The 2025 WNBA season tips off later this week, but first, let’s look at how we got here.
Change has defined the offseason. The Golden State Valkyries join the league as the first expansion franchise since 2008, but 10 key moves and decisions have shaped what we’ll see in 2025.
Seven teams have new head coaches. Three No. 1 picks who had spent the entirety of their careers with the franchises that drafted them — where they also each won championships — are now with new teams, as Brittney Griner (Phoenix Mercury to Atlanta Dream), Jewell Loyd (Seattle Storm to Las Vegas Aces) and Kelsey Plum (Las Vegas to Los Angeles Sparks) hope to be in the title hunt again. And Phoenix’s Diana Taurasi retired after 20 seasons, leaving two 37-year-olds — the Indiana Fever‘s DeWanna Bonner and the Storm’s Alysha Clark — as the league’s oldest active players.
While a lot of change unfolded with staffs and personnel across the league, last season’s WNBA Finals teams — the champion New York Liberty and the Minnesota Lynx — had relatively quiet offseasons with Sandy Brondello and Cheryl Reeve returning most of their key players.
Which franchises will join the Liberty and Lynx in contention for the 2025 title is directly tied to how teams respond to all the change that…
