No Cap Space WBB Presents: The Ball Out Team

Instead of your typical All-WNBA teams, we’re doing something different. Our ball out team highlights the best players that deserved more shine this year.

With the WNBA season officially over, we at No Cap Space WBB want to give you guys something a little different. Instead of our season awards or All-WNBA picks, we decided to unveil ‘The Ball-Out team’. Essentially, each of us pick a player that we feel overperformed relative to expectations and deserves a lot of shine for their play this season. With three contributors, everyone got two picks comprising a starting five and a ‘sixth baller of the year’. Feel free to share and comment with who your Ball-Out pick for the season is.

Ty Harris

Andrew: There is a legitimate argument that years 3-5 are typically where guards in the WNBA make a massive jump. Kahleah Copper, Sabrina Ionescu, Kelsey Plum, Jackie Young, you name it. You can add the Connecticut Sun’s Ty Harris to the list. I couldn’t believe that she didn’t register a single vote for Most Improved Player when she, by most metrics, was arguably the most improved in the league from a statistical standpoint. For years, she’d largely been a rotational or fringe starter for the Dallas Wings. At no point in her career did she average more than 7.0 points per game and 3.0 assists per game.

But this season, under the tutelage of Stephanie White and with a much improved backcourt, Harris put up the best numbers of her career. She averaged 10.5 points and 3.1 assists per game, nearly doubling her 2023 output. She was a 39.5% three point shooter on nearly four attempts per game. She finished with a career high in effective field goal percentage and the advanced stats are even better. Her win shares never eclipsed 1.0 in her career. This year? 3.6. Her turnover percentage dropped nearly three percentage points while her true shooting percentage hit a career high. Her PER was the highest since her rookie year.

When we hit the playoffs, Harris fought through injuries and contributedf 20 points in a Game 3 semifinal win over the Lynx before adding 12 points in the Game 4 loss. But even there, she shot 50%. Her defensive ability was always known dating back to her South Carolina days but she thrived this year in Connecticut. She posted a career best defensive rating and her best offensive rating since her rookie season. If that isn’t a textbook definition of balling out, I don’t know what is.

Rickea Jackson

Tyler: Coming into the WNBA Draft, Rickea Jackson was projected highly but wasn’t the talk of the town. Obviously, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese were on another level of coverage, Kamilla Cardoso just completed the undefeated season with South Carolina, and Cameron Brink was projected as the Sparks top pick with star power of her own.

BUT I WASN’T CALLING JACKSON “PRO READY RICKEA” FOR NOTHING!

It took a while for Jackson to fully be given the chance to play free in extended minutes, some of it being forced by injuries across the Sparks roster, but when that time came she Ball’d Out. The way Rickea started showing off her offensive bag was incredibly fun to watch. It felt like most of her offensive game had translated with no issue to the W.

My personal favorite place to watch her operate is in the midrange. It can be back to the basket or face up and she has moves for you. Not to do the comparison to the men’s game, but it really is Carmelo Anthony/Kevin Durant-esque a lot of the time.

As more time passes, I fully expect the handle to get tighter and the bag to get even deeper, but the moments of greatness and flashes of what is to come were easily fun enough for Rickea Jackson to make it on the Ball Out Team for me.

Chennedy Carter

Tyler: Pull out your thesaurus, look at the synonyms for baller, Chennedy Carter is first on the list.

If you have been tapped in to women’s basketball for a minute then Carter showing out the way that she did this season should be no surprise. This IS the same player that dropped 34 points against Team USA when she was in college.

Understandably however, Carter needed to issue a reminder this season of the player that she is. In and out of the league without a franchise that bought in and embraced her is where Carter found herself, before playing for Teresa Weatherspoon in Chicago.

It truly did feel like a match made in basketball heaven for a coach-player relationship. The freedom given to Carter to just be herself on the court felt like a weight lifted off her, and allowed her to have her best season yet.

Carter put up a career high 17.5 points per game while doing it at her highest efficiency yet in the WNBA, 48.7%. The manner in which she got those buckets would often wow you.

Here is to hoping Carter can continue to Ball Out with a new coach on deck.

Dearica Hamby

Rashard: I initially thought Dearica Hamby was on everyone’s radar this season because she was playing at an elite level. So, I was deeply disappointed to see her left off the 2024 All-WNBA Teams. The Sparks forward had a standout year, earning All-Star honors and taking home an Olympic bronze medal in Paris. Hamby wrapped up the season with impressive averages of 17.3 PPG, 9.2 RPG, 3.5 APG, and 1.7 SPG. How can that be overlooked?

For a player that is a career 10.2 PPG, 6.1 RPG, 1.7 APG player, that’s a massive jump. The Sparks looked to be tanking the second half of the year and her post Olympic break wasn’t as dominant as the first half of the year. But she still finished her final 11 games with 6 20+ point scoring efforts and filled the stat sheet. It’ll be interesting to see how she evolves as the Sparks continue their youth movement. But Dearica Hamby? Star in the WNBA? That’s here to stay.

Skylar Diggins-Smith

Rashard: It’s essential to give recognition whenever a player returns to the WNBA after giving birth. Skylar Diggins-Smith has done it before, and she’s done it again. This past offseason, we saw the hard work she put in with former WNBA player Bridget Pettis, highlighted in clips across social media. After shaking off some early rust, Diggins-Smith came back from the Olympic break even stronger, finishing the season with an impressive stat line: 15.1 PPG, 2.6 RPG, 6.4 APG, and 1.7 SPG.

The Storm felt a little early as they have a lot of championship pieces that hadn’t gotten used to playing with each other yet. But Diggins is someone who seemingly faded from public view after she sat out the 2023 season. This is one of the best guards in the league and was a transformative cultural player when she was at Notre Dame. After those stops in Tulsa/Dallas and Phoenix, she’s with a franchise where she’ll get plenty of shine. It was a ball-out return for her this season in the W and I’d expect her to round back into her old form even more next season.

Sixth Baller of the Year: Jordan Horston

Andrew: This was tough because there were a lot of really good bench options to choose from this season. But, much like Ty Harris, I felt that Jordan Horston was an unsung hero on the defensive end this year. We saw it in early flashes and, while the scoring didn’t start to tick up until June, the length and lockdown on the other side of the floor was apparent. In her second season, her numbers mostly stayed the same, from minutes to points to rebounds and steals.

But it’s the advanced stats and intangibles that tell a very different story. Her defensive win shares jumped from 1.2 to 1.9 while her player efficiency rating and true shooting skyrocketed. Her defensive rating dropped from 103 to 97, reflecting a better general effort by the Storm but also her impact in the backcourt.

To me, she’s one of the biggest ‘eye test’ players of the WNBA season. The numbers might not jump out at you but if you spent time keeping an eye on her, you’d see the jump and the clear defensive ability that rivals that of a splashier name like a DiJonai Carrington. Word on the street is that she’s playing some of the best ball of her career down in New Zealand right now. If she returns to the W next year in that form? Watch out.

Let us know in the comments who you think balled out under the radar the most this season! Our only rule? They couldn’t have been named to an All-WNBA team or an All-Defensive team.