The Las Vegas Aces are built to win. They have a veteran core, few young players, and almost no good draft picks in the next couple of years. However, after being the best team in the league for quite some time, the Aces are struggling to win this season. With an 8-9 record, the Aces are currently eighth in the regular-season standings. They have been battling for a playoff spot all season long.
Las Vegas added to its woes with an 81-54 loss to the Caitlin-Clark-less Indiana Fever. A’ja Wilson was the only Aces player to even score in double figures. She scored 29 points, more than half of the Aces’ points. The next best scorer was Jackie Young with six points. It was an embarrassing showing from the Aces. Head coach Becky Hammon was anything but thrilled.
“That’s a complete lack of professionalism to come in here with that effort…They played harder yesterday in practice, by a lot, wasn’t even close. So I don’t know how you step onto the floor with 20K people in the stands and perform like that,” Hammon said after the game via The Athletic’s Ben Pickman.
This is not the first time Becky Hammon called out her team’s lack of effort
Lack of effort has already been a topic for Becky Hammon after previous games. Early in June, the Aces suffered a 95-68 loss to the Golden State Valkyries. Golden State is an expansion team without a clear-cut star—even though Kayla Thornton has made her case for an All-Star nod—and the Aces should have beaten the Valkyries handily.
Instead, the Aces allowed the Valkyries to outscore them in the paint, on fast breaks, and from three. Las Vegas also lost the rebounding battle by a significant margin despite its size advantage.
After the game, Becky Hammon called out her team’s lack of effort, saying that effort wasn’t something she should have to coach.
The Aces are running out of time to turn things around
The season is far from over. Las Vegas has only played 17 games so far. Nevertheless, the team is running out of time. With every bad loss, the margin between the Aces and the top playoff teams grows. Minnesota has already racked up 15 wins, New York and Phoenix have 12, and Atlanta and Seattle have won 11 games. Catching those teams becomes more difficult every time the Aces lose a game, especially those they are supposed to win.
On top of that, the other teams at the bottom of the playoff standings won’t just sit around and wait for the Aces to turn things around. The Valkyries have made it clear that they are not backing down from the playoff competition, the Fever finally strung together a few wins despite missing Caitlin Clark, and the Mystics’ young core grows more confident with every game.
The Aces have to turn things around or risk a disappointing end to the season.