and defeats to the Fever and Chicago Sky have the team right where it was to begin the season. Of course, the season still has plenty of time to evolve and shock the world, but for now, everything outside of the playoff race seems to be more of the same.
