{"id":121012,"date":"2025-08-30T14:52:25","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T14:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/121012\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T14:52:25","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T14:52:25","slug":"health-home-court-and-honors-can-dream-secure-a-top-seed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/121012\/","title":{"rendered":"Health, Home-court, and Honors: Can Dream secure a top seed?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Atlanta Dream are in the middle of a four-team race for the second seed in the WNBA<\/a> playoffs, but the team did officially clinch the playoffs with a win over the Dallas Wings on Friday night. Here are five questions that remain for Atlanta as we move toward the playoffs:<\/p>\n

1. Will we see a healthy Dream squad again during the regular season?<\/p>\n

The five players who currently appear to be the Dream\u2019s preferred starters are Jordin Canada, Allisha Gray, Naz Hillmon, Rhyne Howard, and Brionna Jones. This group has only played in 13 games this season for a total of 72 minutes. Of the ten Dream lineups that have played at least 40 minutes together this season, this grouping has the best net rating at 27.2.<\/p>\n

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Unfortunately, Jordin Canada has not played since leaving Atlanta\u2019s win over the Phoenix Mercury on August 10th. Before Atlanta\u2019s game on Wednesday night, Michael Waterloo reported<\/a> that Canada was doing \u201csome light stationary bike work in her practice gear, but won\u2019t be playing.\u201d With just a handful of games remaining, it will be important for Canada to get back to game speed as soon as possible to reclaim her starting role as the primary facilitator and ball handler in Atlanta\u2019s offense.<\/p>\n

2. Can the Dream hold on to home-court advantage?<\/p>\n

The top four playoff teams, as seeded by record, host the first game of round one and would also host a potential deciding Game 3. Atlanta dropped out of the second seed with their loss to Las Vegas but has two extra games to play compared to the Aces. If they end up with an identical record to Las Vegas, the Aces do have control of the tiebreaker thanks to their 3-0 record against Atlanta this season.<\/p>\n

Going into the weekend, the Dream were six games behind the league-leading Minnesota Lynx but within a game of Las Vegas, Phoenix, and New York. One of these four teams will lose home-court advantage as the fifth seed in the playoffs and have to go on the road to face the four seed.<\/p>\n

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3. Who will Atlanta face in the playoffs?<\/p>\n

With eight teams qualifying for the playoffs, Atlanta would prefer to stay in the top three of the standings in order to face one of the bottom three playoff teams. The Indiana Fever, Seattle Storm, Golden State Valkyries, and Los Angeles Sparks are all within two games of each other and competing in the standings for the final three playoff spots. Indiana has been decimated by injuries at the guard position as Caitlin Clark continues to recover from a groin injury. The expansion Valkyries have surprised many with their successful first season, while Kelsey Plum has led the Sparks squad to an excellent second half after entering the All-Star break with an 8-14 record.<\/p>\n

4. Will any members of the Dream earn end-of-season honors?<\/p>\n

Rookie head coach Karl Smesko has been in the conversation for Coach of the Year honors, as the Dream have already surpassed last year\u2019s win total. He has improved the team<\/a> defensively and offensively compared to previous seasons and a top-four finish could be enough for him to win the award, depending on how Golden State rookie head coach Natalia Nakase\u2019s squad finishes the season.<\/p>\n

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Naz Hillmon should be a favorite for the league\u2019s Sixth Woman of the Year award. Although she has forced her way<\/a> into the starting lineup ahead of Brittney Griner, Hillmon remains eligible as she has played more games off the bench than as a starter throughout the season.<\/p>\n

Although Allisha Gray is not expected to challenge Napheesa Collier, Alyssa Thomas, and A\u2019ja Wilson for the league\u2019s MVP award, she should earn votes as media members submit five names for the recognition. Any acknowledgment as a potential MVP would be well-deserved as Gray leads the league in minutes played while shooting 44.8% from the field with the third-most made three-pointers in the league, the fifth-most points scored in the league, and the second-best +\/- statistic of any non-Minnesota Lynx player in the league (right behind teammate Naz Hillmon and just ahead of former USC teammate A\u2019ja Wilson).<\/p>\n

5. When will Atlanta announce a new venue for future seasons?<\/p>\n

Atlanta\u2019s home crowd loyalty was questioned by All-Star Rhyne Howard after Wednesday\u2019s loss to the Las Vegas Aces:<\/p>\n

While Howard\u2019s frustration at fans cheering for an opposing player is reasonable, Atlanta has a bigger issue with its small venue and limited attendance capacity. According to Across the Timeline<\/a>, the Dream were the only team in the league to average under 5,000 fans this season. The Gateway Center in College Park only has a capacity of 3,500 people. Atlanta Dream president Morgan Shaw Parker stated in a March interview that the team is looking into a new, larger arena<\/a>, but no announcements have been made since then.<\/p>\n

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Prior to their 2021 move to College Park, the Dream played in the NBA\u2019s Atlanta Hawks arena (formerly Philips Arena), as well as on Georgia Tech\u2019s campus in McCamish Pavilion. Georgia State University has a basketball arena less than ten miles from the current location. Any of these three arena options would actually be located in the city of Atlanta and provide public transportation access that could increase the fan turnout for games. Revenue and sponsorship opportunities for players and free agents are obviously connected to the size of the fan base and local support, as seen by the lucrative contracts given to various Las Vegas Aces players in the last two seasons.<\/p>\n

It may be time for the Dream to make a move to a larger venue in order to attract future free agents and maintain the team\u2019s positive trajectory. Let us know in the comments below what you are looking forward to seeing over the rest of the season!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Atlanta Dream are in the middle of a four-team race for the second seed in the WNBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[650,4130,15447,3444,18417,5550,1760,2834,4804,25178,2839,4807,10504,2114,4677,3029,1077,3250,5484,5551,18118,4676,99,38140,434],"class_list":["post-121012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-aja-wilson","tag-allisha-gray","tag-alyssa-thomas","tag-atlanta-dream","tag-brionna-jones","tag-brittney-griner","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-dallas-wings","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-hawks","tag-indiana-fever","tag-jordin-canada","tag-kelsey-plum","tag-las-vegas","tag-las-vegas-aces","tag-los-angeles-sparks","tag-minnesota-lynx","tag-napheesa-collier","tag-naz-hillmon","tag-phoenix-mercury","tag-rhyne-howard","tag-seattle-storm","tag-sports","tag-the-dream","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}