The 2025 WNBA season gave fans plenty to smile about, even with a few dark clouds hanging over the league. While the ongoing CBA negotiations brought tension and uncertainty, the action on the floor told a very different story. New stars were born, rivalries heated up, and attendance records were shattered.

In many ways, this season reminded everyone why the WNBA continues to grow.

In this article, we’re breaking down the most surprising moments that defined the 2025 WNBA season and still have fans talking.

A Debut to Remember: Valkyries Shine in First Season

Being an expansion team in the WNBA is unforgiving. You don’t get gifted lottery picks, and you’re rarely a top free-agent destination either. So no one really expected the Golden State Valkyries to make much noise. Even the franchise talked about patience being the plan, and the oddsmakers backed that up, with ESPN BET setting their preseason win total at just 7.5.

But coach Natalie Nakase’s side defied every odd. They built a roster with a real international flavor and somehow pushed their way into the playoffs as the No. 8 seed with a 23–21 record. In the process, the Valkyries shattered the all-time wins mark for an expansion team, blowing past the Detroit Shock’s 17 wins from 1998, which was the league’s second season.

Back then, Detroit couldn’t even make the playoffs in a 10-team league where only four got in. Golden State not only topped that mark, but became the first expansion team in WNBA history to reach the playoffs in its very first season.

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Yes, their run ended in the first round, but the ever-so-deserving Coach of the Year laid down a blueprint for the rest of the league. She showed how you can take a team built from scratch, with no recognized superstars, and turn it into a competitive outfit right from year one.

And speaking of building a team from scratch, the Fever found themselves doing exactly that this season.

Resilient Indiana Fever Refuse to Back Down

Heading into the season, ESPN’s BPI had the Fever in a good spot, ranked sixth overall, with a 91 percent chance to make the playoffs and a projected 23.8 wins. But after the way their WNBA season started, not many thought they’d actually get anywhere close to that number.

Caitlin Clark was dealing with nagging quad and groin issues, and DeWanna Bonner never really got going either, playing just nine games before choosing to move on and join the Mercury. And the injury bug just wouldn’t leave the Fever alone. As the season wore on, things went from bad to worse. By mid-August, Sophie Cunningham and Sydney Colson were both ruled out for the year, along with hardship signees Aari McDonald and Chloe Bibby.

At that point, everything depended on Caitlin Clark. Fans kept waiting, hoping for the day she’d finally return, but that moment never came. And yet, the Fever still found a way. With Clark out, Kelsey Mitchell put the offense on her back, delivering an incredible season, averaging a franchise-best 20.2 points per game and pouring in 1,068 total points to drag Indiana with all their hardship-contracted players into the playoffs when it felt almost impossible.

That fairytale run didn’t stop in the playoffs either. The Fever dropped Game 1 to the Atlanta Dream, but bounced back to take the next two, becoming the first lower seed to advance since the WNBA went back to a best-of-three first round in 2022. And it ended in storybook fashion too, with Aliyah Boston drilling the game-winner in the final seconds of Game 3 to seal a stunning comeback and give Indiana its first playoff series win in a decade.

Then came the semifinals. The Fever pushed the No. 2 seed and eventual champions, the Las Vegas Aces, all the way to five games before finally going down in overtime. To make it even tougher, Kelsey Mitchell was forced to leave early with an injury in game 5, a cruel end to a season that had already been defined by so many setbacks.

But the team that eventually brought their Cinderella run to an end, the Aces, had a fairytale story of their own this season.

Against the Odds, the Aces Rise

After 12 games, the Las Vegas Aces had just five wins to their name. For a team led by Becky Hammon, a losing record felt unthinkable, yet there they were. Nothing was clicking. Hammon kept calling her team out after games, but the results just weren’t coming, and the frustration was starting to show, both on the floor and in the stands.

Things only got worse. By midseason, the Aces were scraping by at .500, and that’s when the season hit rock bottom with a jaw-dropping 111–58 loss to the Lynx. A 53-point blowout. For a Becky Hammon team, that was almost impossible to believe.

That’s when A’ja Wilson stepped up with a rallying cry that will live forever in Aces history. “I feel like one thing I did do is send a message to them and just say if you weren’t embarrassed from yesterday, then don’t come into this gym. You’re not needed or wanted here. We need the mindset to shift because that was embarrassing,” she said.

