With the 2017 regular season complete and recent new career marks set, it is a good time to take a look at all of the career lists.  The league has provided the top 30 in the five main counting stats.  Highlighted players appeared during the 2017 season.  After the retirement of Tamika Catchings, no active players are on all five lists as she and DeLisha Milton-Jones are the exclusive members of that list.  Four active players, Alana Beard, Candace Parker, Diana Taurasi, and Lindsay Whalen appear on four lists.

Points:

It was a major season for broken records, and having a new all time scoring leader was certainly part of it as Diana Taurasi leaped past two players to top the top.  Sue Bird’s other milestone gained more recognition, but she reached the top ten in this category and was joined by a resurgent Candice Dupree.  There are two newcomers on the list as Maya Moore and Sylvia Fowles joined, showing the experience of the Lynx as they have six players on this list, nearly half of the active players.  Plenty of movement should be expected on this list next year, especially when Angel McCoughtry makes her return and jumps well past the 5,000 point mark.

Rebounds:

Tamika Catching set the career mark in this category last season, but her retirement has given Rebekkah Brunson the chance to pass her next year after she moved into the top three and surpassed 3,000 rebounds.  Sylvia Fowles and Tina Charles moved into the top ten, but will have to have great seasons again to reach 3,000 next year.  Camille Little is the latest player to join this list.

Assists:

The most recent milestone was Sue Bird’s climb above Ticha Penicheiro for the all time assists mark.  This was certainly viewed as a possibility before the season, but really required a second straight big year to accomplish.  Courtney Vandersloot was a big gainer on this list this year and a similar performance next year should push her well into the top ten.  There are three newcomers on the list as Candace Parker surpassed the 1,000 mark and Renee Montgomery and Kristi Toliver also check in at the bottom.

Steals:

It will be a long time before anyone threatens this career record, but there has been plenty of movement.  Alana Beard passed several players to reach fourth, but is just shy of Sheryl Swoopes with a question of retirement looming.  Sue Bird looks set to move further up this list next season.  Camille Little and Cappie Pondexter are the newest players to join this list.

Blocks:

This is also not currently within reach, but the chase pack is more clearly defined as Sylvia Fowles and Brittney Griner both had strong seasons in this category and could both make it into the top five in a year.  Diana Taurasi is actually still higher on this list than she is on the steals list.  Jessica Breland, Elena Delle Donne, and Alana Beard are the newest players on the list, giving Beard membership on her fourth list.

Now that the regular season has concluded, it is a good time to see how teams stack up in some less traditional statistical categories now that the league is in it’s second year of providing additional information.

Net Rating:

Using offensive and defensive rating is a good way of comparing teams because it equalized the number of possessions being accounted for with both expressed as points per 100 possessions.  The blue bar represents offensive rating while the red bar represents defensive rating.  The difference between the two is the net rating.

The team win-loss records are pretty clear for this season after looking at this chart.  The four non-playoff teams all have substantially worse offenses than the playoff teams.  The top four defenses had the best records in order while the three offenses were among those teams.  Minnesota and Los Angeles continue to lead in both categories while New York continues to rely on a stingy defense to pick up wins.  Dallas and Seattle were the last teams in the playoffs and their solid offenses were betrayed by below average defense.  Atlanta’s defense was very solid, but their lack of offense stifled their attempts to sneak into the playoffs.  San Antonio’s offense continues to lag behind the rest of the league as they finished at the bottom of the standings again.

Change vs. 2016:

With two seasons of statistics, it is now much more simple to compare the two years.  The blue column represents the change in offensive rating, the red column represents the change in defensive rating, and the green column represents the change in net rating from 2016 to 2017.  The changes in wins is included in the team labels.

Looking at the the teams with dramatic changes in fortune between the seasons, it is clear why the number of wins changed.  Connecticut, Dallas, and Washington improved both defensively and offensively.  Indiana’s collapse happened on both sides of the ball, while Chicago and Atlanta saw their decline occur on the defensive end.  Minnesota and Los Angeles were viewed as having dominant regular seasons last year, and this year has seen both of them improve in on court performance, even though there was a negligible difference in their records.

Rebound Percentage:

Separating the two rebound percentage statistics gives a better picture of team at each end of the court.  The x-axis represents the percentage of available offensive rebounds that the team grabs while the y-axis represents the percentage of available defensive rebounds that the team grabs.  Since offensive rebounding is often the result of strategy decisions, measuring defensive rebounding on its own is useful.  Strong defensive rebounding limits the opposition’s chances and gives the team more chances on offense.  Strong offensive rebounding can give the team more chances, but if it is the result of sending more players to crash the board, could result in giving up more transition points.

New York continues to be one of the league’s better rebounding teams, leading in both categories.  Connecticut follows them on the defensive end while Minnesota is the next team on the offensive end while also being among the leaders on the defensive end.  Indiana, Seattle, and Chicago struggle at both ends while the rest of the teams hover around the average defensively, but range widely at the offensive end.  The top five defense rebounding teams also have the top five defense and include the four teams in the league with the best records.  Offensive rebounding does not share the same relationship with offense.

Points Breakdowns:

The first chart is a breakdown of how each team scores its points while the second chart show how each team gives up its points.  The blue bars represent points from two pointers, the red bars show points from three pointers, and the green bars show the percentage of points coming from free throws.  While some of the extremes from other seasons are not replicated in this seasons figures, there are still some interesting observations.  Seattle scores a larger percentage of its points from behind the arc, but it also gives up the largest percentage from distance.  Dallas scores the lowest percentage of its points from two point field goals, but a larger percentage of the points scored on them come from inside the arc than for any other team.

