After what has felt like forever for fans of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), especially those whose team didn’t make it far in last year’s playoffs, the 2025 season is just about under way, with the 2025 WNBA draft taking place just days ago on April 14 at The Shed in New York City and WNBA tip-off arriving on May 16. After a record 2024 season that saw regular-season viewership across ESPN platforms increase by 170% versus 2023 and the most-viewed WNBA Finals in 25 years, 2025 is predicted to be one of the league’s greatest seasons to date.
With so many new fans, it felt fitting to precurse the 2025 WNBA season with a bit of background, acquainting or reacquainting people with the stars of the league (and the tunnel), its buzzy newcomers, key dates to add to your calendar, and of course, the juiciest storylines to watch out for when games start in mid-May. Everything you need to know about the upcoming 44-game WNBA regular season (and beyond) is just a scroll away. Knowing watchers, think of this as a perfect distraction to get you through the next few weeks before tip-off. Newbies, particularly ones interested in the intersection of women’s basketball and fashion, meet your WNBA bible.
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The WNBA was founded on April 24, 1996 by the National Basketball Association (NBA, or MNBA as women’s basketball Twitter likes to call it) with a total of eight teams: the Charlotte Sting, Cleveland Rockers, Houston Comets, and New York Liberty in the Eastern Conference; and the Los Angeles Sparks, Phoenix Mercury, Sacramento Monarchs, and Utah Starzz in the Western Conference. Only three of the initial eight teams remain in play today, with plenty of organizational changes between the 1997 debut season and now, the league’s 29th season. Starting in 2025, the WNBA will comprise 13 teams: the founding Los Angeles Sparks, Phoenix Mercury, and New York Liberty (2024 champions), as well as the Indiana Fever, Connecticut Sun, Atlanta Dream, Minnesota Lynx, Washington Mystics, Las Vegas Aces, Seattle Storm, Chicago Sky, Dallas Wings, and the latest addition, the Golden State Valkyries. With 2024 bringing the league’s most successful year yet, expansion is in the works, with two new confirmed teams joining the WNBA in 2026. Growth’s the word, and 2025 is expected to shatter 2024’s record-breaking numbers.
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Like in any sports league, there are a handful of standout players in the WNBA, including newer additions like 2024 rookies Caitlin Clark on the Indiana Fever and Angel Reese on the Chicago Sky, both of whom broke records in their first seasons in the W, and more veteran presences, like the New York Liberty’s Sabrina Ionescu, the Minnesota Lynx’s Napheesa Collier, and the Las Vegas Aces’ A’ja Wilson. For more on the stars of the league, keep scrolling.
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Caitlin Clark, the first pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft and the all-time leading scorer in NCAA basketball (passing Pete Maravich’s record that he set in 1970), is the biggest name in basketball right now—period. She’s a two-time college National Player of the Year, playing all four years at the University of Iowa, and the reigning 2024 WNBA Rookie of the Year. The 23-year-old point guard from Des Moines, Iowa, let her famous shooting and passing abilities do the talking for her, defying critics by becoming the all-time single-season and single-game assist leader in her rookie season. She also had the most points by a rookie in WNBA history and became the first rookie to record a triple-double (reaching double-digit stats in scoring, rebounds, and assists)—and then did it a second time. Clark led the Indiana Fever to the franchise’s first playoffs since 2016 and was the first rookie since 2008 to be named to the All-WNBA first team. You thought I was done? More recently, Time honored Clark by naming her the 2024 Athlete of the Year, while AP named her its Female Athlete of the Year. My favorite record? She was the first athlete in history to be dressed by Prada for the draft, showing up in an ivory-colored, heavy-satin skirt and jacket set, a rhinestone bra, a black Galleria bag, black pumps, and orange-tinted sunglasses, all from the Italian fashion brand. She went on to wear Prada a number of times in the tunnel throughout her rookie season, also debuting pieces by Tibi and Coach, and walked the orange carpet during All-Star Weekend wearing a sheer Armani minidress, Versace accessories, and jewelry by Tiffany & Co. and Cartier.
