After a successful campaign in the NBA, winning 60% on 66 recommended picks, RBD takes his Battle with the Books to the women’s side of the sport, the WNBA.
WNBA Regular Season Wins Predictions
Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire
The WNBA 2026 season welcomes two new teams, the Toronto Tempo and the Portland Fire.
Searching for an angle I can use for wagering, l looked at the most recent expansions.
In 2006 the league added the Chicago Sky.
In 2008 they added the Atlanta Dream.
In 2025 they added the Golden State Valkyries.
You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to observe two glaring differences between the previous expansions and this year’s.
First, none of the previous expansions were done in back-to-back years. They allowed for breathing room between seasons.
Second, and more important to today’s bets, they only added one team per season, not two.
Let’s face it – it’s only a slight exaggeration to say that the talent pool available in the WNBA is shallower than a kiddie’s pool.
To remove all exaggeration, it’s shallower than a kiddie’s pool that was drained because the kids peed in it.
If you watch WNBA games you develop a high tolerance for missed layups, missed free throws, and shot clock violation turnovers. Either that or you end up like Elvis – grabbing your shotgun and using your TV for target practice.
Pulling players from their existing “talent” and adding two new teams is only going to dilute the “quality” of play, which is pretty much non-existent to begin with.
But that’s just a cursory review.
Let’s take a look at the number the books hung on the Regular Season Wins for the two newcomers and apply a little math to it.
Here’s what they’re offering.
Toronto Tempo 15′
Portland Fire 10′
Last season, the expansion Valkyries had a Regular Season Wins Total of 8′.
They ended up winning 23 games.
Yes, 23, meaning the books were “slightly” off.
I think they were so far off on last year’s total (they missed by 15 games) that they over adjusted and gave us bloated numbers on this year’s two expansion teams.
The Valkyries’ roster was put together by a single expansion team pulling players from a pool comprised of 12 existing teams.
In 2026, there are TWO expansion teams pulling players from 13 teams.
That math can only lead to weaker rosters for the two new teams.
The two previous expansion teams were Chicago in 2006 and Atlanta in 2008.
Chicago won 5 games.
Atlanta won 4.
In those days the WNBA season consisted of 34 games.
Let’s apply some math to those numbers.
Chicago won 5 of 34. That’s 14.7%.
Atlanta won 4 of 34. That’s 11.7%.
This year’s expansion teams will play 44 games.
To go Over their Regular Season Wins Total of 10′ Portland would have to win 11 of 44 games, which is 25%. That’s DOUBLE the standard win percentage average (12.5%) of Chicago and Atlanta when they were expansion teams.
To go Over their Regular Season Wins Total of 15 ‘ Toronto would have to win 16 games.
That would be 36.3% of their games, approximately TRIPLE the standard win percentage average of Chicago and Atlanta.
You see where I’m going with this?
Based on those numbers it would seem that Toronto will have the more difficult chance to go Over, based on that 36% number.
My initial lean is to not play the Under for both expansion teams, choosing instead to play the stronger looking option, Toronto.
But then I wanted to look at one more angle.
It appears that based on roster, schedule, and preseason expectations, Portland is destined for last place. So I wondered – how many wins did the last place team have in each of the last five seasons?
Here’s what I found.
Year/Team/Record/W %
’25 Dallas 10-34, 29.4%
’24 LA 8-32, 20%
’23 Phx 9-31, 22.5%
’22 Ind 5-31, 16.1%
’21Ind 6-26, 18.7%
To go Over their number of 10′, Portland would have to win 11 games, or 25%.
FOUR of the five last place teams finished below 25%. The only team that finished higher was Dallas last year.
Toronto did well by picking up wrongly terminated Sandy Brondello, who was unceremoniously dumped by the New York Liberty last year after winning the championship the year before.
This is the third head coaching spot for Sandy.
Let’s look at the first year record for her other teams.
She won 14 with the now defunct San Antonio Stars. That’s Under this year’s number of 15′.
In 2014, her first year with Phoenix, they won 29 games. But there’s a HUGE difference between taking over an already established winner like Brondello did with the Mercury in 2014, and taking over an expansion team who hasn’t played a single game (not to mention the Mercury team she took over had Taurasi, Griner, Dupree, and Bonner, ALL in their prime.)
In 2022, she took over The Liberty and won 16 games. That’s a half game Over the number I’m getting with Toronto this season. But again, that was with an already established team, not an expansion club of players who have never played with each other before.
Portland’s Alex Serama has never been a head coach before, in any league, so there’s no factors to consider there (other than the fact that if I am betting it Under I prefer it to be a team that has a guy who’s never been a head coach for a single game in his life.)
Golden State was an anomaly last season.
Expansion teams, all sports, usually struggle in their inaugural season. And the math, as well as the available talent pool, tells me that will be the case with both newcomers to the WNBA this season.
Last year I made two “Regular Season Wins” bets.
I lost my wager on Washington Under 15′, just missing as they finished with 16.
I won my wager on Golden State Over 8′.
They finished with 23. Nailed that one.
I like to stick with what works so I’m going back to using the expansion teams for this year’s wagers.
My plays:
Portland Un 10′ -110*
Toronto Un 15′ -110
*When I started writing this article a few days ago Portland was at 11′. They’ve been bet down to 10′, which tells me my initial analysis was correct, the books opened it too high.
