How eight WNBA teams can make a championship run in 2024 - ESPN

The 2024 WNBA playoffs tip off Sept. 22. If the regular season ended today, what would it take for each of the eight teams currently in playoff position to win the league title?

The first-place New York Liberty, who have won seven in a row and are the only team so far to clinch a playoff spot, just have to keep being who they have been: the league's best team this season.

«I think what I want to see from our team is just the way we continue to get better,» New York's Breanna Stewart said after the Liberty's 94-74 victory over the Dallas Wings on Tuesday. «Everybody keeps saying, 'Oh, you guys clinched the playoffs. Why are you still playing hard?' We want to keep that 1 spot, we want home-court advantage. And you saw it today, with two quarters we kept Dallas under 20.

»I feel like we haven't done anything yet. Our record is great, of course, but there's so much we need to get better at, and we don't want to peak too soon."

The Las Vegas Aces are in fourth place in the standings, but as two-time defending champions, they are perceived as next in line on the list of favorites to win the 2024 title.

Since the WNBA launched in 1997, the league hasn't been known for many major upsets in the playoffs or unexpected teams winning the title. But it has happened. As recently as 2021, the No. 6 seed Chicago Sky, who had a .500 regular-season record that year, won the championship over the No. 5 seed Phoenix Mercury.

But since the league moved in 2016 to a playoff format that seeds the top eight teams overall — rather than the field being split between the Eastern and Western conferences with the top four teams from each — every title except 2021 has been won by a No. 1 or No. 2 seed.

Still, getting into the playoffs at least means