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Everyone wants to know what 6’1” Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier is going to bring to the court this season after a disappointing loss in the WNBA Finals against the New York Liberty back in October, followed by another in the semi-finals of Unrivaled, the three-on-three league Collier started in Miami this summer with fellow UConn graduate and WNBA star Breanna Stewart. The expectation? A fierceness that no one who has to guard Collier will find enjoyable. The reigning WNBA Defensive Player of the Year and Unrivaled one-on-one tournament champion, Collier is a force to be reckoned with on both ends of the court, averaging 20.4 points and 9.7 rebounds in the 2024 WNBA regular season. Basically, every one of her opponents should be afraid—very, very afraid—of Phee this season. She wants to bring a championship trophy back to Minneapolis for the first time since 2017, when another UConn star, Maya Moore, played for the team, and everyone in the W knows it.
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Six-foot-four center A’ja Wilson’s stat sheet reads like something out of a video game. Wilson was born and raised in South Carolina, bringing the now-lauded South Carolina Gamecocks to their first NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship in 2017, and her knack for winning hardly stopped when she entered the WNBA in the 2018 draft, when she was selected first by the Las Vegas Aces. In 2022 and 2023, Wilson led the Aces to back-to-back championships, becoming the first team in 21 years to win two years in a row. The 2023 Finals MVP? Yep, Wilson. In 2024, she averaged 26.9 points per game and 11.9 rebounds per game in the regular season, resulting in her being unanimously voted MVP at the end of the season. (For reference, this is the third time she’s received this honor having also been named MVP in 2020 and 2022.) Impressive is an understatement. Plus, Wilson’s got plenty of other stuff going on, like bringing home her second gold medal in the Paris Olympics this summer; launching her very own Nike signature shoe, the A’One, in February; and walking the red carpet at the 2024 WSJ Innovator Awards wearing a Balmain gown and a Jacob & Co. boutique watch casually made up of 28.54 carats of Ashoka-cut diamonds.
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In 2024 alone, Sabrina Ionescu won a gold medal in Paris; brought the New York Liberty, the team that drafted her with the first overall pick back in 2020 from the University of Oregon, its first-ever championship trophy; and got married to professional football player Hroniss Grasu, cliffside in Orange County, California. Already in 2025, she’s attended her first Paris Fashion Week with Dior and Kenzo, participated in Unrivaled’s debut season, and headlined her first Nike athlete tour across Asia. What’s next for the 5’11” guard? I’d guess that she hopes to repeat the results of her team’s 2024 season, bringing the Liberty only its second championship since it joined the WNBA in 1997 as one of the original teams. Our hopes—and I speak for all Liberty fans when I say this—are to see more deep shots like the 28-foot step-back jumper she made to win game three of the WNBA Finals against the Minnesota Lynx. Nike, we want that original YERRRNESCU tee from the Championship Parade, and we want it now.
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Louisiana State University graduate and 2023 National Champion Angel Reese is a rebound machine. In her first season with the Chicago Sky, where she was drafted with the seventh pick in the 2024 WNBA draft, she averaged a league-record 13.1 rebounds per game and was the fastest player to reach 400 rebounds in WNBA history. The 6’3″ forward was one of two rookies selected to join the All-Star team, beating Team USA (that is, the team that won a gold medal in Paris this summer) in the All-Star game in Phoenix, Arizona. Did I mention she had 15 straight double-doubles (or double-digit stats, in Reese’s case, points and rebounds), breaking Candace Parker’s record of 12? She did all that while showing up to every game in a ‘fit, often including Chanel or Hermès accessories, and attending fashion events like the CFDA Awards, where she wore a white Simkhai strapless gown and matching fur coat. But wait, there’s more. Before she kicks off her 2025 season, she’ll return to her alma mater in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to play against the Brazilian National Team on May 2, only to quickly fly out to New York City for the Met Gala on May 5, where she’ll join Grace Wales Bonner, Simone Biles, Edward Enninful, Ayo Edebiri, and Sha’Carri Richardson on the newly revived 2025 Costume Institute Benefit host committee, according to Vogue.
