On Sunday, the Phoenix Mercury and Dallas Wings officially get their 2017 WNBA season started. The game, set for Phoenix's Talking Stick Resort Arena will feature two of the usual stars for Phoenix, but plenty of new faces that the team brought in for the upcoming season. Can the Mercury overtake the favorites to repeat as champions, the L.A. Sparks? Meanwhile, Dallas will bring forth a young roster with an average age of 24.5 years old, with five rookie draft picks on the team.
Here's a preview of The Wings vs. Mercury game including odds, how to watch on TV or live streaming online.
Game preview
The Phoenix Mercury bring back their two top stars Diana Taurus and center Brittney Griner. Taurasi is currently on pace to break a longtime league record for total three-point shots made. Katie Smith has the record with 706 total threes for her career, but Taurasi needs just seven more to break the record. The star guard is also third in career scoring with a total of 7,311 points for her time in the league. She's 178 points away from Tina Thompson's record.
The Dallas Wings feature a young lineup with their core of point guard Skylar Diggins-Smith, forward Glory Johnson and guard Aerial Powers.
Also joining them are first round picks that include Kaela Davis, Allisha Gray, and Evelyn Akhator. The team is hoping that Diggins-Smith will be in a healthier condition after being limited by her 2015 ACL tear last season. Prior to that she had been scoring 20.1 points per game and dishing out five assists on average, but those numbers fell for the 2016 WNBA season.
In terms of the odds for today's game, the Phoenix Mercury were favorites. Various point spreads from Odds Shark showed them as 8.5-point favorites to win at home. On the moneyline, Phoenix was listed from -450 to -475 while the visitors were +375 underdogs. The predicted score for today's game was 83-80 in favor of the Mercury, though.
How to watch it live
The Dallas Wings vs. Phoenix Mercury game is scheduled for 6 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday night at Phoenix's Talking Stick Resort Arena.
Today's game will be available to watch live streaming online for free through the Twitter account for the WNBA. More details are available for this at the Twitter.com/WNBA account, which has reported a total of 20 WNBA games will be shown live streaming on the social media platform this season.
Fans might also be able to watch this game live streaming online via the WNBA League Pass subscription service. WNBA League Pass offers fans the ability to watch games all season long. As of right now, a free trial of the service is going on, allowing fans to catch multiple games over the next several days. More details are available at WNBA.com.