WNBA Fantasy: A’ja Wilson, Courtney Vandersloot come through

There are three teams with winning records in the Swish Appeal Fantasy league, while Team Cat, which started 2-0, has fallen to 2-3. Team Nemchock is still undefeated at 5-0. Team Zack stands in second place at 4-1 despite having the fourth-most overall points in the competition. Team Leite is in third place at 3-2.

Week 5 saw the first- through fourth-place teams in the standings finish first through fourth in the same exact order in points for the week. Team Nemchock had 756.8, Team Zack had 663.3, Team Leite had 648.6 and Team Cat had 615.5. Here’s a breakdown of each of the Week 5 matchups.

Team Nemchock (Eric Nemchock) over Team Cat (Cat Ariail), 756.8 to 615.5

Eric recently dropped Brionna Jones from his team, as B. Jones is now out for the season after undergoing surgery to repair a ruptured Achilles. B. Jones is the first high draft pick and impact fantasy player to be ruled out for the season. You hope to never see a player go down for any team, and this is certainly a tough blow for Team Nemchock.

With B. Jones only contributing 26 fantasy points last week, Eric still managed to be the highest-scoring team in the league. A’ja Wilson (104.4 fantasy points over two games) and Courtney Vandersloot (91.8 fantasy points over two games) were his big-time performers.

Cat got two triple-doubles from Alyssa Thomas in the same week! Thomas had 42 points, 35 rebounds, 26 assists and 167.5 fantasy points over three games.

However, Cat’s other star fantasy player, Satou Sabally, recorded her three lowest scoring outputs of the season in her three games last week (10 points, 13 points and eight points). She finished with an average of 29 fantasy points per game over the week — 15.2 below her season average.

Elena Delle Donne gave Cat 72.2 fantasy points over two games, Tiffany Hayes provided 82.1 over three and Kahleah Copper had 51.2 over two. But the rest of Cat’s roster produced very little.

Team Zack (Zack Ward) over Team Draves (Zachary Draves), 663.3 to 401.4

Nneka Ogwumike continues to be the best fantasy player on Team Zack and an MVP candidate. She had 67 points, 28 rebounds and 145.7 fantasy points over three games last week. Fellow All-Star starter Jewell Loyd was good for 76 points and 143 fantasy points over three games.

DeWanna Bonner continued her solid season with 113.5 fantasy points over three games, and Betnijah Laney and Courtney Williams chipped in with solid contributions over two games apiece, but the rest of Zack’s roster produced very little. He was still able to be the second-highest scoring team in the league on the strength of N. Ogwumike and Loyd’s performances.

Laney is a particularly interesting fantasy player. Zack picked her up recently, realizing that she was going to have some big games mixed in with the games where the other Liberty stars take over. She rewarded him with 19 points on Friday and 17 points on Sunday.

Photo by Dale Zanine/NBAE via Getty Images

Napheesa Collier was the star of the week (and has been the star of the season) for Team Draves. She had 102.8 fantasy points over two games. The Atlanta Dream trio of Rhyne Howard, Cheyenne Parker and Allisha Gray continued to be reliable for Zachary, though none of them was spectacular.

Marina Mabrey was a bit disappointing with only 34 fantasy points over two games; she was the lowest-scoring player on Team Draves. Since her 36-point outburst on June 15, Mabrey had settled for 11-point, eight-point and 10-point outings.

Team Leite (Chelsea Leite) over Team Josh (Josh Felton), 648.6 to 425

All-Star starters Aliyah Boston and Chelsea Gray were the top performers for Team Leite. Both averaged over 40 fantasy points over two games. Sabrina Ionescu and Kelsey Plum weren’t far behind with their averages and each of them also played two games. Ezi Magbegor was the one player for Team Leite to break 100 fantasy points over the week; she played in three contests.

On a team with Boston and Gray, as well as another great fantasy player in Ionescu, Magbegor is leading the way in fantasy points per game on the season with 39.3. She is averaging 14.7 points, 8.2 rebounds, 1.5 steals and 2.1 blocks, making her an apt co-star for Jewell Loyd in Seattle.

Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images

Josh is of course led by Breanna Stewart’s 57.6 fantasy points per game on the season. Stewart was below that average last week with 41.3. Jackie Young performed much closer to her season average (37.4) with 71.2 fantasy points for Josh over two games. Natasha Howard added 103.9 fantasy points over three games.

Jonquel Jones threatened to have a big impact for Josh with 18 points and nine rebounds on Friday, but was held scoreless on Sunday.

Karlie Samuelson has been showing that she belongs in the WNBA with a 3-point shooting percentage of 48.8 on the season (1.4 makes per game). She gave Josh a solid 56.8 fantasy points over three games.