It began the day after the New York Liberty received their first WNBA championship.
That is when the Ladies’s Nationwide Basketball Gamers Affiliation, in an anticipated transfer, opted out of the collective bargaining settlement two years early. In a time of unprecedented progress and star energy, sparked in 2024 by rookies Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, it units the stage for fascinating negotiations that might decide the longer term route of the league.
Inside weeks, greater than half of the league’s groups had been searching for new head coaches.
In early December, the Golden State Valkyries — the WNBA’s first new crew since 2008 — held their enlargement draft.
And later this month, a brand new 3×3 league that includes high-profile WNBA stars and backed by A-list cash, kicks off a must-see offseason experiment.
All of that’s to say it has been a wild offseason for ladies’s skilled basketball, and issues are solely getting began right here in 2025.
ESPN’s Kendra Andrews, Kevin Pelton, Alexa Philippou and Michael Voepel have a look at what the brand new 12 months brings for the ladies’s professional recreation.
What ought to we count on in WNBA free company?
After unprecedented participant motion in WNBA free company the previous two years, the commerce market may do extra to alter groups’ fortunes than free company this 12 months.
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A number of of the highest potential free brokers, together with Breanna Stewart of the New York Liberty, Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Solar, Kelsey Plum of the Las Vegas Aces, Satou Sabally of the Dallas Wings and Kelsey Mitchell of the Indiana Fever, are eligible to obtain the core designation from their groups earlier than gamers can start negotiating new contract beginning Jan. 21. That may imply these gamers may solely change groups by way of commerce.
Add in Jewell Loyd’s request for a commerce from the Seattle Storm and the market is ripe for blockbuster offers as groups put together for 2026, when practically the entire WNBA’s star gamers have the prospect to turn into free brokers and benefit from an anticipated leap within the wage cap.
Though we’d not see a league-changing transfer like Stewart leaving the Storm for New York in 2023, free company may nonetheless have an effect on the title chase. Final 12 months, the Minnesota Lynx flew below the radar after they signed starters Alanna Smith and Courtney Williams, who helped the Lynx take the Liberty the gap within the WNBA Finals.
Control unrestricted free brokers who may amplify star expertise in a similar way, together with Wings ahead Natasha Howard, the Aces’ duo of Alysha Clark and Tiffany Hayes and the Storm’s Gabby Williams. — Pelton
Unequalled’s inaugural season
When Unequalled suggestions off Jan. 17 in Miami, it can mark the beginning of a brand new area in ladies’s basketball.
The 3×3 league, based by WNBA gamers Stewart and Napheesa Collier, provides gamers a home various to taking part in abroad throughout the W offseason. This is not the primary offseason possibility in america, however the caliber of gamers taking part — and the compensation they’re getting — units this league aside.
In response to Unequalled, the 36 ladies who make up the six groups are paid six-figure salaries and are getting fairness of their respective groups.
Sabrina Ionescu, Angel Reese, Brittney Griner and Chelsea Grey are amongst among the most notable gamers on this season’s rosters, with Cameron Brink dedicated to taking part in subsequent 12 months.
Unequalled has obtained a number of notable investments from distinguished sports activities figures, together with NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo, gold medalist Michael Phelps, South Carolina ladies’s basketball coach Daybreak Staley and USC star JuJu Watkins. The league additionally has a multiyear partnership with Turner, which can broadcast the video games.
The video games — which will probably be performed on Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays over a two-month span — will happen on a 70- by 50-foot compacted full court docket. The season has a round-robin schedule, after which the highest 4 groups will advance to the playoffs. — Andrews
Enlargement and the launch of the Golden State Valkyries
For the primary time for the reason that Atlanta Dream in 2008, the WNBA will debut a brand new enlargement crew this spring: the Golden State Valkyries. The franchise, which is led by GM Ohemaa Nyanin and head coach Natalie Nakase, took the primary steps towards constructing its inaugural roster in an enlargement draft final month. Their 11 alternatives included seven worldwide gamers, WNBA veterans Monique Billings and Kayla Thornton, plus second-year fan-favorite Kate Martin.
However do not be stunned if Golden State takes massive swings in free company this month. Proprietor Joe Lacob has adopted the identical objective with the Valkyries that he did from when he first purchased the Warriors: win a championship inside 5 years. To take action, the group should appeal to high expertise, and possession funding has been evident with the Valkyries taking part in at Chase Heart and coaching on the Warriors’ former observe facility in Oakland.
The Valkyries, of the Western Convention, will host their inaugural recreation Could 16 in opposition to the Los Angeles Sparks. The league will sit at 13 groups till 2026, when the Toronto Tempo and Portland WNBA crew each launch (an enlargement draft for these franchises is anticipated to be held later this 12 months). Expectations are that the league will add a sixteenth franchise by 2028. — Philippou
Seven new WNBA coaches will impression the league
There have been many alternative hiring patterns for WNBA coaches previously three many years. However this offseason presents maybe essentially the most eclectic group. They characterize an enormous array of backgrounds, one other indication of how the WNBA is widening its footprint.
