The 2025 WNBA season stood out on Friday, about seven months after New York's Liberty won the first championship in franchise history.
During the offseason, seven teams and multiple All-Star switch teams have been ongoing rosters and coaching turmoil during the offseason. On top of that, the league added a 13th franchise as the Golden State Romance will make its WNBA debut this season.
With the start of the New Year, here are five storylines that can be won before the championship crown this fall.
Thanks in large part to Caitlin Clark for his outstanding rookie sport, the first playoffs since 2016. This winter, the front desk wasted time trying to build an experienced team around Clark in his second season.
The team first separated from Christie's head coach Christie's side in the offseason, replacing her with 2023 WNBA coach of the year Stephanie White.
Then the overhaul began, with guard Sydney Colson and defender/forward Dewanna Bonner signing a deal with Indiana in free agents, while defender Sophie Cunningham got it through trade. Both Colson and Bonner are two-time champions and they should take some pressure off Clark, who is the target of some of her physical defense in her first season.
If Clark makes another leap - plus Aliyah Boston continues to be in the frontcourt All-Star game, then a fever should be hard.
Las Vegas Ace won back-to-back titles in 2022 and 2023, but was knocked down by the final champion Liberals in the second round of 2024. With center A'ja Wilson's best season (and her third MVP), Aces shines this winter and buys a new running mate for Wilson - a deal for two-time champion and six-time All-Star Jewell Loyd.
Vegas must be separated from franchisee Kelsey Plum (sent to Sparks, Los Angeles), but Loyd should be able to form his own strong partnership with Wilson.
Meanwhile, New York won the first ring without rest. Breanna Stewart's three big three, Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones have already dragged the drag, and the Liberals will trade two first-round picks as defender Natasha Cloud, who leads the league in assists in 2022.
Collier is about to enter the historic playoffs, becoming the first player in WNBA history to lead the entire playoff field, rebounds, steals and blocks. Collier also broke most of Diana Taurasi's points in a playoffs.
However, Collier's efforts were heartbroken as the Lynx got caught in a fierce five-game series, free-to-play. Collier was also not shy about the situation of expressing disappointment from the hosts in the series, posting an Instagram post with a photo of the missed phone call after the final match.
Despite much of the league's change, Minnesota has kept its roster to a large extent this season. Collier has played at the MVP level, but now she will be more motivated at the painful end of last season.
The Dallas Wings led former Connecticut Huskies star Paige Bueckers to finish the first pick in the April draft and will now bear less than two months of wings after leading the Huskimo Dogs to the national championship.
Since moving to Dallas in 2016, Wings has won only one playoff series and zero second round.
The Bueckers won't fly alone, though, as Dallas added solid role players to Dijonai Carrington and Nalyssa Smith during the offseason, while All-Star Arike Ogunbowale is arguably her best as a professional player.
All moves this season will be played under an imminent league change that continues to be welcomed. While Valkyries will be tied for power this year, two more expansion teams will join W, Toronto Rhythm and the yet-unnamed Portland team in 2026.
A collective bargaining agreement between the player union and the league will also expire next year - so will many star players contracts. Expect players to look for bigger (and fairer) pie next year and hope that stars hope to deliver on their upcoming transformation.