The Las Vegas Aces let the rest of the WNBA catch up. Now their search for three peats is over
LAS VEGAS – Among the many buzzwords Becky Hammon has used during her three-year stint as head coach of the Las Vegas Aces, perhaps her favorite is “habits.”
Success depends on building habits.
“You don’t have to flip a switch,” Hammon said. “That’s actually the great thing about sport. The work and the dedication and the buy-in and the playfulness and wanting and wanting will always come out in the end.”
The Aces simply didn’t have the right habits in 2024. Their defense, which led the league in 2023, ranked fifth (100.3 points per 100 possessions) at the All-Star break. Their shooting suffered as their three-point percentage dropped from 37.2 in 2023 to 34.8 before the Olympics. A team that set the WNBA wins record (34) in 2023 en route to back-to-back titles matched its losses total in the 12th game of 2024.
Las Vegas didn’t have a lead for most of the season and only really discovered it in the last ten games. At that point the damage had already been done. The Aces had dug too big a hole for themselves and the rest of the league was catching up to them.
The Liberty grew larger to counter the Las Vegas movement. The Lynx revamped their offense, spreading the floor and increasing their volume of 3s. Connecticut doubled down on its toughness and suffocated opponents defensively. The other contenders were able to hone their strengths, while the Aces barely saw theirs in action. Their unique greatness never came from more than the sum of their parts. Their players couldn’t reinforce each other, they simply let individuals carry the team on alternate nights.
That meant fourth-seeded Las Vegas had to play Seattle, a historically good first-round opponent, before the semifinals began at Barclays Center, a place where the Aces have won just once in seven tries over the past two years. The lead they had conjured up in the last quarter of the season disappeared and they ran out of gas.
“Ultimately, I thought our shortcomings stood out a little bit,” Hammon said. “We have some great things to build on, (but) you don’t get that every year. This is not the way this works.”
New York exploited these weaknesses in the decisive 76-62 Game 4 victory on Sunday night. The Liberty pounded Las Vegas on the glass, winning the rebound battle 55-37, including a 13-4 margin on offensive rebounds. As the Aces tried to protect the rim, New York won the three-point battle 10-7 (on six fewer attempts) and still managed to outscore Las Vegas in the paint 30-28 with a barrage of lay-ups ups in the fourth quarter.
Thank you @LVAces 🤍🩶♥️ See you next season! 🫶🙏 pic.twitter.com/d6zjfRgzsJ
— Las Vegas Aces News (@LVAcesNews) October 6, 2024
It was a continuation of shooting woes and defensive issues that have plagued the Aces all season. Despite hoping they could conjure some of their 2023 magic, they returned to the habits that defined them during the regular season, and that wasn’t enough to get the job done. A win in Game 3, on a night Hammon called her team’s most complete game of the season, was not a promising sign of things to come for Las Vegas. Rather, it was a blip on the radar, a fleeting reminder of what the Aces had been rather than what they actually were this season.
“This year was really the foundation for us to start talking in the offseason about how we want to approach things,” A’ja Wilson said.
Las Vegas is now heading into a crucial offseason. It will likely lose one rotation player or young prospect outside the core four to the expansion draft, whether that’s Kiah Stokes, Megan Gustafson, Kierstan Bell or Kate Martin. Kelsey Plum is an unrestricted free agent, although the Aces can core her, but it marks the first time one of the team’s stars has entered free agency without signing an extension.
The bench was not deep enough in 2024. The coaching staff relied on just three frontcourt players for most of the season, but one of those players is 6-foot-4 and another won’t be guarded by opponents in the playoffs. Among their perimeter reserves, Tiffany Hayes was retired to start the season and hasn’t committed to sticking around, while Sydney Colson’s offensive limitations made it difficult to play her extended minutes.
The Aces will also have to navigate new competitive dynamics. The competition is stronger and deeper than when Las Vegas won its first title. The Aces have contributed to a stylistic revolution over the past three years, bringing pace and space to the WNBA and clearing the floor for powerful individual performances. However, the rest of the league has caught on, meaning Las Vegas has to figure out what comes next.
“They made us a better team,” New York guard Sabrina Ionescu said. ‘It’s not easy to do what they did. We got there and lost, they got there and won twice, and it’s a testament to their togetherness, their experience, how hard it is that they want to go out there and do their best every night, and they I have laid the foundation. And they continue to motivate everyone in the league to just want to get better and win championships.”
Regardless of who ends up on the 2025 Aces roster, the only way to get back to competing for titles is to put in the work this offseason and get reps that will pay off come October of next year. Wilson said she will return to the lab in December, and Hammon said she expects a different level of focus to start training camp.
Las Vegas also has the motivating factor of defeat.
“We’re going to have a lot of hard learning lessons,” Hammon said. “It hurts now, I promise you it will hurt tomorrow, probably worse because it goes away the next day, but you have to build habits, you have to work in a way where you think you deserve to win.”
The Aces didn’t deserve to win in 2024. They lost to a better team, one that was more consistent and less complacent throughout the season. In recent years, Las Vegas has set the pace. Now there is a new standard to meet.
(Photo of A’ja Wilson and Aces players: Barry Gossage/NBAE via Getty Images)
