WNBA Season Overview: Championship Battles, New Leadership, and Rising Stars
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The WNBA's 30th season was in peril two months ago. The league and the players' association seemed miles apart during tedious and, at times, acrimonious collective bargaining negotiations over the 17 months since players opted out of the current collective bargaining agreement in October 2024.
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Vanity FairFans, who want to see their favorite athletes get the pay they deserve, were also increasingly anxious that the WNBA season would not start on time. Free agency plans were put on hold, and players in the draft queue were playing the final games of their collegiate career with looming uncertainty about the health of the league they were looking to join.
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More WNBA: Caitlin Clark Catches Attention Before Fever Season Opener vs Dallas Wings
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Vanity FairShe went on to sign with the Fever and is singularly credited with boosting WNBA viewership that same year. (Though some of that viewership was loudly conservative and openly racist, valorizing the white player in a league that employs a higher percentage of primarily Black players.) Meanwhile, more seasoned players like Ionescu still have yet to reach their prime, while veterans like Stewart and Wilson remain dominant, in total control of their otherworldly talent.
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The Liberty re-signed two-time WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart, four-time All-Star guard Sabrina Ionescu, and 2021 WNBA MVP and 2024 Finals MVP Jonquel Jones. That trio won the franchise its first-ever championship in 2024, and the Liberty became odds-on favorites to win this year's Finals after scooping up three-time All-Star Satou Sabally in free agency last month.
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Vanity FairThe new CBA, which will last for seven years, couldn’t have arrived at a more auspicious time, hinting at what the next chapter of the W might look like. The Liberty, for one, re-signed its big three players—Stewart, Jonquel Jones, and Sabrina Ionescu—to multiyear contracts. Stewart will make $1.19 million this season, she said on her podcast. (The return of the big three will also aid the dream of creating a dynasty with generational impact: “When kids in school think about the WNBA, they see our logo in their head,” Kolb said. “That’s our goal.”)
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The Aces survived tough series against Seattle and Indiana, then swept the Phoenix Mercury in the 2025 WNBA Finals to secure their third championship in four years.
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The Liberty were without Ionescu, who suffered a "left foot injury" last Sunday, and Sabally, ruled out with a cyst, but they still held a commanding 66-37 halftime lead over the Sun. According to Liberty PR, the team's 66 first-half points are the second-most scored by any team in any first half in the WNBA since 2023. It harkens back to the Liberty's dominant 9-0 start last year.
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Indiana will have a few days off before heading to Los Angeles for a May 13 contest against the Sparks at Crypto.com Arena. Tip is set for 10:30 p.m. ET and the game will be broadcast on USA Network. More NFL: Browns Place Former Second-Round Pick on Season-Ending Reserve List
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And now, the pressure is on for the Fever's core to live up to the hype. Yahoo Sports’ Cassandra Negley summed up the situation perfectly in a recent column:
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During a recent sit-down interview with ESPN's Malika Andrews, Clark went in depth about her relationship with James.
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More Basketball: Alex Caruso Breaks Silence on Viral Exchange With LeBron James Just before Clark broke his college record, Curry talked about his respect for the Iowa sharpshooter.
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Entering the season, Las Vegas was still viewed as the WNBA’s gold standard after winning two titles in three years, but the early months were rocky.
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More news: Caitlin Clark Fans Rip Fever HC Stephanie White After Surprise Team USA News
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The biggest move was acquiring three-time All-Star Satou Sabally, giving New York another elite two-way forward capable of stretching defenses and creating matchup chaos.
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The team also retained much of its championship core while reshaping its coaching staff after parting ways with Sandy Brondello, who led them to a title in 2024.
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That is why many analysts still see New York as the second-most dangerous team in the WNBA behind the defending champion Las Vegas Aces.
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ESPN’s Alexa Philippou, however, introduced a wrinkle Friday that instantly changed the conversation around the Liberty’s title odds.
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The concern isn't talent. It's history. Philippou pointed out that first-year WNBA head coaches almost never win championships. In fact, the only coach in league history to capture a title in her debut season as a WNBA head coach was Becky Hammon with the Aces in 2022.
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That stat immediately puts pressure on the Liberty's new coach, Chris DeMarco. And yet, there is also a growing belief DeMarco might be uniquely qualified to break the trend.
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He also brings international coaching experience after leading the Bahamas national team, where he worked with elite NBA talent such as Deandre Ayton, Eric Gordon, Buddy Hield, and V.J. Edgecombe.
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DeMarco’s biggest selling point is that he already spent much of his career working with an NBA franchise that entered every season with those same expectations.
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Still, the challenge is enormous. WNBA history shows that continuity matters, especially in a league with shorter seasons and limited practice time.
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Installing a new system while chasing a title with an already established core can be difficult. Hammon pulled it off in Las Vegas because the Aces had an All-Star cast, veteran leadership, and immediate buy-in.
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New York believes it has that same formula now, but time will tell whether that results in a championship. More news: Valkyries Waive Fan Favorite Kate Martin Just Before Season Opener
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On Monday, the media scrum surrounding Johnson was busted up in laughter after she responded to a question about what she's learned so far from Fever head coach Stephanie White.
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Raven Johnson spent five years building a decorated career at South Carolina, where she won two national championships and went 145-9 overall.
2 details only one outlet reported
Independent claims that didn't surface elsewhere in our corpus. Treat as supplementary — not corroborated across outlets.
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01 Newsweek "It’s the largest loss by a defending WNBA champion in a season opener, as well as the Mercury’s largest season-opening win in franchise history," Philippou wrote on X.
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02 Vanity Fair Clara Wu Tsai is standing in the deliciously designed living room of her elegant Brooklyn town house (shoes off, please), disassembling the drop top of her New York Liberty 2024 WNBA championship ring, when we meet in early March. The walls around her bear works by Lorna Simpson and Rashid Johnson. Wu Tsai, who has shoulder-length black hair and is wearing a Miu Miu polo and a gleaming nameplate necklace, gently pulls apart the ring, a white gold behemoth encrusted with white diamonds, black diamonds, and seafoam Paraíba tourmalines; inside are a pair of gold “NY” stud earrings, a miniature rendering of the home court at the Barclays Center, and the phrase “We All We Got!
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- newsweek
- vanityfair