Correlations:

Measuring correlation between various statistics can lead to rethinking of the relationships between them.  It is difficult to determine whether or not these relationships exist, but R-Squared, which ranges from 0 to 1 can determine how strong that relationship is within the data that is available with higher numbers being stronger.  The first chart shows correlations calculated with offensive rating and the second chart shows correlations calculated with defensive rating using team data.

Unsurprisingly, teams with strong assist to turnover ratios at higher offensive ratings.  Assists signify good offense while turnovers prevent more scoring opportunities, which is also shown by teams with higher turnover percentages having lower offensive ratings..  Teams with better defenses also tended to have better offenses, which is likely due to those teams having better personnel among other factors.  What is interesting is that defensive rebounding percentage had a higher correlation than offensive rebounding percentage, although neither had a particularly large R-Squared.  In theory, offensive rebounds should result in more chances to score, but this may represent different strategic choices.  Defensive rebounding could indicate talent disparities, but less energy expended on defense could also boost offense.  Pace and free throw rate have positive, but weak correlations.

It is no surprise that defensive rebounding has a strong correlation with better defense.  The ability to limit opponents to single chances on the offensive end is clearly useful.  Offensive rebounding also had a correlation in the same direction, which could indicate that crashing the boards could help prevent the opposition from getting into their offense quickly.  Block percentage and pace had correlations in direction that would be expected, with teams blocking more shots and teams that played in slower games having better defensive ratings, but neither correlation was particularly strong.

With the second season of the WNBA’s commitment to providing additional statistics complete, let’s take a look at how players stack up in some of the non-traditional measures.  In order to be counted in these lists, players must have been on the court for 680 possessions, 20 per game that each team plays.  For players who played for multiple team, the last team name is listed, but stats compiled for all teams are included.

Usage:

Usage measures the percentage of her team’s possessions that the player terminates while she is on the court.  It provides two separate measures that help us understand a team’s offense, both showing which players are stars that a team relies on heavily and also identifying players who come off the bench or play fewer possessions, but take shots while they are on the court, which would not show up as much in traditional counting stats.  Players with a usage percentage of at least 23% are included on this list.

No single player may have been more critical to her team than Tina Charles this year and it showed on this list as she was the only player to exceed 30% usage and was the only Liberty player on the list.  She is followed by two teammate duos as the young stars of the Storm and the Mercury’s veterans were leaned on offensively.  Brittney Sykes pushed her way into the rookie of the year statistics as the season progressed and it was clear how she did so as she was given a larger and larger role over time.  Unlike some other instances, the number of players appearing on this list with fewer minutes played was not particularly large as Monique Currie was asked to play a variety of roles on two different teams this season while Ivory Latta was the only player on the list to play less than 20 minutes per game.  Skylar Diggins-Smith made the list as the only Wings player as she was on the court for more possessions than any other player in the league this season.

Effective Field Goal Percentage:

Effective field goal percentage helps nullify the advantage that post players and others who shoot closer to the basket have on players who shoot more of their shots from distance.  Three point shots are given more value to account for the additional point that they provide.  Players who have an effective field goal percentage above 55% are included on this list.

Adding points for three pointers did not change the leader in this category as Sylvia Fowles stayed on top without attempting a shot from behind the arc.  Crystal Langhorne was behind her while almost exclusively operating from two point range.  The first player with a reputation as a sniper checked in at third as Allie Quigley’s percentage clearly benefits from this adjustment.  Stefanie Dolson and Nneka Ogwumike get additional credit from this system as they mix a comfort of operating in the paint with an ability to stretch the floor.

Free Throw Rate:

Free throw rate measures the number of free throws attempted as a percentage of field goals attempted.  Players with at least 40% as many free throw attempts as field goal attempts are included on this list.  Players who rank high on this list tend to be either post players or slashers.

Five players attempt at least half as many free throws as field goals.  While Emma Cannon is a newcomer to the league, the other four are certainly no strangers to the list.  Alyssa Thomas just under 50% last year, but the other three were above and all in the top five on that list.  Shavonte Zellous, Karima Christmas-Kelly, and Brittney Griner all increased their percentages from 2016.  While those at the top of the list had higher rates than last season, the number of players at 42% and over decreased as only 18 players were at that mark after 24 players hit that rate a year ago.

Rebound Percentage:

Rebound percentage statistics help isolate multiple factors, not just controlling for minutes on the court.  Offensive and defensive rebounding are separate, which helps account for team philosophy and player roles.  The basis of measurement is available rebounds, which mitigates the effect of different field goal percentages.  Players who grabbed at least 20% of available rebounds on the defensive end made that list and players who grabbed at least 8% of available offensive rebounds made the other list.

Separate statistics are not needed to show that Jonquel Jones was dominant on the boards this season.  She grabbed nearly a third of her opponent’s misses, more than five percentage points above any other player while also leading in the offensive category as she nearly doubled her defensive rebounding rate from last year with a big increase in minutes.  The split better showcases Candace Parker’s rebounding as she was second on the defensive end, but not on the list for the offensive end where the Sparks were not among the league leaders, perhaps reflecting team philosophy.  Other Mystics acquisitions deservedly had more fanfare, but this statistic shows another key move as Krystal Thomas was in the top three in both categories, one of nine players players on both lists as Tianna Hawkins also helped the Mystics rebound well.  Sylvia Fowles and Rebekkah Brunson are both in the top ten of total rebounds all time, so it was no surprise to see them as the other pair of teammates to appear on both lists.