Forget the standings and ignore the surface-level hype.

If you just want to know who won yesterday, check any basic sports app. But if you want to know who is actually playing elite basketball - and where the betting market is mispricing teams - you have to look past the win-loss column.

These power ratings don’t care about media narratives, lucky bounces, or current playoff seeding. The math only cares about one thing: how efficiently you are outscoring your opponents, and how sustainable that data is over the long haul. This is the product of two years of heavy back-testing, completely rebuilt and refined this offseason, and it is the sharpest version of the model we have ever put on the floor.

Because of that, a handful of teams below are going to look completely out of place compared to their actual records. That is by design. The standings reward teams that survive; our ratings identify teams that dominate.

We’ll be dropping these updated metrics every single Monday through the All-Star break and straight into October - giving you a real-time map of who is genuinely peaking and who is just a paper tiger.

Let’s look at the real numbers.

The Sun have been parked in last place in our ratings for weeks now, and the number backs it up - a league-worst -8.8 Net Rating with nothing else within seven points of them. There was that one bright spot on July 6 they knocked off Minnesota at home, 90-89, with Brittney Griner posting a season-high 29 points and 10 rebounds and Kennedy Burke adding 16 off the bench, including the go-ahead three with under a minute left. But that’s been the outlier, not a turning point. Connecticut has dropped two straight since and sits 3-7 over its last 10. The offense is the bigger issue than the defense - dead last in the league in effective field goal percentage and dead last in three-point shooting, and neither has trended up in a month. This isn’t new territory - they opened our ratings at 15th back on June 2, briefly climbed to 14th by July, and have since settled right back into the spot they’ve occupied most of the season. With 10 days to the All-Star break, nothing in the profile points to the Sun climbing out of the cellar before it hits.

Portland’s Net Rating says middle of the bottom tier, and the results back that up - a .500ish stretch that hasn’t been enough to climb out of 14th. The Fire snapped a rough patch with a road win over Atlanta on July 11, 102-92, catching a break with Angel Reese out for the Dream. Megan Gustafson led the way with 17 points, Emily Engstler and Carla Leite both posted double-doubles, and Portland shot 60% from the field behind a hot night from three. That’s been the swing factor all year - when the Fire make threes, the offense works. When they don’t, it doesn’t, and turnovers have been a running problem in the losses. Sania Feagin is out for the season with a knee injury, thinning an already shallow frontcourt. This is actually the bigger story: Portland opened our ratings at 9th back on June 2 - a top-10 team - before cratering all the way to dead last by July 3. One spot off the floor isn’t much, but after a fall like that, any direction other than down is worth flagging. Sitting sixth in the West, Portland is closer to respectable than the ranking makes it look, but the margin stays thin.

Seattle’s -6.2 puts them a step above the two teams still below them, but the direction is the concerning part. The Storm have lost two straight, an 89-78 defeat to Atlanta and then an 84-79 loss in Washington on July 12 that got away late - Seattle led for most of the game before the Mystics won the fourth quarter 20-11, holding the Storm to 28.6% shooting down the stretch. Natasha Hiedeman scored 31 in that one, but managed just 4 points in the fourth after carrying the offense early. That’s been the pattern - real scoring flashes from the backcourt, not enough to finish games. Seattle is 3-7 over its last 10 and dealing with frontcourt depth issues that show up in these late-game fades. They’ve barely moved in our ratings since the start of July - 13th then, 13th now - which tells you this is a settled bottom-tier team, not one still finding its level. Eighth in the West and trending toward a lost season if something doesn’t change soon.

The Sparks were in real trouble before this stretch - five losses in six games, several of them blowouts, capped by an ugly 82-64 home defeat to Seattle. But they’ve answered with back-to-back wins since, knocking off Indiana 106-92 on July 8 and Chicago 102-87 on July 10. Nneka Ogwumike has been the engine both nights, going for 24-8-5 against the Fever and following it with 25 points, 12 rebounds and 5 assists against the Sky. All five starters hit double figures in the Chicago win, which matters given LA’s still without Kelsey Plum and Cameron Brink. That depth showing up without two rotation pieces is the more encouraging sign than the scoreline. They’ve held steady at 12th since July 3, meaning neither the six-game skid nor this two-game bounce-back has been enough to move the number - a sign the model sees this team as fairly stable even while the results swing. Fifth in the West at 10-11, the Sparks are proving the record undersells them right now - the model still has them south of zero, but the direction is real.

