The topic of today’s article is simple: how much can we trust recent form? As I noted in my preview earlier this week, chaos has been the only consistent thing about the WNBA’s last month, and we saw it again yesterday with a savage game in New York that was totally unpredictable.

As we head into the All-Star Break, it feels like anything is possible; while it seems likely that the pieces of the puzzle will really start to fall into place after the break when the teams are a bit better rested and hyper-focused on that stretch run.

So how much can we trust chaos? ! That’s the beauty of trying to figure it all out. There may still be edges found, and I hope to highlight a few for you below.

We have three games scheduled for Friday, so let’s go.

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WNBA odds, picks

Click on the game to advance

Sparks Against Wings

Injuries/News

The Wings have two key players both listed as likely for tonight’s game: Satou Sabally and Allisha Gray. Sabally has missed the last seven games, while Gray has only been out the last two games. With these two returning players, the Wings would have a complete and healthy roster.

For the Sparks, it’s just Rae Burrel and Amanda Zahui B. who have been out all season on injury report, so LA has more than adjusted to their absence this season.

Execute choice backwards?

As I noted in the intro, today’s theme is how much recent performance weighs. The Wings are coming off arguably their worst game of the season, a 28-point loss to the Minnesota Lynx, who were previously 5-14. They also lost the game before that at home to the also sub-.500 Phoenix Mercury.

On the other side, the Sparks took an L in their last outing, but it was a solid performance against the Aces, and they managed to beat the quietly rising Storm in the previous game.

Of course, for the whole season, the Wings have been the far superior team. They are two games ahead in the actual win/loss column, but the gap is even more noticeable when considering net rating and schedule strength. According to Basketball-Reference’s simple scoring system, the gap between the sixth-place Wings and the 11th-place Sparks is basically the same as the gap between the Wings and the Mystics — a noticeable difference.

So with that in mind, let’s steer clear of the spread. And let’s go back to my choice the last time these two teams played. I covered this game before their June 19 game, and the pick was a easy more. I won’t go over the whole full logical layout here, but here’s the TL; DR (too long; don’t rememberin this case):

• The Wings are second in the league in quick points; Sparks allow the most fastbreak points per game in the W
• Only two teams take a higher percentage of their two-man shots than the Sparks; the Wings have the second-worst two-point defense in the league
• Conversely, the Wings both win and make the fourth-most threes per game in the W; the Sparks have the W’s second-worst 3-point defense
• The Sparks rank second in the league in points in the paint; Wings allow third-most points in paint per game
• The Sparks are third in the league in points on turnovers; Wings are third worst in giving up points on turnovers

Basically, every factor indicates that both teams have come on top, and it’s no surprise that it was an easy win last time out. The line opened at 164.5 and I recommended playing up to 167.5. The total came to 174, and that was even with both teams shooting poorly from the free throw line, and the Sparks going 5-20 from deep. I will recommend it up to 170 today.

Pick: Over 164 (play up to 170)

Ace vs. Lynx

Injuries/News

Both teams, at the time of writing, have clean bills of health. Knock on wood, there are no late scratches (or late UN-scratches like we had with Chelsea Gray on the last Aces outing!)

The ultimate recency test

The theme continues with this match and has arguably never reached a more difficult climax. The Lynx are coming off their biggest win of the season, the aforementioned Wings massacre. If you only saw their last six results, you’d never guess they’re a 6-14 team:

• Two-point loss against the Storm
• Loss of a point against Aces
• 13-point victory over the Mercury
• 12 point victory over the Mercury
• Lost three points against the Sky
• 28-point win over the Wings

On the other hand, it doesn’t look exactly like the last six games of the best team in the league:

• Eight-point victory over the Wings
• One-point victory over the Lynx
• Nine-point loss to the Sky (which included the biggest lead ever lost in WNBA history)
• Lost a point against the Mystics
• Six-point win over the Sparks
• Loss of 10 points against the Storm

I was actually a bit surprised (and annoyed) that the books hadn’t read much in recent weeks and still made Aces pretty big favorites. With a well-drawn line, I will once again turn to the plus/minus, and again love the plus.

Going out of a sample of a match is obviously unwise, but I’ll note that the last time these two teams played the total cleared 190, and there wasn’t too much luck about that. Neither team posted insane shot totals from three, or reached the line by an exorbitant amount, etc.

Both teams have also made more money on overs, since the start of the season, and it looks like the books haven’t quite caught up with the league as a whole, as betting on overs has in has been positive 1.8% return on investment this season – a rarity.

I’m also going to add the Aces on the money line (this is where I wish the same game parlays were available for the W) because while I think it might be a close game, I think the Aces aren’t going to let another play slip away even as they limp somewhat toward the All-Star Break.

Choose: Aces moneyline and over 173

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Fever against storm

Injuries/News

In what becomes a great sub-theme of this article, both teams are pretty healthy, with only Mercedes Russell on the disabled list for this game, as she has been for almost a month for the Storm now.

I really hope I don’t jinx the league with all these clean or near health vouchers!

A competitor resurfacing?

The Storm made an absolute statement last time out, knocking out everyone’s darling double-digit aces in front of an impressive Climate Pledge Arena crowd.

If I were to believe in deception games, it would have been written everywhere: Coming out of this impressive victory; two-digit favorite; playing the worst team in the league, but I’m not a big fan of underwhelming plays, and if that was the case, the Storm aren’t the kind of team to have those games.

While the rap about Tina Charles these days is pretty negative, she seemed quite happy cheering on her new team from the bench during the stretch run of her first game green.

Rumor has it that she didn’t sign for Seattle in the offseason because she didn’t like her potential role (i.e. sitting on the bench for the duration of extremely important games ). However, if Seattle felt comfortable bringing him on mid-season, one has to imagine that mentality may have shifted for Charles.

If so, this team is starting to look a lot more viable when it comes to the WNBA futures market.

We’ll save that for another article, but all to say: I don’t see this team making a stink tonight. I am also absolutely terrified of what is an insane 12 point spread. So, with that in mind, back to the well: done!

However, I could see the Storm stopping the Fever completely, so I’m going to isolate the Seattle side. I know it’s not available in every book, but Caesar already has a line for it, and a few other big books should have it later today.

Pick: Seattle over 86.5 points