Earlier this month, the New York Liberty won their first title in franchise history by defeating the Minnesota Lynx in a thrilling 2024 WNBA Finals that went the full five games and had two contests decided by overtime and an average margin of victory of 5.2 points.
The Liberty celebrated on Thursday with a ticker-tape parade through New York City and a ceremony in front of Barclays Center with their fans. With that, the historic 2024 WNBA regular season is in the books and the offseason has officially begun.
Over the next six months, we'll see some drastic changes across the league, including the introduction of a new expansion team, the Golden State Valkyries, who will fill out their roster with an expansion draft, the 2025 WNBA Draft Lottery, free agency and the 2025 WNBA Draft. And that's to say nothing about labor talks, coaching changes and potential retirements and trades.
Ahead of one of the most important winters the league has ever seen, here are five key storylines to watch:
The coaching carousel
As the offseason begins in earnest, seven of the league's 13 teams do not have a head coach: the Atlanta Dream, Chicago Sky, Dallas Wings, Los Angeles Sparks, Washington Mystics, Indiana Fever and Connecticut Sun. It's no coincidence that list includes the league's five worst teams last season.
The Dream had plateaued under Tanisha Wright. The Sky were concerned about Teresa Weatherspoon's lack of experience. The Wings wanted a full reset of the organization ahead of what figures to be a monumental winter. The Sparks' ownership group blamed Curt Miller for the team's last-place finish. The Mystics' brass decided a decade of the Thibault regime was enough, which spelled the end for both Mike and Eric. The Fever went a different direction despite making the playoffs for the first time since 2016. And the Sun let go of White after failing to break through the semifinals the last two seasons.
Rightly or wrongly, all of those teams have now made their choice. It would not be a surprise to see some of these coaches trade places. Miller, in particular, figures to be a candidate for multiple openings considering his resume. There will also be plenty of assistant coaches who figure to get a look, including, but not limited to, Katie Smith (Lynx), Rebekkah Brunson (Lynx), Briann January (Sun), Tyler Marsh (Aces) and Kristi Toliver (Mercury).
For further info regarding the current coaching landscape, check out our coaching tracker here.
An expansion draft
After years of discussion, the WNBA has finally put expansion into motion. The Golden State Valkyries will join as the league's 13th team in the 2025 season, followed by yet unnamed franchises in Toronto and Portland in 2026. Beyond that, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert has stated she hopes to get to 16 teams by 2028. This is the first time the league has added a team since 2008, when the Atlanta Dream joined the mix.
To fill out the Valkyries' initial roster, the league will hold an expansion draft on Dec. 6. Here are the main rules you need to know:
- Each of the 12 other teams can protect up to six players, who will be ineligible for selection
- The Valkyries can only select one player from each team
- The Valkyries are not required to take 12 players, and can leave open roster spots for free agents or trade acquisitions
- If the Valkyries select a player who is a free agent for the 2025 season, they will obtain whatever rights the previous team had to that player. For example, if a player was set to be a restricted free agent, the Valkyries would then have the right of first refusal on any contract offer from another team
- The Valkyries can only select one player who will be an unrestricted free agent in 2025, and they can only do so provided that the player has not previously played pursuant to a Core Player contract for two or more seasons
This is going to be an exciting process for the Valkyries and everyone watching from afar, but stressful for the other 12 teams, who are set to lose someone from their roster. The better and deeper teams, particularly the Liberty and Lynx, figure to be especially anxious about losing a member of their championship-level rotation.
Who will win the Draft Lottery?
The first major item on the offseason agenda is the 2025 WNBA Draft Lottery, which is set for Nov. 17. As always, the annual event will determine the lottery order for the 2025 WNBA Draft, including which team gets the No. 1 overall pick.
While this draft class doesn't have as much star power as last year's, it does boast one potential superstar in UConn guard Paige Bueckers. The presumptive top pick has dealt with injury problems during her collegiate career, but is an incredible offensive talent and improving defender who could immediately transform a franchise.
The four teams in the lottery this year are the Chicago Sky, Dallas Wings, Los Angeles Sparks and Washington Mystics. Only three of those teams can end up with the No. 1 pick, however. That's because the Wings have a first-round pick swap with the Sky via the Marina Mabrey trade, so Dallas will get the first pick if either they or the Sky win the lottery.
Thus, while the Sparks have the best individual odds (44.2%), the Wings have a slightly better chance of picking first when you combine their odds with the Sky's (45.4%).
| Team | Combined 2023 and 2024 record | Odds of winning No. 1 pick |
|---|---|---|
Los Angeles Sparks | 25-55 | 44.20% |
Dallas Wings | 31-49 | 22.70% |
Chicago Sky | 31-49 | 22.70% |
Washington Mystics | 33-47 | 10.40% |
It's a bit ironic that the team that could arguably use Bueckers the most is the Sky, who desperately need a point guard and outside shooting. She would be a great fit as a point guard alongside their young bigs, Kamilla Cardoso and Angel Reese. Alas, it will not be possible.