And from that moment on, the Aces just stopped losing. They tore through the league with a 16-game winning streak to book their playoff spot, and A’ja Wilson was the heartbeat of it all. In the 2025 WNBA regular season, she put up straight video-game numbers, 937 points and 407 rebounds, averaging 23.4 points and 10.2 boards a night.

The playoffs only made it more special. The Aces rolled past the Fever and the Storm, then swept the Mercury in the Finals to seal their third straight championship, a dynasty run that will be talked about for years.

Wilson pulled off the rare trifecta, winning WNBA MVP, Finals MVP, and Defensive Player of the Year all in the same season. And in the Finals, she was simply historic. She dropped 31 points and nine rebounds in Game 4, hit the clutch game-winner in Game 3, and became the first player in WNBA Finals history to record three straight games of at least 25 points and 10 rebounds.

Enough of the fairytale stories. There was one team that fell well short of expectations, and they paid a heavy price for it.

Liberty Fall Short of Expectations and Pay the Price

The 2024 champions looked every bit ready to run it back. They brought back their entire core and added Natasha Cloud and Emma Meesseman to the mix. Nine straight wins followed, with the same swagger that carried them to a title a year ago. It felt like another championship march was on the way. Then the injury bug hit, and everything changed.

Then the dominoes started to fall. One by one, New York’s stars were sidelined, with Jonquel Jones, Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu, and Nyara Sabally all battling injuries at different points of the season.

Jonquel Jones and Breanna Stewart each missed 13 games, while Sabrina Ionescu was out for six. Because of that, Sandy Brondello barely ever got to roll out her big three together once the injury bug hit, and it showed. The Liberty finished 27–17 and had to settle for the fifth seed heading into the playoffs.

The playoffs did offer a flicker of hope. The Liberty had a chance to silence the doubters by playing their best basketball when it mattered most, and it started well with a Game 1 win over the Mercury. But then disaster struck. Breanna Stewart went down with an MCL sprain. Phoenix took full advantage, coming back from a game down to win the series. Stewart tried to gut it out and give New York a fighting chance, but in the end, it just wasn’t enough.

In the end, that first-round exit cost Sandy Brondello her job. Just one year after delivering the Liberty their first championship, she was out. Such is the cruel reality of the WNBA.

A Season to Remember for the Phoenix Mercury

What if your franchise icon, the greatest player to ever wear your jersey, hangs it up after last season? And with her, your current star and two more starters walk away too. Overnight, a team built to fight for championships is left with just one returning starter.

Most franchises would panic. Most would call it what it is, a rebuild. A year to reset, lower expectations, and play the long game. But not the Phoenix Mercury. Despite losing Diana Taurasi, Brittney Griner, Sophie Cunningham, and Natasha Cloud, the Mercury were not giving up on their championship aspirations.

In came Alyssa Thomas and Satou Sabally, and suddenly the Mercury had one of the best big threes in the league. That part was expected. What wasn’t was just how good this squad was actually going to be.

With no picks in the 2025 draft, Phoenix couldn’t chase young rookies with long-term upside, so the front office went a different route, betting on players already close to their prime. Instead of projects, they went for ready-made contributors. That’s how they landed players like Westbeld (29), Kitija Laksa (29), Lexi Held (25), and Monique Akoa Makani (24), and that smart gamble paid off in a big way.

These “rookies,” even if not technically so, ended up playing over 30 percent of Phoenix’s minutes last season, and Monique Akoa Makani even knocked down the second-most threes by a rookie in Mercury history. Alongside the big three, this group helped the Mercury pull off what almost no one imagined they could do.

Nate Tibbetts’ side wrapped up the season with a 27–17 record, good enough for third in the West and fourth overall in the league, their best win total since 2014. It was already a dream regular season, but the playoffs turned it into something even more special.

Comeback after comeback became their identity. They stunned the Liberty in the first round of the WNBA playoffs after going a game down, then did it all over again against tournament favorites, the Lynx, refusing to fold when the pressure was at its highest. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get past the Aces in the Finals, but the way this group came together has everyone excited about what’s next. If Phoenix can keep this core intact, the future looks incredibly bright for the Mercury.