2025 WNBA Preview Part IV: Lynx, Liberty, Aces

The Lynx are on the prowl for their fifth WNBA championship with Reeve and Collier leading the way.

2. New York Liberty

The New York Liberty finally got the monkey off their back.

In 28 seasons, the Liberty had never won a championship. They made the Finals five times and came up short every time. They went 32-8 in 2023 under legendary coach Sandy Brondello, who was in her second year with New York. It was the greatest season in franchise history. The Aces were even better.

They went 32-8 again in 2024. This time, they won it. In one of the most exciting Finals series in history, the Liberty outlasted the Minnesota Lynx in five games.

They had three All-WNBA players, two of whom were All-Defense, and one of the top rookies in the league. All are back in 2025. In fact, ten of the twelve players from last season return.

They also get Marine Johannes back. Johannes played for New York in 2022 and 2023, but the sharp-shooting guard opted out of the 2024 WNBA season to focus on representing France in the Paris Olympics. She and 2024 All-Rookie Leonie Fiebich from Germany will provide the Liberty with production off the bench.

The only departures from last year’s championship roster are Courtney Vandersloot, a 14-year veteran and one of the greatest point guards in league history whose play dropped off considerably last season as she dealt with the death of her mother in June, and solid role player Kayla Thornton.

Betnijah Laney-Hamilton injured her knee during the Unrivaled season and will be out indefinitely. She has been a key defensive presence for the Liberty for the past four seasons. The nine-year veteran has been named to two All-Defensive teams and provided a consistent and steady approach for the Liberty.

The Liberty traded two first-round picks to Connecticut for Natasha Cloud, Vandersloot’s replacement. Cloud never played a game for Connecticut, as she was part of the massive four-team trade six weeks earlier that sent her from Phoenix to Connecticut.

Cloud has made the All-Defensive team three times in her career and twice in the last three seasons. She led the league with 7.0 assists per game in 2022 and has been in the top ten six times. She will solidify one of the most formidable starting lineups in the WNBA.

Center Jonquel Jones’s size and skill set make her a match-up nightmare for opposing posts. Jones was the Finals MVP and Second Team All-WNBA last season. She was the 2021 MVP, a five-time All-WNBA member, and a four-time All-Defensive member. She averaged 14.2 points with a league-leading 61.5% effective field goal percentage. It was the seventh time in her career being in the top ten in shooting. Jones, 6-foot-6 and strong, shot a career high 152 threes last year at 38.8%. She also averaged 9.0 rebounds (sixth) and 1.3 blocks (eighth).

Three-time All-WNBA guard Sabrina Ionescu has blossomed into one of the premier dual-threat guards in the league. She has been in the top five in three-pointers made in each of the past three seasons in New York. Her 18.2 points per game last season placed ninth in the WNBA, and she finished fifth with 6.2 assists per game.

Then there’s Breanna Stewart. The things she’s able to do at 6-foot-4 are unfair to the rest of the league. It’s one thing to play like a guard with her height. It’s another thing to be able to do it with a 7-foot-1 wingspan.

The combination of skill, athleticism, and length has earned her four NCAA National Championships, four Final Four Most Outstanding Player Awards, three Naismith Women’s College Player of the Year Awards, three WNBA championships, two WNBA Finals MVPs, two WNBA MVPs, seven All-WNBA selections, and six years on the WNBA All-Defensive Team.

She’s been in the top three in MVP voting every season since 2018 (except for 2019 when she missed the season due to an Achilles injury). She has averaged 20.8 points per game for her entire career– third most in league history behind A’ja Wilson (21.1) and Cynthia Cooper (21.0).

Stewart was top ten in the league last season in points, rebounds, steals, blocks, player efficiency rating (PER), usage percentage, offensive rating, defensive rating, and win shares. She can do everything, and she does everything. Every season.

Brondello and the Liberty will be vying for a second championship if the three All-WNBA players stay healthy,

1. Las Vegas Aces

The Las Vegas Aces have been the class of the WNBA for the past six seasons.

They have made the Finals three times, winning back-to-back championships in 2022 and 2023. They’ve won over 70 percent of their regular-season games. All of this coincides with the career of one of the best players to ever play in the WNBA.

And they’re back for more in 2025.

