WNBA Notes: Bright future for Wings, reenergized Mystics

The IX Basketball, a 24/7/365 women’s basketball newsroom powered by The Next

The IX Basketball: A basketball newsroom brought to you by The IX Sports. 24/7/365 women’s basketball coverage, written, edited and photographed by our young, diverse staff and dedicated to breaking news, analysis, historical deep dives and projections about the game we love.

Tankathon check-in

The regular season is over! Let’s see where the eliminated teams are right now in the lottery standings and where they might end up drafting in 2026.

Chicago Sky

Bright spots: 

• Second-year forward Angel Reese made one of the biggest in-season improvements in recent WNBA history
• Strong flashes from second-year center Kamilla Cardoso at times

Concerns: 

Remember the vibes turnaround that the Sky experienced between the aftermath of the Kahleah Copper trade in February 2024 and the end of 2024? That feels like a lifetime ago. Hell, even midway through this season, when Angel Reese was playing like a star and Kamilla Cardoso was giving hard effort, is a far cry from how 2025 ended.

There is little future for Chicago with how the franchise is currently constructed. Reese’s criticism of management decisions was right on the money. After general manager Jeff Pagliocca gave away the second-best lottery odds in the unnecessary trade up for Reese¹ in the 2024 draft, then traded away the draft pick that became Sonia Citron plus a 2027 pick swap for one year of Ariel Atkins, and then spent a first-round pick on Hailey Van Lith, there is no reason to expect possibly the most disastrous front office tenure in league history to improve. It is also hard to see the locker room turning around when management and coaching has done little to prevent the fallout from Reese’s comments.

Everyone here has failed, and it’s hard to see what there is to start over with.

Hope rating: ⭐☆☆☆☆

Want even more women’s sports in your inbox?

Subscribe now to The IX Sports and receive our daily women’s sports newsletter covering soccer, tennis, basketball, golf, hockey and gymnastics from our incredible team of writers. That includes Basketball Wednesday from founder and editor Howard Megdal.

Readers of The IX Basketball now save 50% on their subscription to The IX.

Connecticut Sun

Bright spots:

• Best young wing duo in the league
• Might be moving to Boston or Houston?
• Two cost-controlled young bigs who can play at the WNBA level
• Extra first-round pick in a class with decent depth

Concerns:

• Worst free agency destination in the WNBA, barring relocation
• Unlikely to have a title-leading star on the roster
• No lottery pick

Since moving to Uncasville for the 2003 season, the Sun have had just seven losing seasons, but 2025 was solidly the lowest win percentage of any of them (0.250). The first time they had a losing season, in 2009, they traded guard Lindsay Whalen for guard Renee Montgomery and the draft pick that became Tina Charles, added veteran Kara Lawson, and immediately turned things around.

After Lawson got hurt and Montgomery got worse, they traded Charles. After three years without enough improvement, they fired Anne Donovan, replaced her with Curt Miller and added center Jonquel Jones.

Connecticut has more to start the turnaround with at this point than it did in 2009. But without the ability to trade anyone on the roster for a shot at a future MVP like Charles, the stars to take them to the next level aren’t there.

Rookie guard Leïla Lacan could have outlier development and grow into a “No. 2 option on a title team” role, but that seems unlikely. Including Lacan, there are ways the current roster can support title ambitions, between Lacan and fellow rookie Saniya Rivers as a two-way wing combo (if Rivers’ shooting holds up), Aaliyah Edwards as a versatile big if she can build on her first couple years in the W, and rookie Aneesah Morrow showing signs of being a unique role player. That always carries risk of getting stuck in purgatory, though, where they’re neither in title contention nor getting lottery picks for a shot at a star.

But the depth of the 2027 draft class might be a saving grace. If the Sun can get someone interesting with their mid-first round picks this year while still being bad enough to miss the playoffs next summer, they’ll have a good shot at USC guard JuJu Watkins (assuming she doesn’t use her redshirt) or Notre Dame guard Hannah Hidalgo.

