The 2025 WNBA season is now over and there is a new champion. It is the Las Vegas Aces and this is their third WNBA Championship in four years in seven years of existence. That is simply remarkable. This season saw the new expansion franchise, the Golden State Valkyries play. They played so well that in their first year of existence, they reached the playoffs. The league faced so much backlash this season whether it was from the players, the media, both local and national due to the CBA expiring and the potential for a possible lockout. Let’s start with recapping the 2025 WNBA season by discussing all of the WNBA’s major events that took place this season. I headlined each of the major events and I wrote my final thoughts on what the 2025 WNBA season meant for me. This was year nine of covering the WNBA on my blog and my third season of compiling the WNBA Rookies Watch.
WNBA Commissioner Cup
The WNBA Commissioner Cup took place for the fifth straight season and the Indiana Fever defeated the Minnesota Lynx who won the Commissioner Cup last season to become the new WNBA Commissioner Cup champions. Natasha Howard of the Indiana Fever was named the MVP.
WNBA All-Star Weekend/WNBA All-Star Game
The WNBA All-Star weekend was held in Indianapolis, Indiana for the first time in franchise history and I got a special opportunity to go and enjoy All-Star weekend. As a content creator, Meta who owns the social media site known as Threads allowed me to explore the sights of All-Star weekend, interview some of Team Collier’s players (one of them being the Dallas Wings rookie star Paige Bueckers) with a huge Threads microphone. It was so much fun. It was nice to be rewarded and appreciated. I also got to sit courtside and watch Sabrina Ionescu of the New York Liberty win the second 3-point challenge for the second time in her career. Her fellow teammate, Natasha Cloud won the skills challenge. The All-Star Game saw Team Collier win by 20 points. Napheesa Collier of the Minnesota Lynx won MVP by scoring an All-Star game high of 36 points. If you are an active user of Threads, I hope you enjoyed my posts, videos and pictures I took all weekend long.
WNBA Playoffs
The 2025 WNBA playoffs saw eight teams qualify for the postseason. The Minnesota Lynx were the best team in the regular season and were the first seed. They were followed by the Las Vegas Aces, the Atlanta Dream, the Phoenix Mercury, the New York Liberty, the Indiana Fever, the Seattle Storm and for the first time, the Golden State Valkyries. As mentioned above, it was a special year because they qualified during their first year of franchise existence. In the first round, it is a best of three series. The Minnesota Lynx swept the Golden State Valkyries 2-0 to advance to the semifinals. The Las Vegas Aces defeated the Seattle Storm 2-1 to advance to the semifinals. The Indiana Fever pulled off an upset over the Atlanta Dream 2-1 to advance to the semifinals. The Phoenix Mercury defeated the New York Liberty, who were the defending WNBA champions, 2-1 to advance to the semifinals.
In the semifinals it is a best of five series. The fourth seed, the Phoenix Mercury upset the top seed, the Minnesota Lynx 3-1 to advance to the WNBA Finals for the first time in four years. The second seed, the Las Vegas Aces defeated the sixth seed, the Indiana Fever 3-2 to advance to their first WNBA Finals in two years.
During the 2025 WNBA Finals, the second seed, the Las Vegas Aces took full control and swept the fourth seed, the Phoenix Mercury, 4-0 to win their third WNBA Championship. A’ja Wilson was named Finals MVP.
2025 WNBA Awards
This was definitely Las Vegas Aces superstar A’ja Wilson’s season to shine. She was named the WNBA Kia MVP for the fourth time in her career and went back-to-back. She was also named as one of the players on the All-WNBA Teams, one of the co-winners of the Defensive Player of the Year Award (Alanna Smith of the Minnesota Lynx was the other winner) as well as the All-Defense Teams.
As for the other awards, Paige Bueckers won the Rookie of the Year award along with being on the All-Rookie Team. Veronica Burton won the Most Improved award. Naz Hillmon won the Sixth Player of the Year. Nneka Ogwumike won the Kim Perrot Sportsmanship Award for the fourth time in her career. Natalie Nakase, who coached the Golden State Valkyries won Coach of the Year. Dan Padover, the GM (general manager) of the Atlanta Dream won Basketball Executive of the Year.
Final Thoughts
I still can’t believe that the season is over. It flew by. So much went on this season. Let’s start with the positives. The WNBA’s brand-new franchise, the Golden State Valkyries often had sellouts in their arena. Two new WNBA expansion franchises, the Portland Fire and the Toronto Tempo will debut next season. It was also announced that Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia will also have WNBA teams in 2028, 2029 and in 2030. I didn’t have to go far for coverage. I could get it anywhere, whether it was from local, regional or national. I’m grateful. The long time WNBA audience is aware of how far we have come to get interest from sports websites, reporters, national media to come cover events. It was hard and difficult.
I saw more people use Threads and connect with other WNBA fans, bloggers, media, reporters using the community called WNBA Threads. It was wonderful. I saw the popularity of certain WNBA teams (Indiana Fever, Las Vegas Aces, Minnesota Lynx) being brought up and popular WNBA players engaging with the fans on the platform. (A’ja Wilson is one of them) I use Threads because I can write longer sentences and edit my work using the edit button.
I am now considered one of the top voices in the WNBA Threads community and that is amazing. I look forward to continue using Threads as well as other platforms, such as Instagram and Bluesky to live game post as well as promote my blog posts.
Let’s move on to the negatives. The potential for an upcoming lockout and constantly reading about it or viewing it on my social media was exhausting and draining. I know it can be difficult and hard, but it was too much for me sometimes. The potential for a lockout deprives people of seeing the two new expansion franchises in action next year and not being able to see where the players will sign as many of them are not signed past this season. It’s a very tense time right now as the league and the players try to form a new contract as the deadline is less than two weeks from now.
I just want to wrap this up by thanks to those who consistently read my blog posts and comment frequently on my various Thread posts. I appreciate it.
Best Regards,
Aneela Khan
Women's Basketball News and Opinions 