Worst teams in the league so far

Three weeks into the WNBA season and we still have three teams without a victory. Right now, they’re going to get my Worst 3 tag so far this season, but there’s a lot of reasons fans can still hold their heads high as the season progresses.

Phoenix Mercury (0-4): You likely couldn’t have found anybody to make this pick at the beginning of the season as some analysts still had them winning the West even after Penny Taylor opted out of the first half of the season, but alas, here we are. When you remove somebody with Taylor’s game, you’re going to suffer. Plus, most of the Mercury stars were playing overseas through training camp and they had to adjust to new coach Corey Gaines. Either way, I expect the Mercury will begin to get some more bench production to lessen the stress on Cappie Pondexter and Diana Taurasi — and if Taylor returns after the Olympics, the Merc could make a late run into the playoffs.

Atlanta Dream (0-4): Who didn’t see this coming? Very few expansion teams do well and the Dream are no different. They’re not shooting well and their defense is porous. Either way, this season isn’t necessarily about winning. As long as the Dream can improve throughout the season, they’re in a market that was wanting summer basketball and as long as the team captivates its fan base, the Dream will be successful this season.

Houston Comets (0-5): I guess the silver lining for Comets fans is that they’ve played the top teams relatively well (they lost to the Storm by 1 and the Lynx by 6), but they’ve been getting run out of the gym by the others. They’ve also got three games in the next five days (Silver Stars, Liberty, Fever), so this could stay ugly before the team gets a decent break. The Comets need somebody to step up and start taking on some more scoring punch (I’m looking in your direction Tamecka Dixon and Mwadi Mabika). Lets’ face it, Tina Thompson is all-world (and an Olympian — see what I did there?), but she can’t be expected to play 38 minutes per game and keep up the scoring punch, too; get her some help.