The Minnesota Lynx weren’t supposed to be in the position they’re in.
With the Sylvia Fowles era officially ending after the 2022 season—and with it, the last remnants of a Minnesota dynasty that won four WNBA championships in seven seasons—the Lynx were confronted with the decision faced by most teams at the end of their glory days: to rebuild or retool?
On the surface, that decision seemed to be an easy one. The Lynx already had lucked into the No. 2 overall pick in the 2023 WNBA Draft, which they used to select a uniquely athletic wing player in Diamond Miller, and with the amount of franchise-changing talent projected to enter the league via the 2024 and 2025 draft classes—Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, Stanford’s Cameron Brink and UConn’s Paige Bueckers are just a few examples—the Lynx could have chosen to take it easy in 2023 and emphasize long-term player development over short-term win-now tactics while hoping for another big payoff in the draft lottery.
And for a little while, it looked like that’s what would happen. Minnesota began the regular season 0-6 and didn’t win its first game until June. Our staff at Swish Appeal voted the Lynx No. 9 in the site’s preseason power rankings, and even that seemed overly optimistic.
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