Layup Lines: Fading this Friday

Happy Friday and welcome back to Layup Lines, your quick recap of what’s going on in the WNBA. It was a long Thursday without basketball — if only there was a way to schedule WNBA games on nights when there isn’t an NBA Finals game being played.

• We went 1-1 with our Wednesday bets thanks to Phoenix covering against Dallas and Kelsey Plum still not playing well in Vegas (though the Sparks did win).

• In the game we didn’t take, Seattle put up 94 points and handed Minnesota its first loss of the season.

This 441 word newsletter should take less than 2 minutes to read.

Bets of the day

• We’re 27-26 this year and have $1,022 remaining of our initial $1,000 to wager.

• There are two games tonight, both on Ion — Chicago @ Atlanta (7:30pm ET) and Dallas @ Las Vegas (10pm). Between friends, I’m not sure I would move my Friday night plans around for either of these games … but we’re still going to bet ‘em!

  • The Sky really miss Courtney Vandersloot already and the Dream are at full strength.

    • Bet: Atlanta -12.5, $50 to win $44.

  • Normally we’d be hammering anyone playing Dallas, but not Las Vegas with A’ja Wilson out with a head injury. She leads the Aces in every major statistical category and they will likely look lost defensively without her.

    • Bet: Las Vegas / Dallas over 170 total points scored, $50 to win $45.

Take of the day

• Newer fans of the WNBA might not realize how much the upcoming EuroBasket Women is going to affect the league in June. Many teams are missing at least one contributor and some are going to get wiped out until early July due to their players leaving for the tournament.

• Let’s take the Wings, who entered the season with three post players who can play center. Teaira McCowan has already left to represent Turkey, Luisa Geiselsoder leaves tomorrow to play for Germany and Myisha Hines-Allen is dealing with a knee injury.

• Dallas will sign free agents to hardship contracts to deal with the absences, but we’re talking about a team missing most of its frontcourt for 5-7 games. That is a huge deal in a 44-game regular season.

Card of the day

Here’s to A’ja’s quick recovery.

Thanks for reading Layup Lines. You don’t need to bet for odds to be interesting, but if you do, please do so responsibly. We’ll see you back here tomorrow for the return of Caitlin Clark!

— Everett Cook, Founder & Editor