The Las Vegas Aces have had six consecutive winning seasons, including two WNBA titles. But that’s not the team we are seeing in 2025.
The Aces are 5-6, having lost four of their past five, and are tied for seventh place. They are ninth in the WNBA in scoring average, offensive and defensive rating and net rating.
Three-time MVP A’ja Wilson has missed the past three games in concussion protocol. Jewell Loyd, whom the Aces obtained in an offseason trade, is scoring 11.2 points per game, her lowest average since her 2015 rookie season. She has career-worst shooting percentages from the field (35.4) and the foul line (75.0).
Coach Becky Hammon said of the Aces’ lack of consistency: “We’re still searching for that 40-minute game. It’s like a damn unicorn.”
Is Las Vegas just going through a rough stretch? Or is it something more that could affect its entire season? As Las Vegas prepares to host the Seattle Storm on Friday (10 p.m. ET, ION) and the Indiana Fever on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, ESPN) and attempts to halt its losing ways, ESPN’s Michael Voepel, Alexa Philippou, Kendra Andrews and Kevin Pelton examine some of the factors that could have played into this situation.
Las Vegas’ championship core — Kelsey Plum, Chelsea Gray, Jackie Young and A’ja Wilson — played together from 2021 to 2024, winning the title twice. Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Championship windows typically don’t last long
There are specific things the Aces aren’t doing as well this season, and we will address those. But the current situation also warrants looking at the big picture. In professional sports, most teams’ championship windows don’t tend to last more than a few years due to salary caps, player movement and the infusion of younger talent via drafts.
There are a few exceptions, particularly in a league with a hard salary cap like the WNBA where franchises can get caught flat-footed by their own success. It’s almost unavoidable. They spend to keep their core group in place, don’t have high draft picks and then become a target for the rest of the league, which catches up to them.
The Aces had three consecutive No. 1 picks: guard Kelsey Plum (2017, when the franchise was still in San Antonio), center Wilson (2018, when it moved to Las Vegas) and guard Jackie Young (2019). That trio were together for five years, though Plum didn’t play in 2020 because of an Achilles injury. Still, the Aces reached the 2020 WNBA Finals.
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The championship core was completed under then-general manager Dan Padover and coach Bill Laimbeer with Chelsea Gray in 2021 — their biggest impact free agent addition. Hammon came in with new front office personnel in 2022 and brought with her a more modern offense that helped the Aces flourish and win back-to-back WNBA titles in 2022 and 2023.
But Plum wanted out of Las Vegas after last season — she was part of the multiteam trade that sent her to the Los Angeles Sparks and brought Loyd in from Seattle — and the Aces haven’t been as good without her.
What we’re seeing in many ways is a natural progression. Wilson is still as elite a player as there is in the WNBA. But the Aces have relied very heavily on her as their primary post scoring threat for a long time. They brought in free agent Candace Parker in 2023, but she was injured around midseason, didn’t return to action and then retired.
The Aces have a president in Nikki Fargas but haven’t had a general manager since October, when Natalie Williams was fired. They’re approaching a crossroads where they will either need to upgrade with enough talent to stay as contenders or have a few rough years — resulting in higher future draft picks.
Overall, Las Vegas has excelled at taking advantage of the championship window that Wilson, more than anyone else, opened. But the Aces might eventually be facing some tough times, for which there aren’t necessarily quick fixes. — Michael Voepel
On paper, Jewell Loyd replacing Kelsey Plum in the lineup should have made Las Vegas even better defensively. That has not (yet) been the case. David Berding/Getty Images
The Aces are underperforming projections
Despite all the reasons for concern, the expectations for Las Vegas entering the season were still running high. The Aces’ 29.5 win over/under total was the fourth highest at ESPN BET, with only the defending champion New York Liberty more than one game ahead.
Certainly, Wilson’s injury has been a factor. But even before she exited last week’s loss to Los Angeles after being hit in the head, she wasn’t playing at the offensive level we’ve come to expect from the three-time MVP. She’s making 46% of her 2s, having hit them at nearly a 55% clip over the past three seasons.
So far this year, Wilson has faced more double-teams than she’s used to seeing. Per GeniusIQ, defenses have sent a second defender on 31% of Wilson’s post-ups, nearly double the 16% rate in 2024 — the first season for which we have camera tracking data. It explains Wilson averaging a career-high 4.0 assists, up from 2.3 in 2024, as well as the drop in her usage rate from a career-high 32% to 30% this season.
