2025 WNBA season preview: Minnesota Lynx

A common denominator of both teams: Cheryl Reeve. Reeve, of course, led the 2017 Lynx to their fourth championship in seven seasons, and was an assistant coach on Bill Laimbeer’s bench for a Shock team that made it to the Finals three years in a row, winning it all in 2006 and 2008. 

Just like in 2016, the final chapter of Minnesota’s 2024 season was rife with controversy and the bitter taste of a championship dream slipping away. Ensuring that the heartache of yesteryear fuels Minnesota will be crucial for the Lynx to avenge 2024 with a championship in 2025. Fortunately for them, they boast a staff chock-full of people who have climbed that very same mountain. 

“We opened training camp with conversations around just that,” Reeve told reporters after the first day of training camp. “I have two people on staff that went through 2016 [and] 2017. The … disappointment and heartache, the joy of winning a championship is because it’s so hard to get there. That’s also why the heartache is so great, and the depths of that are so low, is because of the investment and how hard it is to get there.” 

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Reeve and company wasted no time beating around the bush, addressing the proverbial elephant in an illegal guarding position in the room straight away. Reeve leaned on the experience and wisdom of her assistants Rebekkah Brunson and Lindsay Whalen, who know all too well about the heartbreak of losing a championship and what’s required in the chase to avenge it.

“The one thing I said was that we don’t get 2017 if we don’t go through collectively what we went through in 2016,” Whalen said on media day. “We [couldn’t] get that joy, revenge, whatever you want to say, of 2017 if we don’t go through everything in 2016. It bonded us even stronger. We already had a great bond, but then we went through that together, and that stage in our careers. It brought us even closer.”

Whalen was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022. Brunson is the only player in WNBA history with five championship rings, making Reeve’s bench one of the most decorated in all of basketball.

“I don’t think you can ever get consumed with what happened in the past, because there’s no way to fix it,” Brunson said. “There’s no way to change it, whether you won or you lost. Regardless of what happened, you should never be consumed with what came before. You should only be consumed with the task at hand.”

In a word, that task is “championship.” Anything short of winning the last game of the season will be deemed unacceptable to the Lynx. Reigning Defensive Player of the Year Napheesa Collier’s name may be in the middle of MVP discussions, and an MVP season from Collier would almost certainly help towards capturing a championship. Still, Minnesota’s captain made it clear that after last year, the only award she’s after is one that gets awarded to the entire team.

“If the team is not doing well, you’re not going to get those individual accolades anyway,” Collier said. “So what you’re so selfish about, you’re never going to even get it if you’re not working for your team and helping them win. The individual accolades aren’t even my goal. Team stuff is my goal, and that other stuff comes naturally. What I want is a championship, so if I get those other things [but not a championship], it doesn’t really matter.”

Collier’s ascendance to an MVP caliber player was central to Minnesota’s success in 2024. After a successful winter in Miami during the inaugural season of Unrivaled, Lynx fans can expect another phenomenal year from the Lynx’s co-captain, who doesn’t think she’s even yet scratched the surface of how good she can be.

“I do think there’s been a shift, I mean, I’ve talked ad nauseum about last year, but I think just using it to my advantage, honestly, where it does give me that leg up,” Collier said. “I want to push just that little bit more. I want to win just that little bit more, and that’s what it feels like. That’s what it felt like when I was playing at Unrivaled, and I want to continue to keep that same mentality coming into the W season.  

“It’s the nature of a competitive atmosphere that I’m in and the competitiveness of myself. You always want to keep building. Even though I had a good year last year, there’s always things that you can improve on, things I want to get better at from last year, things I worked really hard at in the offseason and at Unrivaled. So I’m really looking to implement that for this year and excited to get things started.”

Lots of familiar faces

In 2024, the Lynx found and forged their identity in training camp. After an active offseason where the team agreed to free agent deals with Alanna Smith and Courtney Williams, and made an aggressive trade to acquire Natisha Hiedeman, the Lynx needed time to make sure they knew how all of their moving parts fit together to form their collective. 

Perhaps the most impressive thing about the 2024 Lynx was how little time they needed to do so. The chemistry forged in training camp manifested early-season success, and Reeve’s team never looked back. In 2025, the foundation has already been laid, and the Lynx can skip the icebreakers stage and get right to the good stuff. 

“As soon as the last game was over, all I’ve been thinking about is getting back with the team,” returning veteran Natisha Hiedeman told reporters during media day. “You know, picking up where we left off. We’ve had a lot of great energy in camp. Just coming back to so many familiar faces, we just feel like 10 steps ahead already.” 

