Weekly WNBA Numbers

A day late because of the rare Monday Storm home game, let's take a look at the numbers around the WNBA. I was also delayed putting together a column looking at the surprising depth of the league's rookie class thus far, so be sure to give that a look.

We start with the Offensive and Defensive Ratings. These numbers do not include last night's games.

Team          ORating     Team          DRating
---------------------     ---------------------
Minnesota       105.9     Indiana          85.9
Connecticut     103.2     Los Angeles      91.3
Phoenix         102.8     San Antonio      93.9
Chicago         101.4     Detroit          94.5
Detroit         100.7     Connecticut      95.3
Los Angeles      99.5     Seattle          96.5
New York         99.5     Chicago          96.7
Seattle          98.1     AVERAGE          97.8
AVERAGE          97.8     New York         98.5
San Antonio      95.0     Washington       99.4
Sacramento       94.6     Minnesota        99.6
Washington       93.5     Sacramento       99.8
Houston          92.5     Houston         100.5
Atlanta          92.1     Phoenix         108.3
Indiana          90.2     Atlanta         112.4

The Lynx have come back to the pack a bit on offense, but still lead the league. New York's offense has been surprisingly potent in the early going, and seeing Chicago fourth in the league is also something of a surprise.

At the defensive end, Indiana remains way, way ahead of the rest of the league. Atlanta remains way, way behind - but so too is Phoenix. That kind of poor defense is going to be difficult for the Mercury to overcome and is unexpected with the team playing less smallball this season. San Antonio's defense really picked up last week in wins over the Storm and especially the offense-poor Fever.

How about the standings based on point differential, shown in expected wins over a 34-game season.

Team          ExpW    Team          ExpW
------------------    ------------------
Los Angeles   23.0    Connecticut   23.8
Minnesota     21.3    Detroit       23.1
San Antonio   18.3    Indiana       20.4
Seattle       17.6    Chicago       19.8
Sacramento    12.9    New York      18.2
Phoenix       12.8    Washington    11.2
Houston       11.8    Atlanta        1.9

Both conferences are fairly tight at the top with a gap. In the West, that's after fourth place. In the East, five teams are in serious contention for four playoff spots. Congrats to Atlanta, which finally is projected to actual wins over the course of the season.

We'll wrap it up with a look at the individual leaders in John Hollinger's PER rating.

Player              Tm   PER
----------------------------
Lindsay Whalen     CON  28.0
Candice Wiggins    MIN  26.1
Diana Taurasi      PHO  25.9
Lauren Jackson     SEA  25.7
Cappie Pondexter   PHO  25.2
Sophia Young       SAS  25.2
Sylvia Fowles      CHI  25.0
Lisa Leslie        LAS  24.0
Candace Parker     LAS  23.9
Tiffany Jackson    NYL  23.7

Whalen remains the league's early leader in PER, though I think that went down last night as Tanisha Wright blanketed her defensively. Wiggins has proven tremendous at getting to the free-throw line, attempting a league-high 68 free throws (Swin Cash, before last night, was second with 67. She does benefit from the Storm playing so many games so far).