WNBA Regular Season Wins

Battling the Books: WNBA Season Win Bets

by R. B. D. Last updated May 14, 2025

The Golden State Valkyries

Apocalypse Now or Apocalypse Not?

The 2025 WNBA season begins on Friday, May 16th, and with it comes the inaugural season of the Golden State Valkyries.

Ya gotta admit – The Valkyries is kind of cool for a team name and uber-appropriate for a WNBA team.

Plus, it comes with a super cool, already-established fight song they can blare over the loudspeakers while the team takes the court. You can’t do any better than Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” and the unforgettable images it provokes of Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall) and his Huey helicopters, machine guns blasting, descending on villagers on the Vietnamese beach in Francis Ford Coppola’s epic Apocalypse Now.

And how cool would it be if the entire arena of 20,000 fans (okay, it’s the WNBA, so 200 fans, unless Caitlin’s in town) sings/shouts out the Valkyrie war cry of, “Hoyo-toho! Hoyo-toho!” putting fear into the hearts of their visiting opponents.

Then again, this IS the WNBA, so they’re just as likely to play Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman” or “A Woman’s Got the Power” by The A’s.

If it was up to me, I’d play The Stones “Under My Thumb.” (Yeah, I know – not everyone shares my sense of humor. And the world’s a lesser place because of it.)

But I digress.

Back to ‘capping.

The question for these Valkyries is - will the inaugural season be Apocalypse Now (destruction) or Apocalypse Not (success)?

Based on recent historical data, they’re more likely to be the villagers than the Huey’s.

The last time the league added a team was in 2008. The Atlanta Dream was more like the Atlanta Nightmare, winning just four of 30 games. That translates to a win percentage of just 11%.

Previous to that we had the 2006 Chicago Sky, who went 5-29, 14%.

Based on the results from the last two expansion teams, that looks like a steep hill to climb, which is why there’s higher juice on the Under at 8', -128.

The Valkaries do have some advantages over those last two expansion teams, such as an expanded free agency, which improves the pool of available players.

But let’s dig a little deeper.

I went back to the year 2000 when the league added four new teams.

Here’s what I see from that season:

Indiana Fever 9-23, 28%

Miami Sol 13-19, 40%

Portland Fire 10-22, 31%

Seattle Storm 6-26, 18%

Three of those four expansion teams would be a winner on an Over with a total of 8'.

I’m going to take a shot on the Valkyries to go Over based on the better talent pool they have to select from. And the extra four games can’t hurt.

My only concern, other than the horrendous record of the last two expansion teams, is Valkyries’ head coach Natalie Nakase.

In a recent interview, she said it’s okay for her players to screw up at first because that’s what coaches are for, to help players learn from their mistakes. “We’ll be focusing on process over results,” she said, and “It’s okay to fail.”

“It’s okay to fail??!!”

Vince Lombardi would be rolling in his grave if he heard that.

GS Ov 8', +104

PredictEm.com

Battling the Books: WNBA Season Opener Pick

by R. B. D, Last updated May 16, 2025 

Atlanta at Washington

And so it begins, WNBA 2025.

Although I don’t have any recent data to work with, there’s no way I’m sitting out Opening Day.

So where’s my action going to come from?

What to do, what to do . . .

Not a lot of data to look at while trying to find an edge, so I checked:

1 – week one last year

2 – this year’s preseason

3 – my own notes on season win totals

Week One 2024

Looking at the first week of play last season, Dogs had a slight edge at 6-5.

Overs had a profitable edge at 7-3-1.

The average total (the book’s number, not total points scored per game) was 151.

Looks like the books don’t want to get beat on Overs again, here are the games and totals for opening day:

Min/Dal 164

Atl/Wash 157

LA/GS 168

All three are higher than the average number from opening week last year and by an average of 10 PPG.

My Regular Season Wins Notes

Here’s an excerpt from my NBA Regular Season Wins Total column at PredictEm.com:

“Washington head coach Johnson said he wants his team to play at a fast pace, with shots taken within the first 8 seconds of their taking possession. That style of play is difficult enough to be successful at when you have experienced players who are used to playing with each other. It’s a recipe for disaster for a team with the inexperience and youth of this one. Expect a lot of turnovers and missed shots from the Mystics.”

In the WNBA preseason, guess which team had the lowest PPG on offense?

Yup, the Mystics.

Washington averaged 72 PPG, which was 11.6 points beneath the league average of 83.6.

And in just two games, they had 38 turnovers.

That’s an average of almost five turnovers per quarter!

It was only two games, but my expectation of turnovers and missed shots seems to be an accurate prognostication. (Yeah, I should probably come up with a better word for “prognostication” to use there, but I’m feeling lazy today.)

Preseason 2025

It’s preseason, so you can’t give it a lot of weight, but these two teams played in the preseason. Atlanta won, 80-70.

Based on the above, I’m going to lay the points with Atlanta today. The Dream had a dream off-season, picking up Brittney Griner and Brionna Jones to play alongside Rhyne Howard, Allisha Gray, and Jordin Canada.

Sports betting is always a bit of a crapshoot, even when you’re well informed and armed with stats and numbers. It’s even more so in the opening weeks of a season when you have no current data to work with. But it’s opening day, and I want it on the fun.

Buy this one early cuz I expect money to come in on the Fav and the line to go up.

My play:

Atl -6'