Phoenix has been sliding for two weeks straight, and the number reflects it. The Mercury have dropped three in a row, starting with a tight 92-89 loss to Indiana before hitting one of the worst nights in franchise history - a 106-58 blowout loss to Las Vegas on July 11, the third-largest margin of defeat in WNBA history. Phoenix trailed 57-22 at the half and shot just 35% for the game. Head coach Nate Tibbetts didn’t soften it afterward, calling the performance completely unacceptable and saying the team can’t have another one like it. That collapse shows up directly in the ratings - Phoenix had climbed all the way to 9th by July 3, and this stretch has dropped them two spots since. Seventh in the West at 8-16, the margin for error in the playoff race is thin, and this was the wrong week for it to disappear.

Washington’s resume has two very different games on it from the last week. On July 6, they put up one of the worst offensive performances of the season - a 62-49 loss to Golden State in which they were held to 16 points in the second half and shot under 17% from the field over that stretch. Six days later, a completely different team showed up: Shakira Austin scored 27, including 10 in the fourth quarter, Kiki Iriafen posted her ninth double-double of the year with 12 points and 13 rebounds, and Washington beat Seattle 84-79 to snap back above .500. That kind of swing is the story here - when the shooting is on, this is a top-half Eastern Conference team; when it’s off, it’s one of the worst offenses in the league on that given night. The ratings have quietly liked the trajectory regardless - Washington’s climbed a spot at a time, from 12th on June 2 to 11th on July 3 to 10th now. Fourth in the East at 11-10, they’re in playoff position, and the model’s starting to agree with the standings.

This may be a team to watch in the second half of the season.

Chicago's lost two straight, but neither was a disaster - a 102-87 road loss to a hot LA Sparks team on July 10, then a 96-91 defeat in Dallas last night that stayed within reach into the final minutes. Kamilla Cardoso had a strong night in that one, 12 points and 13 rebounds, before Dallas pulled away behind Paige Bueckers' 22 points and 11 assists. The bigger issue right now is depth. Chicago's without starting point guard Skylar Diggins, who's out with a knee injury and hasn't played in over a week - a significant loss for a team that signed her to run the offense this season. Chicago's been steady in our ratings through this stretch, sitting 10th on both June 2 and July 3 before ticking up to 9th now, even with the losing record over that span - the underlying numbers have held up better than the win column. Sixth in the East at 7-16, the Sky are closer to competitive than the record shows, but the East isn't going to wait around for Diggins to get healthy.

Toronto had dropped four straight before Sunday, its worst stretch of the expansion season, and needed a wild finish to snap it. Up 20 in the third quarter against New York, the Tempo watched that lead evaporate, then survived when Nyara Sabally scored with under a minute to go, escaping 93-91. Marina Mabrey carried the offense with 30 points - her second consecutive 30-point outing, and a reminder of what she's capable of after torching the Sparks for 53 back on June 25, a mark that ties the WNBA scoring record for a single game. Nights like that are why the model never fully buried this team during the skid - a player who can single-handedly swing 30 points keeps a ceiling alive that the win-loss column doesn't show. Across our three check-ins this season, Toronto is the one team that hasn't budged at all - 8th in early June, 8th in early July, 8th today, unmoved through both the good stretches and the bad ones. Fifth in the East at 10-13, this roster still looks like it belongs higher than its record once the inconsistency settles.

Atlanta opened the season 12-4, one of the best starts in the league, and has been unwinding ever since - a five-game skid interrupted the run, and even the win that snapped it came with a cost. Angel Reese rolled her ankle late in the fourth quarter of an 89-78 win over Seattle on July 9 and hasn’t played since, sitting out a 102-92 loss to Portland with the injury still listed as questionable heading into this week. Atlanta’s frontcourt was already thin before that - Brionna Jones has missed the entire season with a knee injury - so losing Reese, even for a stretch, removes a lot of rebounding and interior scoring in one move. The numbers back up how much the slide has mattered: Atlanta was our #4 team back on June 2, still #5 by early July, and has now dropped to #7 as the losing stretch and injuries pile up. Second in the East at 13-10, the record still looks good on paper, but the versions of Atlanta from June and from this week aren’t the same team.

New York's high point of the season landed right around July 3, and the run that got them there was real - a Commissioner's Cup title over Las Vegas on June 30, then a 99-86 win over Minnesota three days later behind 36 points from Breanna Stewart, by some accounts the Liberty's best performance of the year. That stretch is what pushed them to #3 in our ratings, their peak so far. The last week has gone the other way entirely. Dallas beat them 88-77 after New York fell apart in the second quarter, Minnesota flipped the script and won the rematch 90-85 and then Toronto held on to win 93-91 in Montreal after New York clawed all the way back from a 20-point deficit and nearly stole it. Satou Sabally still hasn't returned - she's been in concussion protocol for weeks after taking a hit to the face against Las Vegas - and New York's bench scoring has missed her presence. The net effect: New York's back to #6, right where they sat on June 2, having made a full round trip through the top five and back over six weeks. Third in the East at 13-11, the ceiling from early July is still in there somewhere - the question is which version shows up more from here.