The Lynx are bringing 89.6% of their minutes from 2024 into training camp, thanks to each of their seven top players in total minutes returning — no other team is even returning their top four. Italian sharpshooter Cecilia Zandalasini logged the eighth-most minutes (487) and was selected by the Golden State Valkyries in the expansion draft. Myisha Hines-Allen, who saw the ninth-most (230) in just 13 games after coming over in a deadline deal from Washington, departed for Dallas in the offseason. 

No other team in the league is returning as much production as the Lynx, and most of them don’t come close. It’s a luxury, but not a guarantee that things will swing the Lynx’s way once the games start counting.

“Our starting place is different than last year,” Reeve said. “This group formed its identity through training camp. We know our identity. So our starting place is obviously accelerated. Now, where are the places we can go to get even better? Because we can’t be exactly the same as we were last year. It’s not going to work. We can make no assumptions. It was hard work to form our identity, so we can make no assumptions about it’s just going to happen. We’ve got to understand [that] we’ve got to work for this team’s identity.”

Every season is different, but if the Lynx shoot the ball and defend the way they did last season, fans will be heading home from Target Center with smiles on their faces more often than not. The starting five is poised to be the same with Courtney Williams in the lead guard role (she has officially given media permission to call her a point guard now), flanked by Kayla McBride, Bridget Carleton and Alanna Smith holding down the post, all revolving around Collier and the gravity of her superstardom. 

While Collier won’t come out and declare that she’s chasing any personal accolades, her point guard has no problem saying the most prestigious individual honor in the league this season will be spelled ‘M-V-Phee.’ 

“Y’all about to see an MVP season,” Courtney Williams said to reporters on media day. “MVP season and go get a ring. She’s got everything she needs to go get it done, so if she don’t get it done, then that’s on her (laughter). It’s hers to lose, in my opinion. She’s got all the pieces around her that complement her super well. Like I said, we got that chemistry from last year, so it’s kind of like, ‘Girl, the ball is in your court now, you’ve just gotta put it in the basket.’” 

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New kids on the block

Minnesota is so spoiled in the familiarity department that even some of its new pieces have long histories with the existing ones. The splashiest move of the offseason for the Lynx came in the form of a draft day trade with the Mystics, sending their own first-round pick in next year’s draft to DC in exchange for Karlie Samuelson.

Samuelson adds another 3-point threat to a team that already has quite a few. A prime candidate to fill the void left by Zandalasini, Samuelson was a college teammate of Smith’s at Stanford, got to know Collier very well through her sister Katie Lou who played at UConn, just played with Carleton in Turkey, and got her first big contract from assistant coach Eric Thibault, who coached Karlie in Washington last year.

Needless to say, she’s fitting in already. 

“Oh man, I’ve been loving it. I mean, she’s a knockdown shooter,” Williams said on media day when asked about playing with Samuelson. “Anytime her defender gives her a step, it’s going up. She doesn’t hesitate either, and I love it. … She’s going to be a major key to what we’re doing.”

A player who’s parlayed several seven-day and hardship contracts into a long-term career, Samuelson is adept at fitting into a new team culture and finding ways to contribute right away.

“It’s interesting joining a team that was in the Finals last year,” Samuelson said. “I’m open for whatever role Cheryl needs. I just want to be someone that can be dependable [and] reliable. When I come in, I want to bring an energy on defense and a toughness that doesn’t drop from the first group. That’s my ultimate goal. Then, on offense, just do what I do and keep improving. I think that’s how you stay in the league, you get better every year.” 

Another contender for a roster spot is the experienced French post player Marième Badiane, who recently helped her new Lynx teammate Kayla McBride win a EuroLeague title for Fenerbahçe in Turkey, and helped France to a silver medal at the Paris Olympics. At 30 years old, she’s a global basketball veteran who would become one of the oldest WNBA rookies this century. 

Minnesota used its top pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft at No. 15 overall on Russian phenom Anastasiia Olairi Kosu, who just turned 20 and is currently finishing up her season abroad. It’s unclear if Kosu’s immigration status will be resolved in time for her to report to camp and have a shot at this year’s roster. 

Rounding out the roster

It will be interesting to see if the Lynx go with 11 or 12 players on their final roster after training camp. This will not be an easy team for anyone to make. 

The team has poured a lot of effort into the development of its last two first-round picks, Diamond Miller and Alissa Pili, and both will have the opportunity to break into the rotation. Longtime Lynx and fan-favorite post player Jessica Shepard is also back in Minnesota after missing last season to fulfill overseas commitments.

On draft night, Reeve told reporters that the trade for Samuelson was dictated by the goal of “getting back to the Finals and compet[ing] for a championship.” 

Every player on the team’s final 2025 roster will be there because the coaching staff believes that player can help ensure it’s the Lynx who are the ones celebrating as the confetti falls in mid-October, and avenge the heartbreak of last season — once and for all.