The WNBA season is heating up, and while the Liberty and Lynx appear poised for a WNBA Finals (and Commissioner’s Cup finals) rematch, another team has emerged as a possible foil. 

The Aces and Fever have struggled to varying degrees at the start of the season, allowing the 5-2 Atlanta Dream to move into third place in the standings on the strength of a four-game winning streak. Atlanta has gotten started about as well as they could have hoped under first-year head coach Karl Smesko, and all indications are they have an excellent chance to ride that start to a playoff berth and potentially a long playoff run. Atlanta is fifth in the WNBA in net rating at 5.3, behind Indiana and Phoenix but ahead of the Aces. Atlanta’s 106.9 offensive rating is second in the WNBA, which is encouraging because Atlanta hasn’t even shot the ball well yet. Atlanta is ninth in the WNBA in three-point percentage but third in three-point attempts. I was skeptical coming into the season if Karl Smesko’s three-point-heavy scheme was a fit for Atlanta’s personnel, but that might not even matter. If Atlanta’s offense is elite even while they are missing 20 threes per game, there is a chance they can be even better with a little bit of luck.

Beyond three-point shooting, Atlanta’s biggest struggle has been defense, but there is reason for optimism there as well. Atlanta has played every game this season without Jordin Canada, who suffered a knee injury less than a minute into Atlanta’s first preseason game. The team announced she would be sidelined for two weeks, and that was three weeks ago. Canada is a two-time WNBA All-Defensive player who is excellent at the point of attack. Her return would move Maya Caldwell back to the bench and allow Allisha Gray and Rhyne Howard to defend more off the ball, where they are strongest. Canada’s injuries contributed to Atlanta’s struggles last season, as the Dream were 9-11 when Jordin Canada played and 6-14 when she didn’t.

Atlanta doesn’t play again until Friday, which will give Canada more time to recover and should also allow Brittney Griner to put more distance between herself and her own knee injury that caused her to miss two games last week.

In addition to getting Canada back from injury, Atlanta has a couple of other avenues to get even better this season. The first would be playing rookie Te-Hina Paopao more minutes. Paopao and Allisha Gray are the only proven three-point shooters on this roster, and Paopao is making 38.5 percent on 5.0 threes per 36 minutes. Atlanta is +6.9 per 36 minutes with Paopao on the floor this season.

Atlanta could also be positioned to add more shooting in a midseason trade. Atlanta has all of their 2026 draft picks and could use one of them to rescue Marina Mabrey from Connecticut or Rebecca Allen or Rachel Banham from Chicago. One more knockdown shooter could really open up this offense, which relies on shooting a lot of threes. 

While Atlanta has some opportunities to improve this season, the fact is they might not need to improve much to host a first-round playoff series. If their offense remains elite and their defense is average or slightly above, that should be enough to compete with anyone outside of the Liberty and Lynx. Not coincidentally, the Liberty and Lynx are the last two winners of the Commissioner’s Cup, and I think Atlanta at +2000 is a sneaky pick to win this season. No team has repeated in the Cup’s four-year history, and with Catlin Clark out, the Liberty look like the only real threat to stop Atlanta from advancing to the Commissioner’s Cup final.

When Atlanta returns from their week off, they will play five consecutive Commissioner’s Cup games. The first four of those are against teams with losing records. If they can take care of business in those games, it could set up a showdown with the New York Liberty on June 17 to determine who advances to the final game.

At the start of the season, we asked if the Lynx, Liberty and Aces could continue their dominance for another season. So far, the answer for two of those teams has been a resounding yes, but following their hot start to the season, the Atlanta Dream may be poised to challenge that dominance.