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A stacked 2024 draft class made for a season dominated by rookie conversations. Whether people were discussing Clark’s and Reese’s tendency to break records—Clark for assists and rookie triple-doubles and Reese for consecutive double-doubles and offensive rebounds—Cameron Brink’s heartbreaking injury before the Olympic break, or Nika Mühl’s tunnel ‘fits, every conversation during last year’s run seemed to turn to the WNBA’s newest additions eventually. I can’t say for sure if 2025 will follow suit, but with another star-studded class on its way into the league, I wouldn’t bet against it. Recently crowned NCAA National Champion Paige Bueckers is one of the most talked-about players in all of women’s basketball, and as this year’s number one pick, all eyes will be on her in 2025. Also joining the league is 19-year-old French prodigy Dominique Malonga, Notre Dame’s “Silent Assassin” Sonia Citron, NCAA tournament superstar Hailey Van Lith from TCU, and USC’s Kiki Iriafen, who helped lead her team to the Elite Eight after star Juju Watkins went down in the second round of the tournament with an ACL injury. They’re all potential pro-level stars in the making, leaving viewers with plenty to watch out for come tip-off next month.
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There’s no shortage of talking points when 6′ guard Paige Bueckers is the topic of discussion. The 23-year-old from Hopkins, Minnesota, has been a star, entering her freshman year at the University of Connecticut in 2020 as the number one recruit in her class and finishing it as the first female freshman to earn AP’s Player of the Year honor and the first freshman to earn the Naismith Trophy—ever. Her college career has been nothing if not storied, having faced an ACL injury in her second season as a UConn Husky, returning for the 2023–24 season to lead her team to the Final Four. Though she was eligible to declare for the WNBA then and there, she returned to college for one last run. If she hadn’t, we wouldn’t have gotten to witness her historic 2024 season, which finished in a dominant National Championship win just a few weeks ago, solidifying her spot as the first pick in the 2025 WNBA draft. Off the court, Bueckers is just as impressive and captivating, with a whopping 2.3 million Instagram followers; sponsorship deals with Gatorade, Nike, Madison Reed, CeraVe, and more; and a growing presence on the fashion scene (go follow her longtime stylist, Brittany Hampton, for proof). Soon, she’ll join the likes of Arike Ogunbowale, DiJonai Carrington, and NaLyssa Smith in Dallas and hopefully lead the Wings, which finished the 2024 season with a 9-31 record, to a winning season.
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Two weeks before the WNBA draft, University of Southern California forward, Kiki Iriafen, who transferred to USC from Stanford following her 2023 Final Four run alongside last year’s number two pick Cameron Brink, signed a sneaker deal with Skechers, a first step toward a flourishing career in the W. The 2024 NCAA tournament likewise planted seeds for a promising professional career, particularly when she stepped up as a leader after USC’s star guard, sophomore Juju Watkins, suffered a season-ending injury at the beginning of the team’s second-round game against Mississippi State. Rather than accept defeat, Iriafen took charge of the game, scoring 36 points and securing nine rebounds, continuing her team’s dreams of a deep tournament run for another day. That leadership ability and tenacity will benefit her in Washington, D.C., when she joins the Mystics, a team in rebuild mode after a disappointing 14-26 record in the 2024 season.
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Notre Dame’s head coach, Niele Ivey, doesn’t call Sonia Citron, the 6’1” shooting guard from White Plains, New York, “The Silent Assassin” for nothing. For four years, she’s been the women’s basketball program’s quiet weapon and the player who steps up when the team needs her most. Proof? How about when she hit a game-tying three-pointer in the final seconds of Notre Dame’s February Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Tournament matchup against NC State to send the game into overtime? Magic Johnson sure was impressed, tweeting, “Wow wow wow,” after the dagger went in. That kind of reliability and locked-in mentality will no doubt help her in the W, as she too heads to D.C. to play for the Mystics alongside Iriafen and fellow rookie Georgia Amoore, as well as former rookie and Unrivaled star Aaliyah Edwards, and vets like Shakira Austin, Stefanie Dolson, and Brittney Sykes.
