😳 Layup Lines: Mystics throw in the towel

Happy Wednesday and welcome back to Layup Lines, your quick recap of what’s going on in the WNBA.

• Follow all the deals and flips before tomorrow’s trade deadline with ESPN’s tracker — it could be a wild 24 hours.

This 461 word newsletter should take less than 2 minutes to read.

Three up, three down from Tuesday night

🚀 The good: Minnesota beating the Storm on the road without Napheesa Collier is another one of many signs that the Lynx are the best team in the league. Also, Dijonai Carrington already looks like the perfect fit.

• The Wings lost (and stink), but you can still see glimmers of hope in plays like this from Paige Bueckers.

• Cam Brink is so good defensively that she made a huge impact last night in L.A.’s win over Indiana despite not scoring. Awesome to have her back.

📉 The bad: Washington entered yesterday one game out of the last playoff spot, but trading Brittney Sykes to Seattle for a 2026 1st round pick and Alysha Clark (95 points scored in 2025 on a $185k contract) is a full punt on the rest of the season. The core of Sonia Citron, Kiki Iriafen, Georgia Amoore and three 2026 first-round picks is exciting, but don’t expect much more from the Mystics this year.

• Seattle has arguably the third-best roster in the league and yet has now lost five of its last seven. Sykes might be more of a necessity than a nice-to-have for the Storm’s playoff push.

• I once again went 1-2 with my picks, though I wouldn’t have taken the Mystics to beat the Sky had the Sykes trade happened before sending the newsletter. So it goes.

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Today’s game

• We’re 70-75 this season and have $393 of our initial $1,000 budget remaining to wager.

• There’s only one game tonight — Las Vegas @ Golden State (10:00pm, NBA TV).

  • The Aces just wiped the floor with the Valkyries at home on Sunday but still have a mediocre road defense — and Golden State just hasn’t looked the same without Kayla Thornton.

    • Bet: Las Vegas / Golden State over 158.5 total points scored, $100 to win $92.

Trade deadline take to go

• Outside of Washington’s Aaliyah Edwards, who is definitely getting traded, my top 5 candidates to be on the move before tomorrow’s deadline are Connecticut’s Marina Mabrey, Chicago’s Ariel Atkins and Rachel Banham, Golden State’s Tiffany Hayes and … Dallas’ Arike Ogunbowale.

Layup Lines is written 100% by a human being with visual assistance from AI tools. I very much appreciate you reading and will see you back here tomorrow.

— Everett Cook, Founder & Editor