Connecticut needs to rely on these draft picks, though, because as long as the franchise remains in Connecticut, it’s unlikely that any stars will opt to join via free agency or trade requests. If the team moves, that’s potentially a different story.

Hope rating: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

Dallas Wings

Bright spots:

• Paige Bueckers
• It’s possible the front office person making good decisions during the 2025 season wasn’t the one who led the past offseason
• Top lottery odds
• Young guard room of possibly good role players
• Found quality depth during the 2025 season

Concerns:

• Bueckers and Arike Ogunbowale are not a synergistic pairing
• The person making decisions this winter might be the same one who led the prior 10 offseasons

The situation in Dallas is quite straightforward: Paige Bueckers is a soon-to-be-MVP-caliber player under team control for another four years, and rookie guards JJ Quinerly and Aziaha James could be strong contributors for a good squad. Luisa Geiselsöder, Li Yueru and Haley Jones all played like quality backups this season as well. Pair that with Awa Fam or Olivia Miles, and that’s cooking with gas.

There have been times like this in the past for the Wings, though never with quite the positive outlook that they have now. Even during the 2023 season, they were paying Teaira McCowan a lot of money; had no bench; and treated Arike Ogunbowale as their best player instead of Satou Sabally, who finished fifth in WNBA MVP voting that year. And Greg Bibb was still the unquestioned decision-maker.

Bibb led Dallas’ past offseason, too, and besides the draft, that turned out disastrously. Even in the draft, the team selected Madison Scott over Te-Hina Paopao, a shock at the time that looks just as bad in hindsight. But the in-season decisions, whether by trade or hardship signings, looked distinctly Curt Miller-y.

The Wings have such a strong foundation to build on that, barring injury, just about the only thing that could significantly derail them is a return to the front office work of offseasons past.

Hope rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Los Angeles Sparks

Bright spots:

• Cameron Brink was an All-Star the last time she had any semblance of an offseason and training camp
• Rickea Jackson still looks like a future All-Star
• Will probably still have Kelsey Plum next year?
• Players bought in strongly to first-year head coach Lynne Roberts’ system

Concerns:

• No first-round draft pick
• The decision-making of the post-Curt Miller front office is suspect

Doing these postmortems last year was generally more interesting because every team didn’t have 85% of its roster becoming unrestricted free agents. This year, things are pretty similar from team to team, and the Sparks’ outlook is a lot like the Wings’, but with more tempered expectations.

For one, Dallas has the possibility of Curt Miller holding the reins. In Los Angeles, the main moves this regime has done have worked out, but the decisions at the margins have almost entirely flopped. That is usually fine for a team in Los Angeles, but Sparks ownership continues not to invest in facilities or staffing at the level of a New York or Seattle.

Former lottery picks Cameron Brink and Rickea Jackson are also not quite Bueckers, but they are a hell of a pair to start with, even with Los Angeles’ 2026 first-round pick in Seattle’s hands. As with the Wings, this offseason will determine the trajectory of the Sparks’ future.

Hope rating: ⭐⭐⭐½ ☆

Washington Mystics

Bright spots:

Concerns:

Here we have the same story as Dallas and Los Angeles, with less top-tier talent than either but better depth than the latter. Washington has also historically been a more attractive destination in free agency than either of those two, but Bueckers and the Plum/Brink/Jackson trio may affect that dynamic.

Otherwise, pretty much everything holds: How does general manager Jamila Wideman do in future winter cycles where the Mystics are trying to add contending pieces? Can they nab a true No. 1 option in free agency or through the 2025 or 2026 lotteries?

Hope rating: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

1. There is every indication that Minnesota had not planned on drafting Reese and was simply baiting Chicago into trading up.

Monumental Sports and Entertainment, the group that owns the Washington Mystics, holds a minority stake in The Next. The Next’s editorial operations are entirely independent of Monumental and all other business partners.