Becky Hammon returns for her fourth season as head coach of the Aces. The 2022 WNBA Coach of the Year has won 75 percent of her regular-season games. Her playoff winning percentage is even better. Incredibly, a season like last year is viewed as a failure. It’s the only one for her that didn’t end in a WNBA championship.

The 2025 Aces have a slightly different look. Although mainstays A’ja Wilson, Jackie Young, and Chelsea Gray return, the fourth member of the core that has had so much success is gone. The Aces traded Kelsey Plum, an All-Star the past three seasons, to Los Angeles as part of a blockbuster trade.

How do you replace a two-time championship guard who made three All-Star teams and is one of the best three-point shooters in the league?

If you’re the Aces, you replace her with a two-time championship guard who made six All-Star teams and is one of the best three-point shooters in the league.

The rich get richer.

Seattle’s Jewell Loyd was included in the Plum trade and joins a star-studded line-up in Las Vegas in 2025. Loyd was the 2023 scoring champ and is a three-time All-WNBA member. Loyd teamed up with Wilson, Young, Gray, and Plum to win the gold medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Gray missed 13 games last year and only averaged 9.6 points and 4.9 assists. She was lights-out in the Aces’ championship seasons. In 2022, she was one of three Aces to receive MVP votes after averaging 13.7 points and 6.1 assists. She won Finals MVP – averaging 18.3 points on 58.5% from the field and adding 6.0 assists per game.

Her 2023 season was even better. She earned All-WNBA for the third time (2017, 2019). She averaged 15.3 points and was third in the league in assists with 7.3 per game. The “Point Gawd” is looking to return to her dominant form in 2025.

Young, in her sixth year out of Notre Dame, exploded onto the scene in 2022 by making her first All-Star Team. She also won the WNBA Most Improved Player Award. The biggest difference was her ability to shoot from the perimeter, which opened up her game. She shot 22-77 (0.222) from three in her first three seasons combined (88 games). She went 50-116 (0.431) in 2022 alone. The following year, she was named Second Team All-WNBA and shot 89-198 (0.449) from three. She went from being a 22.2% three-point shooter to third in the league in 2022 and second in 2023. In the last three seasons, she’s averaged 16.5 points and has shot 40.0% from three.

While Loyd, Young, and Gray raise the floor for the Aces, Wilson somehow continues to raise the ceiling. She had one of the greatest individual seasons in league history in 2024 at 27.

The 2024 WNBA MVP and runner-up for Defensive Player of the Year averaged a career high and league-leading 26.9 points on 51.8% from the field (seventh). Wilson attempted two three-pointers in her first four seasons combined. She has made 59 out of 172 (0.343) in the last three seasons combined. She added 11.9 rebounds (second in the WNBA), 1.8 steals (fifth), and 2.6 blocks (first).

The more Hammon relies on Wilson offensively, the better she gets. Her usage rate has gone up every year since 2021. Incredibly, so has her player efficiency rating.

She had a PER of 34.9 in 2024. Breanna Stewart was second at 26.4. Wilson’s PER was the second highest ever behind Lauren Jackson’s 35.0 in 2007. Only eight times in history has a player had a PER of 32 or more; Wilson’s done it twice (Jackson did it three times).

Wilson’s 10.9 win shares led the league by 2.2. Adjusted for the ever-fluctuating number of games played in a WNBA regular season, her win shares are the eighth most in history.

As good as she was, it wasn’t enough. The Aces lost to the eventual champion New York Liberty in the semifinals. The Aces’ offense has been in the top two in the league for five consecutive seasons. Their defense took a dive in 2024. They led the league with a defensive rating of 99.2 in 2023. They fell to fifth last year with a rating of 101.2. Connecticut, Minnesota, and New York were all under 98.

The three worst individual defensive ratings for the Aces’ rotational players last year were Plum (107), Young (104), Tiffany Hayes (104), and Kate Martin (104). Young is the only one of the four playing for Las Vegas in 2025.

The Aces acquired Loyd (defensive rating of 101) and Tiffany Mitchell (101) in the offseason to help shore up the defense.

The Aces have a chip on their shoulder again with something to prove. That’s a scary proposition for the rest of the league.

View our other 2025 WNBA season previews here: Part I | Part II | Part III