WNBA power rankings: Are the Golden State Valkyries title contenders?

So, about those 53 points.

For the third time in WNBA history, a player scored 53 points in a single game that ended in regulation, with the latest addition maybe the most surprising of the bunch. The Toronto Tempo’s Marina Mabrey, who has never even made an All-Star team, lit up the Los Angeles Sparks in a 125-97 win Friday by making 17 of 28 from the floor and 10 of 12 free throws, tying A’ja Wilson and Liz Cambage for the highest-scoring game in league history.

In the process, Mabrey also tied the record for most 3-pointers in a game (nine), a mark she also equaled two games prior. Of the nine times a player has hit nine triples in a game, three came in a two-week stretch this season: these two by Mabrey and Las Vegas’ Chelsea Gray on June 11.

Mabrey has been on quite the heater this calendar year, starting with a 47-point performance in Unrivaled on Jan. 30. That court is smaller, but she put up that total in just over 21 minutes and hit 10 3-pointers. Three of her seven 30-point WNBA games have come this season with Toronto, and with Brittney Sykes injured, Mabrey is cooking even more. She set a career high on June 19 with 37 points (the first game in which she hit nine 3s) before exploding for her 53 on Thursday.

Mabrey is playing for the most offensive-minded head coach of her WNBA career in Sandy Brondello, but she’s also playing in the friendliest offensive environment in league history. WNBA teams were averaging 86.4 points per game entering Sunday, nearly five points higher than last year’s mark of 81.7. The league’s highest previous scoring average, outside of the 2020 bubble (83.1 points), was 82.7 per game in 2023. Efficiency is at its highest with a leaguewide effective field-goal percentage of 51.1 percent. Per Across the Timeline, there have been 58 games in WNBA history where both teams have scored at least 100 points; 10 have come in the 2026 season. Kamilla Cardoso also set a record this past week with 13 made field goals and no misses in a win over Portland.

Kamilla Cardoso is INSANE 😱

She has reached a NEW career high with 30 PTS and counting while going 13/13 in FGM!

PDX-CHI | ION | WNBA Pride | @Coach
Tap to watch: https://t.co/xcCmAt9CY6pic.twitter.com/yfP2RrxOkc

— WNBA (@WNBA) June 27, 2026

The league emphasized freedom of movement prior to the season to legislate out some of the physicality, which appears to have worked almost too well. Records are made to be broken, and the 2026 season was specifically engineered to break these scoring totals. Keep an eye out any time a high-level scorer takes on the Sparks (or potentially the Fire).

RankTeamPrevious rank1Minnesota22Las Vegas13Golden State54New York45Atlanta36Dallas67Indiana78Washington99Chicago1210Phoenix1311Toronto1112Seattle1413Connecticut1514Portland1015Los Angeles8

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Golden State Valkyries

It is time to reset my preseason title tiers, and the top group officially includes Golden State (in addition to Minnesota, Las Vegas and New York). For all of my concerns about their offensive firepower — middle of the pack offenses don’t usually win titles — the Valkyries’ defense is good enough to overcome their scoring droughts. And as they ascend the WNBA standings, it’s important to remember that the Valkyries have the toughest home court in the league, an advantage that will matter in the playoffs.

On Sunday, Golden State held the Liberty below 70 points for the second time this season, joining … a previous performance by the Valkyries in Brooklyn. It’s an especially impressive feat considering Golden State’s best defensive attribute is preventing points in the paint, and New York is 12th in the league at scoring inside. That particular skill was helpful against the Valkyries’ prior opponent Atlanta, the league leaders in points in the paint. Golden State limited the Dream to 37 percent shooting and 26 total assists over a two-game set.

The Valkyries’ length and activity essentially forces every team into isolation. Those that rely on ball movement or paint kickouts find themselves stifled. It’s also why the Aces haven’t really struggled against Golden State this year, because they have a handful of the league’s best isolation scorers all on one roster.

That’s how you end up with a team that’s had seven different leading scorers in its 20 games, including Kaila Charles pacing the Valkyries with 13 off the bench against the Liberty. While opposing teams are suffocated by Golden State’s pressure, the Valkyries don’t have one primary option to shut down; even players on the second unit like Charles and Janelle Salaün can carry the offensive burden.

Chicago Sky

Let’s get this out of the way: I don’t think the Sky are a playoff team. But the roster at least makes some sense now — yes, I’m aware this is a team that lost to Connecticut last week — and Chicago should be a tough out most nights.

