Eating Crow

I doubted the Las Vegas Aces, and I was wrong. The house does always win.

It feels blasphemous having the Aces this low, especially when they have the best player in basketball on their team, as well as Chelsea Gray, Jackie Young, and Jewell Loyd. But after that, I have concerns. They lost a ton of key players this offseason, and that depth behind Wilson is scary.

That's what I wrote in my WNBA season preview, when I had the Las Vegas Aces ranked No. 5 in the league.

I've warned people that it was risky to bet against A'ja Wilson, but after the way that they looked for the first half of the season, I decided that I, too, was going to bet against her.

That was on July 25 after they lost to the Minnesota Lynx by 31 points.

Since then, they have won 14 of 15 games and 12 in a row, clinching a playoff spot and holding the No. 2 seed in the league.

"I just hope that when the power rankings come out Monday that people will finally stop treating them like a top-5 team. They are no better than 10th."

Those are the words that I said on press row to Meghan Hall of USA Today and Wilton Jackson of the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

And that week, I had them 10th in the Winsidr power rankings.

At the time, the Aces acquired NaLyssa Smith in what seemed like a panic move, giving up their first-round pick in the 2027 WNBA Draft.

I slammed the move. It was a move that was done out of desperation, I said. It was a move that was done in order to save Becky Hammon's job, I said. To trade a first-round pick in a loaded class when you don't have any of your first-rounders until 2028 was the height of absurdity.

And it looked that way for quite some time.

But then, the run happened where the Aces won 12 straight games (and counting!), which is tied for the eighth-longest winning streak in league history.

"We're just getting back to having fun and getting back to who we were," Aces' wing Kierstan Bell told me before the Aces defeated the Dream to extend their winning streak to 12 games Wednesday night. "A little bit of it was chemistry, and we just had to continue to work on that and hang out outside of basketball. It came along, changes were made, and it's been successful."

And the big matchup came Wednesday night against the Dream, a team whose number the Aces have had all season, going 2-0 against them entering the game.

"We're about to make it 12 in a row tonight," Bell told me.

The confidence is there. The execution is there. A'ja Wilson is there.

She made her presence known against the Dream, finishing with the easiest 31 points that I've seen in quite some time, including hitting back to back threes and getting MVP chants in the Dream's arena, which is only a few hours away from the University of South Carolina, where she played her college ball.

That didn't go over well with the Dream.

“We rely on our fans. You want to come see Gamecocks? We have Gamecocks on our roster," said an impassioned Rhyne Howard of the Dream after the game. "The last game, we had MVP chants for one of our players [Allisha Gray]. Don’t get here and switch up because of 1 player.”

Rhyne Howard talked about the environment tonight at home in Atlanta. “We rely on our fans. You want to come see Gamecocks? We have Gamecocks on our roster. The last game, we had MVP chants for one of our players. Don’t get here & switch up because of 1 player.” Full video: #WNBA I @winsidr.com

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— Pitch Mr. Perfect (@michaelwaterloo.bsky.social) August 27, 2025 at 10:24 PM

What's going to make the Aces even more challenging to face going forward is that they get Cheyenne Parker-Tyus back in the fold soon. A source told me that the 2023 All-Star is aiming to make her return from maternity leave and her Aces' debut during the first week of September.

And from what I'm told, she's going to have a huge role for Vegas, which will be welcome given the lack of depth and production from bigs this season behind Wilson and Smith, including Kiah Stokes, Liz Kitley, and Megan Gustafson.

I try not to be reactionary. I try to look at the situation and evaluate from there.

That's what I did with Vegas. I saw the holes in their game. The questionable fit with Jewell Loyd to go along with Jackie Young and Chelsea Gray. The losses of Sydney Colson, Kate Martin, Alysha Clark, and Kelsey Plum this offseason. The lack of depth on the Aces' bench.

I understood that there's a big Aces' bias among fans and the media, so they'll be rated highly no matter what every year, throughout the year.

I used all of that, and I said that the Aces were a lost cause this season.

It turns out I was wrong, and I have crow to eat.

I bet against A'ja Wilson, and as we've seen so many times before, it's a losing bet.