Ian Pierno, the Slam magazine editor who founded LeagueFits, an Instagram account that documents NBA and WNBA tunnel ‘fits, told Who What Wear something last year that perfectly encapsulates the growth and significance of the WNBA tunnel, where players enter arenas and debut their pregame looks. “WNBA regular-season games overlapped with the NBA finals—the biggest event of the season—but WNBA players’ looks were receiving far more engagement on LeagueFits than the NBA stars on their league’s largest stage,” he said. Clearly, everyone wants to know what the W’s best dressed players are wearing on game day, and with each new rookie class, more stars of the tunnel emerge. Think Cameron Brink, Nika Mühl, Angel Reese, and Rickea Jackson from the 2024 draft class. Plus, as WNBA viewership and social media engagement skyrocket, longtime mainstays in the tunnel, like Skylar Diggins-Smith, Arike Ogunbowale, Dewanna Bonner, and Natasha Cloud, are finally receiving the widespread media attention their ‘fits have always warranted.
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Just like in the NBA, certain stars of the WNBA are just as dominant in the tunnel as they are on the court, proving to be elite dressers as well as athletes. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Tyrese Haliburton are those players on the men’s side, and Skylar Diggins-Smith is that player in the W. No one compares to her—at least not yet—and with a new stylist in Manny Jay, who she kicked off her partnership with in Unrivaled, Diggins-Smith is set to turn up her tunnel style even higher than its been throughout her professional career. Expect to find her in custom looks this season, Jay told Who What Wear, including one by Off-White, as well as rare, secondhand bags from What Goes Around Comes Around, the luxury resale company that Diggins-Smith is partnering with this year.
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Though Cameron Brink only got to play 15 games in her first season in the WNBA with the Los Angeles Sparks due to an ACL tear back in June, she still managed to cement herself as not only one of the best blockers in the league, averaging 2.3 per game before her injury, but one of the best dressers as well. In her first season, she and her stylist, Mary Gonsalves Kinney, partnered with Revolve to outfit Brink in the tunnel, showcasing looks by Diesel and Mugler, and also carrying accessories by Hermès and Chanel. Saint Laurent, Fendi, and Frankie Shop have all, too, made their way onto the 6’4″ center during her time in the pros, in the tunnel and beyond at Paris Fashion Week and the NBA All-Star Game. Though she hasn’t announced when she’ll be back on the court with the Sparks just yet, it’s presumed she’ll return at some point this upcoming season. There’s really no rush, though, as long as Brink continues to show out in the tunnel (probably wearing four-inch stilettos).
Rickea Jackson’s fate as one of the best dressed players in the W (as a rookie, no less) was cemented when she perfectly executed the first-ever outfit change in WNBA draft history at the 2024 draft, changing from a red, tailored suit by Ellae Lisque to a silver suit by Prissy Duck, per her stylist for the event, Tosha Hartzog. Both looks included Amina Muaddi’s signature rhinestone heels. In her interview with ESPN’s Holly Rowe that night, she told Los Angeles Sparks fans that they’d fall for her because of her personality, which is true, but her showstopping tunnel style has played a significant role in Jackson’s growing stardom. In her rookie WNBA and Unrivaled seasons alone, the 6’2” forward from the University of Tennessee wore head-to-toe Luar, Diesel, Mugler, and Kim Shui. What will she bring for year two? That we’ll have to wait patiently for, refreshing LeagueFits until a new Rickea look appears.
Now for the really juicy parts. If you watch one or two games, you won’t get the full WNBA experience, because you won’t get the chance to learn about the intriguing storylines pulsing through the league, aka, the stuff great sports are made of. For the 2025 season, there’s plenty to talk about. For starters, the league is growing for the first time since it introduced the Atlanta Dream in 2008, with an expansion team in San Francisco joining the ranks. The Golden State Valkyries are the first of three (or more) teams that’ll be joining the WNBA between now and 2026, with the Toronto Tempo and a still-unnamed Portland franchise coming soon. Fans are also keen to see how all the offseason team changes will affect the conference pecking orders, with teams like the Minnesota Lynx and the New York Liberty mostly keeping their rosters in tact, while others like the Indiana Fever, Dallas Wings, Atlanta Dream, and Phoenix Mercury took advantage of free agency to switch up their teams. Speaking of the Lynx and the Liberty, will the latter hold on to their crown, or will the former take what they feel was rightfully theirs in the 2025 playoffs? And then there’s the Unrivaled of it all. Scroll down to read up on the WNBA’s most compelling stories ahead of the season.
