Ask anyone around the WNBA to name the league's most underrated player and they'll say Allisha Gray. (Okay, they won't all say that, but enough will that this point works!) Gray has quietly been one of the W's best players for years at this point, but has been overshadowed by playing with a couple of big name guards—Arike Ogunbowale in Dallas and then Rhyne Howard in Atlanta.
This season, Gray has been Atlanta's best player, which has helped lead the Dream to a 5-2 record on the season.
That this Atlanta team is over .500 through seven games isn't remotely surprising in a vacuum, but Howard has shot the ball incredibly poorly. If you showed someone her 34.5 shooting percentage before the season started and told them she was taking 10.4 3-pointers per game, they'd look at that and say, "yikes, rough start for Atlanta!"
But it hasn't been rough! And it's (mostly) because of Allisha Gray!
Allisha Gray has been the key to Atlanta's success
Thankfully for Atlanta's chances of contending, Allisha Gray has stepped up. She's excelling in this new offensive system, which allows her to take advantage of her great shooting touch.
Through seven games, Gray is averaging a career-high 21.4 points per game on 49.5 percent shooting. She's connecting on 2.9 3-pointers per contest while shooting 43.5 percent from deep.
Perhaps more important is that Gray has barely needed to hit the bench. She ranks fourth in the league in minutes per game. Is that sustainable for the ninth-year pro? We'll have to see as the season goes on, but Atlanta needs Gray out there as much as possible because this is a team designed to shoot that doesn't have a ton of high-caliber shooters. Of the team's top five players in minutes per game, Gray is the only one shooting over 30 percent from deep. Te-Hina Paopao and Nia Coffey have shot well in their minutes, but until they step into larger roles, Gray has to shoulder much of this load on her own.
I recently wrote that the Dream were probably pretenders, a team with a few too many question marks to be serious contenders. While I still don't think they can touch the Liberty or Lynx, Friday night's win over the Seattle Storm may have changed some of the math there.
On Friday, we saw what happens when Gray and Howard are both playing well together, as the two combined to score 61 of Atlanta's 94 points while combining to make seven 3-pointers.
Gray's current level of play gives Atlanta a high floor to work with. The team still needs Howard plus the frontcourt of Brionna Jones and Brittney Griner to step up in big games, but Gray is playing so well right now that it's fair to call her the most important player on a team that looks like a clear playoff contender, even if it's too early to declare that Atlanta is more than that.