Bueckers would also slot in perfectly alongside Rickea Jackson and Cameron Brink in Los Angeles. The Sparks, who have missed the playoffs in four consecutive seasons, which is now the longest active drought in the league, appear to have found their wing and big of the future. Now, all they need is a point guard.
As for the Wings and Mystics, neither has as much of a glaring hole in the backcourt, but Bueckers is the type of talent that you would select regardless of your roster situation. There's a good chance she ends up in Dallas, who would immediately have one of the most exciting guard tandems in the league with her and Arike Ogunbowale. It's much less likely that she's playing for the Mystics next season, but she would immediately give them the franchise cornerstone they're missing.
Taurasi's future in the balance
When the Phoenix Mercury played their final home game this season, it felt like a farewell for Diana Taurasi. The team had been running an "If this is it ..." campaign on social media in the days leading up to the contest. There were also special T-shirts printed up for fans and all of the important people in her life who made the trip, including family members, friends and even UConn coach Geno Auriemma.
Thus far, however, Taurasi has not made a decision on her basketball future. At least not publicly.
"I think once the season's over, I'll have a better idea of what it looks like for me in the future," Taurasi said at the time.
The No. 1 overall pick in 2004, Taurasi won Rookie of the Year, made All-WNBA First Team and finished third in MVP voting in her first season. She never looked back. Over the past two decades, she's won three titles, an MVP, two Finals MVPs, five scoring titles, made 11 All-Star Games and a record 14 All-WNBA teams. She is also the league's all-time leading scorer with 10,646 points.
Now 42 years old, Taurasi is no longer the player she once was, but showed she can still compete at the highest level by averaging 14.9 points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game this season. Whether she still wants to put herself through everything that's necessary to play professional basketball, however, remains to be seen.
"I was talking to [Brittney Griner] and I'm like, 'There's still days where I'm like, I could still do this," Taurasi said back in September. "'I still want to play basketball,' and then there's the flip side where there are days where I'm crawling out of bed and that's, I guess, a struggle you have when you get to this point in your career. You have to do so much to be able to get back on the court and it's bittersweet in a lot of ways."
If Taurasi does indeed hang them up this winter, it will be not only one of the biggest retirements in league history, but the true end of an era. In recent years we've also seen Candace Parker, Sue Bird, Sylvia Fowles and Maya Moore (officially) retire.
A CBA-influenced free agency
Earlier this month, the WNBA players union announced it will opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement at the end of the 2025 season. That gives the league and the players over a full calendar year to negotiate a new deal and avoid a work stoppage for the first time in league history.
Money is, of course, central to the players' decision to opt out, and they'll be searching for not only higher salaries and better benefits in the next CBA, but potentially a overhaul of the current salary cap system.
"We're getting to a point where the salary cap and the systems and that part of the business needs to start looking like a professional league that's not a startup, that properly values the labor and properly values the players," Terri Jackson, the WNBPA's executive director, told ESPN in July. "We haven't really done that with this kind of rigid, hard cap system that we have, and it's unfortunate."
The current CBA is still in place for the 2025 season, so how will the opt out impact this offseason? Well, if salaries are going to go up starting with the 2026 season, it makes sense for players to position themselves as free agents next winter.
Aside from players on rookie deals, Wings center Kalani Brown and Sparks guard Lexie Brown are the only players in the league under contract for the 2026 season. Don't expect many players to join them this winter. Current free agents will, in most cases, sign one-year contracts to ensure they hit the market again next winter.
That could lead to some fascinating moves. Will players be willing to take a discount this year -- either to help their current team add more talent or to join a contender -- knowing they can make it up in the future? On the flip side, could teams with cap space overpay to get someone knowing it will be just a one-year commitment and their books will reset in 2026?
We'll find out when free agency begins in February. Until then, here's a look at some of the biggest names in this year's class:
- DeWanna Bonner -- F, Sun (UFA)
- DiJonai Carrington -- G, Sun (RFA)
- Elena Delle Donne -- F, Mystics (UFA)
- Brittney Griner -- C, Mercury (UFA)
- Brionna Jones -- C, Sun (UFA)
- Kelsey Mitchell -- G, Fever (UFA)
- Nneka Ogwumike -- F, Storm (UFA)
- Kelsey Plum -- G, Aces (UFA)
- Satou Sabally -- F, Wings (UFA)
- Breanna Stewart -- F, Liberty (UFA)
- Alyssa Thomas -- F, Sun (UFA)
- Gabby Williams -- G, Storm (UFA)
That list is by no means exhaustive, but it shows how much talent could potentially change teams this winter.