Has the WNBA ever before in its near quarter-century of
existence suffered the loss of so many “stars” all at once – Stewart, Taurasi,
Bird, Parker, McCoughtry, Whalen, Moore, and more and more … Jewell Loyd of the
snake-bit Storm only the latest.
The consequence of this void is that, despite a slower paced
schedule of games in 2019, per-game scoring has dropped by more than four
points from the 2018 average.
Let’s compare the average team performance of 2018 (through
six weeks and 89 games) with 2019 (through seven weeks and 88 games):
2018 2019
Points: 81.4 77.0
Poss: 79.4 78.7
FG: 29.7 – 67.7 (.438) 28.8 – 69.1 (.417)
3FG: 6.4 – 19.0 (.336) 6.6 – 20.0 (.331)
3PAr: .281 .289
FT: 15.7 – 19.9 (.791) 12.8 – 16.0 (.797)
Reb (OR-Tot): 8.8 – 34.1 (.257) 9.3 – 35.5 (.262)
TO: 14.2 (.156) 14.5 (.160)
The bulk of that decrease in point production is occurring
at the charity stripe – just under three points per game on four fewer attempts.
FG accuracy has fallen but resulted in just one fewer make per game while
three-point makes and attempts have increased marginally.
At this juncture last season, seven teams were scoring 80+
points per game, led by Connecticut’s 88.9 – Atlanta brought up the rear at
74.2.
This time around, Dallas brings up the rear at 69.4 ppg with
only Washington (85.1) and Las Vegas (82.6) north of 80.
Nevertheless, the competition has been just as even as last season’s
– in each season, 52 games (just under 60%) have been decided by 10 points or
less, with only about one game out of every eight decided by 20+ points.
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