Stephanie White, who returns to the Indiana Fever, is essentially the most skilled WNBA coach in a brand new place this 12 months. She beforehand led that franchise from 2015-2016, then spent 5 years teaching ladies’s faculty basketball at Vanderbilt and two with the Connecticut Solar. Not one of the different hires this offseason have been head coaches within the WNBA earlier than.
Karl Smesko left Florida Gulf Coast for Atlanta and Lynne Roberts left Utah for Los Angeles. Different coaches have moved from faculty to the WNBA, however the timing for these two — after they already had began their faculty seasons — stood out. The job safety and pay for a lot of faculty coaches have lengthy been thought of obstacles for WNBA groups making an attempt to lure them. However the professional recreation has turn into extra interesting than it as soon as was, as the school recreation – with the arrival of NIL and the switch portal — has turn into tougher for some.
Golden State’s Natalie Nakase, the Chicago Sky’s Tyler Marsh and the Dallas Wings’ Chris Koclanes: All had been profitable WNBA assistant coaches. Nakase and Marsh received two titles in Las Vegas with head coach Becky Hammon. Koclanes was an assistant to Curt Miller at Connecticut and Los Angeles, and now will work in Dallas for Miller, who’s common supervisor of the Wings. Koclanes shares one thing in frequent with Smesko and Roberts: He was most just lately a USC ladies’s assistant, and left the Trojans midseason.
Connecticut’s Rachid Meziane: That is his first job in america, and the primary time a European coach has been employed to take over a WNBA crew. Former Chicago coach James Wade is an American who additionally had French citizenship and largely coached in Europe earlier than coming to the WNBA. Emre Vatansever, from Turkey, stuffed in on an interim foundation when Wade left the Sky throughout the 2023 season to go to the NBA’s Raptors. However Meziane is a French native, a longtime professional coach in France and has guided the Belgian ladies’s nationwide crew. He’s from a pool that beforehand has not been tapped into.
The Washington Mystics’ Sydney Johnson: The Mystics employed Johnson and their new GM (former WNBA participant Jamila Wideman) on the identical time, relatively than deliver the GM aboard to assist with the coach hiring. Johnson spent final season as a WNBA assistant with Chicago, and has additionally coached USA Basketball 3×3 groups. However the bulk of his teaching expertise is within the males’s faculty recreation, together with eight years as head coach at Fairfield and 4 at Princeton. — Voepel
WNBA schedule and playoff adjustments
The WNBA strikes to a 44-game common season in 2025, up from 40 the previous two seasons. Regardless of the rise, going to full-time constitution journey final 12 months has really made the schedule much less onerous for gamers, and this 12 months, there is no such thing as a main worldwide occasion (the Olympics or FIBA Ladies’s World Cup) to accommodate. It stays to be seen how a 44-game schedule — which opens Could 16 — will work when a type of occasions comes into play.
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The league is also increasing its playoff format with the WNBA Finals, going from best-of-five (the setup since 2005) to best-of-seven. The brand new collection may have a 2-2-1-1-1 construction; the upper seed would host Video games 1, 2, 5 and seven, and its opponent would host Video games 3, 4 and 6.
The format of the best-of-three first spherical can be altering, guaranteeing all groups a house recreation. The brand new 1-1-1 schedule adjustments from the latest setup, the place the primary two video games had been performed on the residence of the upper seed. The brand new setup is extra journey, however provides every crew some reward for making the postseason. — Voepel
League, gamers work towards new CBA
Shortly after the WNBA Finals concluded, the WNBPA introduced what most across the recreation anticipated: The union opted out of its present collective bargaining settlement two years early. The deal was set to run out in 2027, however now will solely stay in impact by 2025.
The present CBA was thought of an enormous step in the best route for the league and gamers when it was signed in January 2020. However that was earlier than this period of unprecedented progress for the WNBA and girls’s basketball, highlighted final season by historic attendance numbers, TV scores and a brand new $2.2 billion media deal.
What may the following CBA have in retailer? “Every time negotiations are subsequent, it isn’t groundbreaking or landmark that we’re aiming for,” WNBPA government director Terri Jackson informed ESPN this summer season. “We’re aiming for transformational.” Of their opt-out announcement, the gamers particularly referenced preventing for an equity-based “enterprise mannequin that displays their true worth, encompassing larger salaries, enhanced skilled working circumstances, expanded well being advantages, and essential investments wanted for long-term progress.”
The league and PA introduced in December they met for “preliminary conversations” and had a “constructive dialogue.” Each side will goal to return to an settlement someday this 12 months, nicely earlier than the 2026 marketing campaign gears up. However sources informed ESPN’s Chiney Ogwumike in October that gamers are ready to barter for so long as it takes, even when it necessitates a piece stoppage. — Philippou