The gap between the Ace’s best and worst games this year showed up in the same weekend. On Saturday, the Aces blew out Phoenix 106-58, a 48-point margin that's the third-largest in WNBA history, with A'ja Wilson posting a double-double before halftime. The very next night, Indiana beat that same Aces team 109-75. Per Elias Sports Bureau research, the 82-point swing between those two games is the largest game-to-game point differential in WNBA history - in either direction. Wilson didn't make excuses afterward, saying the team simply didn't bring the level they hold themselves to. Some context is worth noting: Wilson had just returned from a three-game absence with a leg injury before both of these games, so a still-settling rotation may explain part of the swing. The ratings have barely moved through any of it - 5th in early June, 4th by July 3, back to 5th now - which tells you our model treats this front-runner-caliber roster as a top-five team regardless of which version shows up on a given night. Second in the West at 17-7, half a game back of Minnesota, Las Vegas still looks like the team most likely to be playing in October.

But what a weird 48 hours.

Dallas is riding its longest winning streak since 2023, and the most recent one required some work. Down 10 points in the third quarter against Chicago on July 12, the Wings closed the game on a 30-18 fourth-quarter run to escape with a 96-91 win, completing a season sweep of the Sky. Paige Bueckers ran the show with 22 points and 11 assists, Jessica Shepard grabbed her league-leading 15th double-double of the year, and Li Yueru added a career-tying line off the bench. Two games earlier, in front of a WNBA-record regular-season crowd of nearly 21,000 in Montreal, Bueckers put up a season-high 34 in a 108-95 win over Toronto. This version of Dallas looks nothing like the one our model had sliding in early July - they were our #2 team back on June 2, dropped all the way to #7 by July 3 as the season leveled out, and have now climbed back to #4 on the strength of this run. Fourth in the West at 16-8, the Wings are trending toward a much better playoff seed than the mid-summer stretch suggested.

This teams storyline is typically centered around one player - but that’s not the actual storyline. While one player is in the headlines, the team around her carries the load. Kelsey Mitchell has scored 25-plus points in six straight games, including 29 points and 8 assists in a road win over Phoenix while Sophie Cunningham has been a weapon off the bench, hitting six threes and scoring 20 in Sunday’s 109-75 demolition of Las Vegas - their second win over the defending champs in about a week. Indiana is the biggest mover of any team we’ve covered in this series so far: The Fever sat at #7 back on June 2, improved slightly to #6 by July 3 and has now jumped four full spots to #3. First in the East at 14-9, they look like a legitimately different, better team than the one our model had pegged in the early season - and they’re getting there without needing any other headline.

Golden State is on a seven-game run built almost entirely on defense, and one game in the middle of it says everything about how they’re doing it. Against Washington on July 6, not a single Valkyries starter scored in double figures - Golden State won anyway, 62-49, becoming only the second team in WNBA history to win a game without a starter reaching that mark. They held the Mystics to 49 points, the fewest by any team in the league this season, and to just 16 in the second half. The offense has shown up plenty too - Janelle Salaun scored a career-high 26 in an 83-75 win over Toronto and the streak closed out with a 79-64 win over Connecticut on July 10 - the franchise’s 40th win ever. This has been the model’s read on Golden State all summer - #3 on June 2, #2 by July 3, #2 again now, a team that’s been elite basically the entire season rather than one that got hot recently. Third in the West at 17-7, half a game off the top spot, the Valkyries have the best defense in the league and the record to match it.

Minnesota has held the top spot in our ratings from week one and never given it up, which says something on its own given who they’ve been missing. Napheesa Collier, the reigning MVP runner-up, has been out all season recovering from offseason surgery on both ankles and still hasn’t played a game. The team just kept winning anyway, and picked up a landmark on the way: on July 9, a 86-80 win over Connecticut made Cheryl Reeve the winningest coach in WNBA regular-season history, passing a record that had stood since Mike Thibault held it. That win snapped a rare two-game skid - losses to New York and Connecticut - and Minnesota has won their two games since, including a 90-85 decision over the Liberty on July 11 with Kayla McBride scoring 25 and rookie Olivia Miles adding 23 in her return from a calf injury. A team missing its best player for the entire first half of the season, still finding a way to set a coaching wins record and sit atop the league, is about as strong a credential as a #1 ranking needs. First in the West at 17-6, Minnesota’s margin for error is thin over Las Vegas and Golden State, but the record and the ratings agree on who’s been the best team through mid-July.

Everybody loves a list.

These weekly power rankings give you the macro view for free - but the predictive model driving them doesn’t just sit on a spreadsheet.

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On the season, the G3 Projections model is hitting at a 27 - 18 (60.0%) pace for +10.61 units, backed by an entirely dominant July run going 11 - 6 (64.7%) for +6.99 units.

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