Lynx favored to win title, then Aces and Liberty - ESPN

The Minnesota Lynx will enter the WNBA playoffs favored to win it all, but they'll be watching over their shoulders for the two most recent league champions.

Minnesota is the consensus favorite to win their first title since 2017 across the sportsbook marketplace, showing +110 odds at ESPN BET. The surging Las Vegas Aces sport +260 odds, while the reigning champion New York Liberty are at +350. From there, it's a steep dropoff to the third-seeded Atlanta Dream at +1000.

It will be the first time the Lynx enter the postseason as the title favorites since they won their last one of the Maya Moore era in 2017; the last time they were favored during a regular season was 2018, the final year of Moore's Hall of Fame career.

Meanwhile, the Aces made an extraordinary surge up the odds board with their 16-game winning streak to end the regular season. At ESPN BET, Becky Hammon's squad opened the campaign at +400 to win the title but fell to a long of +3000 in mid-August amid a sluggish start to the season. However, the Aces' strong finish landed them at their current odds, propelling them past the Liberty after the final day of the regular season.

Las Vegas' heroics also boosted A'ja Wilson's chances to win MVP over Minnesota's Napheesa Collier. On Aug. 3, Collier was an enormous -1100 favorite with Wilson at 100-1, but by the close of the market, Wilson was the huge favorite at -700 and Collier sat at +500.

In general, though, sportsbooks were well aware of Las Vegas' potential, allowing them to properly manage the book on them, as well as the other two top contenders.

«Those three teams, I would think that's where your winner comes from,» DraftKings Sportsbook director Johnny Avello told ESPN. «When you look at these playoff