Cardoso and Azurá Stevens complement each other in the frontcourt when Stevens is hitting from beyond the arc, which she did to the tune of eight 3s on 36.4 percent shooting from long range over the last week. Sydney Taylor has been a smart addition to the starting lineup as a perimeter player who actually hunts her own shot. Skylar Diggins is doing her job setting the table, and Gabriela Jaquez fills in the gaps, but the Sky needed a player like Taylor to attack the basket and hit pull-up jumpers.

The second unit can maintain the tempo now that Courtney Vandersloot has returned from her ACL injury. She has an easy chemistry with Elizabeth Williams as the rolling big and she can push the pace. Plus, Chicago doesn’t have to tie Cardoso’s minutes to Diggins because Vandersloot is just as capable (if not more) of finding her inside.

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Portland Fire

It’s never a good thing to trade defensive lowlights with the Sparks. After L.A. set a new mark for futility by surrendering 236 points over two games, breaking the previous record of 225, Portland one-upped the Sparks by conceding 248 points over two contests. Admittedly, the Fire went into quadruple overtime in one of those games, but 211 points in regulation is hardly anything to be proud of.

Portland has become known for its active, full-court defense, and the Fire are forcing a high volume of turnovers (9.7 steals per game this week), but they give back that entire possession advantage because they don’t rebound on the defensive glass. They gave up 22.7 second-chance points per game this past week; for reference, Toronto is 14th in the league at conceding second-chance points, giving up 13.8 points per game. And as fun as it has been to see Megan Gustafson reestablish herself as a bruising offensive center, she is a traffic cone on defense. The Fire gave up nearly 59 points in the paint per night last week and allowed opponents to shoot 52.3 percent from the field.

It’s even more concerning that these defensive slippages happened after Portland had a week off; the Fire shouldn’t look this sloppy defensively after so much practice time.

Rookie of the week

Awa Fam, Seattle Storm

(Reminder: This isn’t the best rookie of the week, rather a player who caught my eye)

Within the first four minutes of Seattle’s victory over Atlanta on Saturday, Awa Fam hit two triples from the corner and another from the top of the key while also forcing two Madina Okot turnovers in the post on the other end. Okot was so out of sorts trying to contain Fam on offense that the Dream had to switch their matchup and put Angel Reese on the rookie less than two minutes into the game. In her rookie season, Fam is third among centers in 3-pointers behind Jonquel Jones and Gustafson, and this last week may have been the first turning point of what projects to be a decorated WNBA career.

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The Storm ended an 11-game losing streak with a win Thursday over New York (albeit without Breanna Stewart), but the skies started to clear on Monday in their overtime defeat to Dallas. Prior to that matchup, Fam and Malonga had played in six games together, and were outscored by 27 points in their 92 shared minutes. The pairing had been particularly rough in the last two games against Portland and Phoenix, getting outscored by 11 against the Fire and then 22 against the Mercury, not exactly inspiring against two fellow lottery teams. In the three contests this week, their combined plus-minuses were plus-6 against the Wings, plus-12 against the Liberty and plus-11 against the Dream. Those are the three best totals of the season.

Fam’s shooting is key to the frontcourt pairing’s success, but her overall mobility and defensive positioning has been tremendous of late. Against Dallas, she showed off her crossover, her drive game and her perimeter defense, then nearly finished off the game with a massive block on Paige Bueckers, though the Wings scored on the ensuing out-of-bounds play. Fam also has been hyper efficient, making 20 of 26 field goals during this three-game stretch while helping Seattle to two wins.

Game to circle

Dallas Wings at Toronto Tempo

3 p.m. (ET) Sunday

It’s a light week of games, as every team is off Monday and Wednesday (these were built-in travel days so that the Commissioner’s Cup final wouldn’t be a back-to-back), and Tuesday is reserved for the Cup championship between Las Vegas and New York. For your planning purposes, after Wednesday, there is only one more day — July 21 — during the regular season that has zero games, and for that, I have no explanation.

As for this week’s game to watch, Wings vs. Tempo gets the nod because it’s Dallas’s first visit to Toronto, and it has the potential for some serious offensive fireworks. Mabrey just tied the league’s scoring record against one of her former teams and gets to welcome another one to her home court. Playing against her college teammate, Arike Ogunbowale, has always brought out the best in the Notre Dame guards, as they both have exceeded their scoring averages and 3-point percentages.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

Minnesota Lynx, New York Liberty, Seattle Storm, Los Angeles Sparks, Washington Mystics, Atlanta Dream, Chicago Sky, Connecticut Sun, Indiana Fever, Dallas Wings, Las Vegas Aces, Phoenix Mercury, Golden State Valkyries, Portland Fire, Toronto Tempo, WNBA, WNBA Highlights

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