May 16, 2025
Locked On Women’s Basketball: The Next’s 2025 WNBA preseason awards and predictions
By The Next
Who are this season's projected top players and teams?
The WNBA season starts today, and The Next’s Emily Adler joins host Natalie Heavren to break down the results of The Next’s 2025 WNBA preseason awards and predictions. The pair chats about Adler’s preseason survey as well as their own award and season predictions. Adler also talks about the preseason so far and what excites her about the upcoming season.
Continue reading with a subscription to The Next
Get unlimited access to women’s basketball coverage and help support our hardworking staff of writers, editors, and photographers by subscribing today.
Already a member?
Login
Save 30% when you order “Becoming Caitlin Clark”
Howard Megdal’s newest book is here! “Becoming Caitlin Clark: The Unknown Origin Story of a Modern Basketball Superstar” captures both the historic nature of Clark’s rise and the critical context over the previous century that helped make it possible, including interviews with Clark, Lisa Bluder (who also wrote the foreword), C. Vivian Stringer, Jan Jensen, Molly Kazmer and many others.
Click the link below to order and enter MEGDAL30 at checkout.
Over the past four years, a preseason prediction project has grown from a small internal curiosity into a structured annual initiative, shaped by The Next’s unique position of the organization as a 24/7 newsroom solely dedicated to covering women’s basketball. The project originated from a desire to create a more systematized and internally cohesive way to gauge team outlooks, moving beyond the scattered preseason takes offered by other media outlets. “Nothing was particularly systematized,” Adler explained, “and I was curious what that would look like.”
What began as a simple Google form distributed via Slack has evolved into a detailed process involving data input, coding in R, and the production of polished visualizations. Despite changing slightly over the years, the questions asked remain focused on identifying likely title contenders and bottom-dwelling teams, while allowing room for fun and subjective takes from staff members.
This year’s predictions aligned closely with expectations, particularly in identifying title favorites. New York and Minnesota emerged as the clear front-runners, with nearly all votes split between the two. This made sense given how narrowly last season’s title was decided and the offseason moves both teams made. “All but one vote went to New York or Minnesota for the number one team in the WNBA,” Adler noted, highlighting how evenly matched the teams appear on paper.
When evaluating teams predicted to finish last, three franchises—Connecticut, Golden State and Washington—stood out due to lack of star power and rebuilding trajectories. Golden State, in particular, is undergoing an expansion year with limited ability to immediately draft transformational talent.
Tune in to Locked On Women’s Basketball
Here at The Next, in addition to the 24/7/365 written content our staff provides, we also host the daily Locked On Women’s Basketball podcast. Join us Monday through Saturday each week as we discuss all things WNBA, collegiate basketball, basketball history and much more. Listen wherever you find podcasts or watch on YouTube.
