ESPN Disrespects Indiana Fever With 2026 WNBA Season Power Ranking Reveal
With their 97-86 victory over the Phoenix Mercury on October 10, the Las Vegas Aces completed their sweep of the Phoenix Mercury in the 2025 WNBA Finals, thus cementing their third league championship in the past four seasons. And just like that, this rollercoaster 2025 campaign has come to an end.
However, the excitement is just beginning, as these next few months are essentially guaranteed to be the most intriguing in the WNBA's history. This is largely owed to the ongoing contract negotiations between the league office and its players, which will make a seismic impact on how the league continues to grow.
Assuming a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) deal gets done, almost every single league veteran will enter free agency (as they negotiated their contracts in line with the new CBA) and will be able to sign for multiple times more money than they would have one year ago. With so many impending free agents, the league's landscape is set to undergo a seismic shift.
ESPN's "Way-Too-Early" Indiana Fever 2026 WNBA Season Ranking Raises Eyebrows
The sheer volume of free agents makes it extremely hard to predict what rosters will look like heading into the 2026 WNBA season. However, that didn't stop ESPN's Michael Voepel from releasing an October 11 article titled, "Way-Too-Early WNBA Power Rankings: Early look at 2026."
When it came to the Indiana Fever, Voepel ranked them at No. 5 behind the Aces, the Mercury, the Atlanta Dream, and the Minnesota Lynx.
It's way too early for the 2026 @WNBA Power Rankings ... but that's how they get their name. With so much unknown for next season and a CBA that has to be negotiated, this is a lot of guesswork. But here goes: https://t.co/GOOPWIDX6z
— Michael Voepel (@MAVoepel) October 11, 2025
This ranking is raising a lot of eyebrows for several reasons. One is that the Fever, despite being extremely injury-plagued, took the Aces to the absolute brink in their WNBA Semifinals series, as Las Vegas just barely eked out a win over them in the winner-take-all Game 5.
Then the Aces went on to dominate the Mercury in the Finals. While WNBA math isn't so simple, shouldn't this suggest that the Fever finished the 2025 season as the league's 2nd (or at the very least 3rd) best team? Why would that change for 2026?
And that's not all. Essentially, the only WNBA players who aren't going to become free agents this offseason are those who are still on rookie contracts, which includes Fever stars Caitlin Clark and Aliyah Boston.
Jackets for the All-Stars ⭐️
— WNBA (@WNBA) July 13, 2025
Caitlin Clark, Kelsey Mitchell and Aliyah Boston were gifted custom jackets for being named All-Stars for the second straight season together! pic.twitter.com/21QalW0zL0
Therefore, the Fever have two players under contract for 2026 who are arguably among the WNBA's 10 best players. The only other team with one player who might be included in this is the Dallas Wings, with Paige Bueckers. Plus, players want to play with Caitlin Clark, which will make Indiana a free agency destination (for both players on the team's 2025 roster and those from other squads).
This is why there's a case to be made that the Fever should be No. 1 on these "way-too-early" ESPN rankings; or perhaps No. 2 behind the Aces, because it's hard to imagine that team's top players will want to leave that dynasty.
Regardless, putting them at No. 5 is nothing short of disrespect.
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Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the Indiana Fever and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.
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