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Michael Voepel, ESPN.com
The WNBA’s 2025 regular-season schedule will give us an instantaneous have a look at each the latest crew and the latest No. 1 choose on opening day on May 16. But we must await the primary WNBA Finals rematch.
The league launched its 2025 schedule Monday — broadcast and streaming particulars will likely be launched subsequent spring — with the Dallas Wings and their prime choose (anticipated to be UConn’s Paige Bueckers) and the enlargement Golden State Valkyries each enjoying on the primary day. The Wings will host the Minnesota Lynx and the Valkyries will host the Los Angeles Sparks.
But the New York Liberty and the Lynx will not meet till July 30, the primary of their 4 matchups within the 44-game regular-season slate. That’s except they meet once more (as they did final season) within the Commissioner’s Cup closing, which is July 1. The Lynx gained that 2024 title, however the Liberty gained a hotly contested five-game Finals collection for his or her first WNBA championship.
Loads will occur between now and the beginning of the league’s twenty ninth season, together with the Golden State enlargement draft Friday (6:30 p.m. ET, ESPN), free company signings starting in February, and the 2025 draft in April. All of it is going to have an effect on rosters and matchups. But based mostly on what we all know now, listed here are the ten must-see video games of the 2025 common season.
One of the WNBA’s geographic rivalries — Chicago’s Wintrust Center and Indiana’s Gainbridge Fieldhouse are 182 miles aside — grew to become spicier final season. Rookies Caitlin Clark of Indiana and Kamilla Cardoso and Angel Reese of Chicago introduced extra eyes to this collection than ever earlier than. Indiana, which gained the season collection 3-1, made the playoffs; Chicago did not. The Sky are slotted so as to add one other lottery choose — No. 3 — within the draft, and each groups have new coaches (Stephanie White for the Fever, Tyler Marsh for the Sky). It would be the first of 5 conferences between the groups in 2025.
May 21: Dallas Wings at Minnesota Lynx
It’s the second assembly between these groups within the season’s first 5 days, however this one tasks as Bueckers’ homecoming sport in Minneapolis. The Wings missed the playoffs final season, ending 9-31, and fired coach Latricia Trammell regardless of her main Dallas to the semifinals the yr earlier than. Longtime coach Curt Miller is now Dallas’ basic supervisor; the Wings have not employed a coach but. Bueckers, one of many front-runners for the 2024-25 nationwide participant of the yr with UConn, tasks as the favourite for WNBA Rookie of the Year.
May 27: Atlanta Dream at Los Angeles Sparks
Two of the league’s new coaches, the Dream’s Karl Smesko and the Sparks’ Lynne Roberts, left their school groups early this season to go to the WNBA. This will likely be their first matchup as professional coaches, and an opportunity to see some big-time younger stars like Atlanta’s Rhyne Howard and Los Angeles’ Rickea Jackson (and Cameron Brink if she has returned from a knee harm that minimize quick her rookie season).
June 7: Las Vegas Aces at Golden State Valkyries
This would be the first assembly between Aces coach Becky Hammon and her former assistant Natalie Nakase, coach of the Valkyries. Another of Hammon’s former assistants, the Sky’s Marsh, will first meet up with the Aces on Aug. 25 in Chicago.
June 17: Las Vegas Aces at Minnesota Lynx
Las Vegas’ A’ja Wilson was the unanimous MVP final season, whereas Minnesota’s Napheesa Collier was one vote shy of unanimous runner-up and gained the WNBA Defensive Player of the Year award. The two stars are within the primes of their careers, and this will likely be their first assembly of 2025.
July 13: Dallas Wings at Indiana Fever
This tasks because the second assembly between Clark and Bueckers, who confronted off within the NCAA match twice. UConn gained their 2021 Sweet 16 sport; Iowa gained their 2024 nationwide semifinal. Indiana and Dallas first meet on June 27 in Texas.
July 15: Indiana Fever vs. Connecticut Sun (Boston)
Stephanie White left the Sun to return to her residence state of Indiana and her second stint as Fever coach. She led Connecticut within the WNBA’s first sport at Boston’s TD Garden final season in August, a 69-61 win over Los Angeles. Now she returns with Indiana and star attraction Clark for what’s more likely to be one other sellout at TD Garden.
Aug. 10: Minnesota Lynx at New York Liberty
This is the primary time the groups will meet at Barclays Center for the reason that decisive Game 5 of the 2024 championship collection. (Unless, once more, they play there for the Commissioner’s Cup in July.) Game 5 and the title went to the Liberty, 67-62 in additional time on Oct. 20. Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve was livid with the officiating afterward, proclaiming, “This s— was stolen from us.” The league opted to not tremendous her.
Aug. 13: New York Liberty at Las Vegas Aces
The Aces beat the Liberty within the 2023 Finals, however New York avenged that with a 3-1 semifinal collection victory over Las Vegas final season on the best way to its first WNBA title. This would be the third assembly of the season between the Liberty and Aces, and Las Vegas’ Wilson and New York’s Breanna Stewart, who between them have 5 MVP awards.
Did we see Diana Taurasi’s closing WNBA sport final season? Or may she come again for a twenty first yr within the league, during which case this could possibly be her regular-season finale. If Taurasi returns, this could possibly be her fourth assembly of the season towards fellow UConn star Bueckers. The first can be June 11, Taurasi’s forty third birthday, in Phoenix.