The Aces’ defensive drop-off is even more surprising. Wilson has remained dominant on that end, with 2.6 blocks and 2.0 steals per game. And on paper, swapping Plum for Loyd looked like an upgrade. Yet opponents are hitting 51% of their 2-point attempts against Las Vegas, third worst in the WNBA.
Besides Wilson, no other Aces player has more than six blocks this season. Opponents are shooting 73% in the restricted area around the basket, according to GeniusIQ, worst in the WNBA and up from 64% a year ago. — Kevin Pelton
Aces’ lack of depth is showing
While this isn’t a new issue, it has proved far more problematic than in the past.
Last season, the Aces had Tiffany Hayes — named the Sixth Player of the Year — to hide a lot of their struggles. They were ninth in the league in bench scoring at 15 points per game, 8.5 of which came from Hayes once she joined the group at midseason. This year, they rank second to last in bench scoring, ahead of the Sparks.
The Aces were also playing a tight six player rotation by the time the 2024 postseason came around. And while an offseason goal was to improve their depth, somehow it got worse.
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They opted to leave then-rookie Kate Martin unprotected in the expansion draft, even though she was viewed as having All-Star potential. She was selected by the Golden State Valkyries. Hayes also joined Golden State during free agency. Las Vegas also lost Alysha Clark to Seattle. Those three accounted for the Aces’ most-played bench players last season, with Hayes and Clark being their top two. That duo also was the Aces’ leading scorers off the bench.
To try to fix the issue, Las Vegas brought in Tiffany Mitchell, Cheyenne Parker-Tyus and Dana Evans and used its No. 13 draft pick to select Aaliyah Nye. But Parker-Tyus is on maternity leave and hasn’t played, while Mitchell, Evans and Nye have combined for 13.1 points. None are shooting above 35.7% from the floor. As a full second unit, the 16.2 points average off the bench is a bit higher than its production from last season, but its 32% field goal shooting is the worst in the league. The group is also playing the ninth-fewest minutes among second units in the league. — Kendra Andrews
Mind over matter?
Even dating back to the Aces’ struggles last season, before the club fell short of a three-peat, Hammon would often point to her team’s issues being the result of a lack of discipline or bad habits. She has echoed that sentiment this season. After Las Vegas’ loss to the Valkyries, she said the team was “soft mentally” and “not only [has] a heart issue, but it’s [becoming] a head issue.”
What’s striking about Hammon’s perspective is that she paints the Aces’ problems as things that can be controlled: Improve your habits, double down on your effort and decide to do what needs to be done. But as my colleagues detailed above, perhaps the team’s issues — largely due to roster construction — are ultimately not all fixable.
It still feels like these Aces can be a better version of what we’ve seen: Wilson will hopefully be back soon; eventually, Parker-Tyus will return from pregnancy; their guards, particularly Loyd, have another level they can reach. But after an offseason where so many teams made big moves to improve — not just contenders like New York and the Minnesota Lynx but newcomers such as Indiana, the Atlanta Dream and Phoenix Mercury — we have yet to see this group level up to keep up with the rest of the league. And stronger intangibles still might not be able to compensate for it. — Alexa Philippou
With the Las Vegas Aces struggling this season, coach Becky Hammon must find different ways to strategize and motivate her team. David Berding/Getty Images
What’s next for the Aces?
Obviously, it will help when Wilson returns. The Aces have won one game without her: 88-84 against the Dallas Wings last Friday. But their only impressive victory, with Wilson, was at Seattle, 102-82 on May 25.
After the Aces ruled the league in 2022 and 2023, other teams are eager to get in their shots. But Hammon knew this was coming.
It also means some of the pressure is off. Rather than driving the car that’s ahead of everyone else in the race, Hammon now has to motivate her team and strategize in different ways.
As a player, Hammon was a small guard known for her grit and savvy as an underdog who never backed down. She will bring that energy to the Aces.
The Aces need Loyd to play more like the best version of herself — and with more time with this group, perhaps that will come. As Kendra detailed, they also need more production from the bench. And the fan base needs to be there, to keep the energy going in Las Vegas even if the victories are harder to earn.
Las Vegas has time to work on what isn’t going well and it still projects as a playoff team. — Voepel