Swish Appeal’s WNBA wishes for 2025

After a triumphant 2024, expectations are raised for the WNBA in 2025. Swish Appeal’s staff writers are adding to the W’s great expectations, sharing our WNBA wishes for 2025:

Dominique Malonga becomes a Valkyrie

Not many players sell tickets in women’s basketball like a center who can dunk off a spin move. Not many centers in women’s basketball can dunk off a spin move. Not many 19 year olds average 15 points per game while playing professional basketball in France, nor do many have an Olympic medal. Not many 6-foot-6 post players shoot 52.9 percent from 3.

Dominique Malonga is an anomaly in every sense of the word. Her explosiveness and power is torturing WNBA scouts and their ability to properly analyze international prospects in an environment that predominantly favors stateside NCAA success. Malonga would only be a freshman if she were playing in college, but there’s a legitimate, non-zero chance that she would be the best player in the country. I would go as far as to claim that if there was more film of her playing against American competition her age, Paige Bueckers would have some competition at the top of next years draft.

I can’t think of a better fit for Malonga than the newest WNBA franchise: the Golden State Valkyries. They need a star to market. The most noticeable gap in their post-expansion draft roster is at center. Malonga and the Bay feel like a match made in heaven.— Beckett Harrison

Give me all the Toronto Tempo content!

Okay, so the Toronto Tempo don’t actually join the WNBA until 2026, but this is going to be a fun year for the WNBA’s 14th franchise. In 2025, we will get merchandise for the Tempo. We’ll get announcements about the general manager and coaching staff. We likely will see what the uniforms and facilities will look like. The year also will feature a second-straight expansion draft.

It will be a fun year of preparation in anticipation for Canada’s first WNBA team, and I just want all the content! Give me the merch, give me players to root for, give me a coach and a vision! It will also be fun to see the Golden State Valkyries enter the league and navigate their inaugural season goes; it could be a preview into what to expect a year later in Toronto. — Chelsea Leite

The good vibes return to the Chicago Sky

Can the Chicago Sky catch a break? Ever since getting eliminated in the 2022 WNBA Playoffs, the Sky have taken hit after hit, losing most of their best players in free agency and the rest to trades that the players themselves requested. Chicago has also been on a coaching carousel, including James Wade leaving midseason to join the NBA’s Toronto Raptors in 2023 and WNBA legend Teresa Weatherspoon getting fired after just one year at the helm in 2024.

Though the Sky have been in the spotlight often since drafting Kamilla Cardoso and Angel Reese, it hasn’t always been for the right reasons. Most notably, the franchise continues to lag behind most others in the WNBA in establishing a dedicated practice facility (the Sky just broke ground at the facility’s anticipated location in October, and it isn’t expected to be finished until 2026), and that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to reasons why Chicago is rarely the destination of choice for top-tier free agents. Simply put, the gap between the Sky as an organization and most others in the WNBA continues to widen, and it’s becoming more and more noticeable as the league itself grows.

None of this is news to longtime Sky fans, though. The diehards continue to show up despite the dysfunction; in fact, Chicago enjoyed its best attendance ever in 2024 (Across the Timeline), and as long as it retains such recognizable names on its roster, that number should hold steady. But will all those fans be rewarded for their loyalty? Here’s hoping the good vibes return to Chicago in 2025. — Eric Nemchock

Can the Sparks make the postseason?

The Los Angeles Sparks are currently in their worst era of basketball. That’s not hyperbole; all the data backs up that claim. They have missed the postseason for four-straight years, their longest drought in franchise history, and are coming off the worst winning percentage ever, with LA winning just 20 percent of their games in 2024. However, the night is darkest just before dawn, and rays of optimism are rising in Los Angeles.

Dearica Hamby had a career year with the Sparks and will be back in 2025. Rickea Jackson made the All-Rookie team and Cameron Brink should make a triumphant return from her ACL injury, giving the team an elite defender to pair with Hamby and Jackson. The Sparks also have the No. 2 pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft, which probably won’t bring superstar Paige Bueckers to LA but should result in a quality player who can impact winning immediately. Add in a new head coach with Lynne Roberts getting the job after Curt Miller and the franchise parted ways, and suddenly, a postseason appearance is not a wild expectation.

Still, words are one thing, and execution is another. This franchise is too important and in too big of a market to be as bad as they’ve been. It’s inexcusable in Los Angeles, and fans in Southern California will ignore this team if they don’t start improving. I hope they finally show tangible improvement with more wins in 2025 than in the past four years. — Edwin Garcia

The Aces play their cards right

The Las Vegas Aces began the 2024 season motivated to win a third-straight championship and cement their legacy even further into the WNBA record books. But sometimes, a step backward is inevitable. For the Aces, that was very much the case.

The team came into last season not quite looking like the Aces most of us were accustomed to. Key players like Chelsea Gray were injured. There was controversy about the $100,000 sponsorship bonuses each player received from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. They couldn’t string together wins. And for once, they looked like they felt the heat all around them. The champions who couldn’t be defeated looked…defeated, even with A’ja Wilson stringing together one of the most legendary seasons in all of sports history. It just wasn’t enough to catapult Vegas back to their throne.

With the longest off-season break they’ve had in years, the pressure on the team has died down, their depth is replenishing and their health seems to be top-tier. The Aces have all the keys to reclaim what is theirs. So, will they do it in 2025? — Myke Horrell

Every playoff team finishes .500 or better

WNBA expansion has, finally, arrived. We’ve been waiting, and we’re ready! But, is the WNBA ready?

While the league’s limited number of roster spots has resulted in believed-to-be-promising players getting cut on a yearly basis, an excess of league-ready players hasn’t translated into an excess of high-quality teams in the league. Last season, the Atlanta Dream stumbled in the playoffs with a record 10 games below .500. In 2023, only half of the eight playoff teams finished above .500.

The dawn of the WNBA’s superteam era has resulted in increased disparity between true title contenders and mediocre also-rans, with too many of the latter. Possibly, the aggression that more than half of the league’s teams have shown since the end of the 2024 season—with an absurd seven coaching changes!—will produce a more competitive league landscape in 2025. The new CBA, to be negotiated by Oct. 31, 2025, could also reset the league’s competitive balance. But if not, with the Golden State Valkyries entering the league this season and the Toronto Tempo and to-be-named Portland franchise joining in 2026, the gap between the haves and have-nots could get uglier.

Seeing every playoff team finish with a .500 or better record in 2025 would assuage these concerns, confirming that the league is ready not just to be bigger, but also better. — Cat Ariail