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The Golden State Valkyries, based in San Francisco, is the WNBA’s first expansion team in 17 years. The team, which crafted much of its team in an expansion draft that was held back in December, is headlined by former Las Vegas Aces Sixth Player of the Year Tiffany Hayes and fellow Aces and University of Iowa alum Kate Martin. Their roster also includes Kayla Thornton, formerly of the New York Liberty; Temi Fagbenle from the Indiana Fever; Julie Vanloo from the Washington Mystics; and Monique Billings from the Phoenix Mercury. In a media roundtable ahead of the 2025 draft, ESPN play-by-play broadcaster Ryan Ruocco told the press that the Valkyries aren’t likely to be a contender for the championship in their first season but are expected to focus on putting together a team that fans can become attached to. On draft night, they called on Justė Jocytė, Shyanne Sellers, and recent UConn National Champion Kaitlyn Chen. Also, given the program’s glitzy new practice facility and attractive location in the Bay Area, the Valkyries will want to focus on drawing in talent next year, when a majority of the W’s big-deal players will be free agents.
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Unrivaled, the highly successful professional three-on-three basketball league founded by Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier that kicked off this summer in Miami, didn’t just give players an opportunity to make money in the offseason without having to play abroad and keep them in top shape. Really, it changed everything. With a new WNBA collective bargaining agreement (CBA) currently being negotiated with the hope of raising salaries and benefits for all players, Unrivaled created a blueprint. The new league has the highest average salary across all women’s sports leagues, according to the Associated Press, with most players early six-figure salaries for just eight weeks of play. On the contrary, the current CBA has that amount only going to the very highest-paid players in the WNBA. Unrivaled also provides its players with top-of-the-line amenities, including brand-new gym facilities, saunas, a glam room sponsored by Sephora, and childcare facilities. Last, new teams and dynamics allowed viewers who might only follow one team in the W to meet different players, boosting their popularity. The league’s emphasis on social media only added to that popularity. With Unrivaled having only wrapped a few weeks ago, it’s hard to fully grasp the impact of its debut season. It will move the needle in the WNBA, though, in more ways even than those mentioned here.
Another impact of Unrivaled was having the WNBA’s top talent together in one place, right in the middle of free agency. Though no players have outright said that they changed teams because of conversations had during their time in Miami, Las Vegas Aces guard Chelsea Gray did go as far as to call Unrivaled a “tamper bucket” on Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe’s podcast A Touch More. Clearly, it played a role. For additional proof, see all the shaken-up teams, particularly the Dallas Wings, Phoenix Mercury, and Atlanta Dream. Some teams, like the Connecticut Sun, ended up losing much of their 2024 roster to new destinations, with DiJonai Carrington, Alyssa Thomas, DeWanna Bonner, and Brionna Jones all leaving the team. (Even their head coach, Stephanie White, switched teams, heading to the Indiana Fever.) Meanwhile, the Fever’s free agency experience resulted in major wins, acquiring Bonner, as well as Sophie Cunningham, Natasha Howard, Sydney Colson, and Brianna Turner. As a result, the odds of the team winning a championship in 2025 spiked significantly, according to Sports Illustrated. All that’s to say that you shouldn’t necessarily use last year’s results to determine the outcome of the 2025 season.
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Whereas many WNBA front offices used the offseason to change up their rosters, the two most successful teams from the 2024 season—the Minnesota Lynx and the New York Liberty—kept their winning player lineups mostly the same. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Both teams are set on winning the title this year, with the Liberty hoping to ride through the streets of Manhattan victorious for a second year in a row and the Lynx wanting to turn things around, coming out on top in 2025. Meanwhile, plenty of on-the-rise franchises will be hoping that neither the Lynx nor the Liberty get their wish, with both the Fever and the Aces likewise vying for that coveted Tiffany & Co. championship trophy.
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