RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Las Vegas Aces forward NaLyssa Smith will miss the remainder of the season due to a left leg injury, the team announced Thursday. Aside from noting that it was a non-contact injury, the team did not provide any specifics. It's unclear whether Smith will need surgery or what her recovery timeline looks like.
Smith, who arrived in Las Vegas last June via a trade with the Dallas Wings , helped the Aces win their third title in four years last season. Through 38 games this season, she was averaging 11.7 points and 6.4 rebounds on a career-high 63.8% shooting.
Smith suffered the injury in the third quarter of the Aces' win over the Toronto Tempo on Sunday. With just over three minutes remaining in the frame, Smith was out on the fastbreak when Jackie Young threw her a pass. Smith jumped to catch the ball, and when she landed, her left leg immediately buckled.
Smith collapsed and began slapping the court with one hand while holding her leg with the other. She was eventually helped off the court and could not put any weight on her left leg.
Smith flies under the radar on an Aces team that boasts four-time MVP A'ja Wilson , as well as Young and Chelsea Gray . Even coach Becky Hammon is better known nationally, but Smith has been integral to the team's success since arriving from Dallas ahead of the trade deadline last season.
The Aces have been notoriously short on depth in the last few seasons, particularly in the frontcourt. Smith helped change that. Though she's never lived up to the hype that made her the No. 2 pick in the 2022 WNBA Draft, Smith has thrived in a complementary role alongside Wilson.
Rather than forcing jumpers or trying to make plays off the dribble, as she did early in her career, Smith became an elite cutter and offensive rebounder who finished extremely efficiently in the paint. Smith shot 60.8% off cuts, and her 108 points on such plays ranked fourth in the league prior to her injury. She was also ninth in the league in offensive rebounds per game at 2.2 and 18th in overall rebounds per game.
The Aces are already an average overall rebounding team and one of the worst offensive rebounding teams in the league. Without Smith, they are really going to struggle on the glass. Just look at these splits:
The only bigs on the team outside of Wilson and Smith who have played any sort of meaningful minutes this season are Brianna Turner and Cheyenne Parker-Tyus . Turner is a solid defender, but she's scored 56 points in 480 minutes. Parker-Tyus, who is averaging 5.2 points on 52.4% shooting, can do more offensively, but is a disaster on the other end. The Aces have a 113.2 defensive rating with her on the floor this season.
Now, the Aces are either going to have to go super small and move Wilson to the 5 or slide one of Turner or Parker-Tyus into the starting lineup. Regardless, one of the two will play significantly more minutes. It's no wonder the Aces were in the mix to add DeWanna Bonner , who ended up signing with the Atlanta Dream .
The Aces are 26-13 and sit in third place. They're one and a half games behind the Golden State Valkyries for the No. 2 seed, half a game up on the fourth-place Atlanta Dream and one game up on the fifth-place Indiana Fever . They own the tiebreaker against the Valkyries and Dream, but not the Fever.
They also have the easiest remaining schedule in the league, with an average opponent winning percentage of .276. The Phoenix Mercury , who have been eliminated and don't own their 2027 first-round pick, are the Aces' only remaining opponent that won't be openly tanking.
The Aces should be fine for the remainder of the regular season and may even win out without Smith. They'll also have a few weeks during the World Cup break from Aug. 31 to Sept. 16 to integrate Turner and/or Parker-Tyus into a bigger role -- albeit without Wilson, Young and Gray, all of whom will be in Berlin with Team USA .
But come playoff time, Smith's absence will be a major blow to their hopes of completing a second repeat in five years. The Aces are already without Chennedy Carter , who was their leading bench scorer at 12.2 points per game. Now, they'll be without Smith, who was the only player outside of the big three who provided any sort of reliable scoring.
This is the most open the title race has been in some time, and the Aces still have the best player in the world in Wilson. And, even after Smith's injury, they have the second-best title odds (+700 at FanDuel behind the Minnesota Lynx at -120). But repeating is extremely hard. Repeating when you only have three players you can fully trust -- Wilson, Young and Gray -- is even harder.
We'll know more once we see where the Aces wind up and their path through the bracket, but there's a very real chance that Smith's injury just ended their hopes of joining the Houston Comets, Lynx and Seattle Storm as the only franchises with four titles.
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