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    What to Know About the 2023 WNBA Season

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    New superteams, new rules and Brittney Griner’s return are reshaping the league as star rookies try to make their mark.The W.N.B.A. begins its 27th season on Friday with new rules, new rosters and one big return. Here’s what to expect.Brittney Griner is back.After nearly 10 months in detention in Russia, Brittney Griner is playing basketball again.Griner’s detention clouded the W.N.B.A. season last year. She was arrested at an airport near Moscow on drug charges in February 2022, and subsequently convicted and sentenced to nine years in a penal colony. The league regularly paid tribute to her during the season, and her fellow players spoke out on her behalf.Brittney Griner is back with the Phoenix Mercury on a one-year contract after missing the 2022 season while she was detained in Russia.Matt York/Associated PressGriner was released in a prisoner swap in December, and after time spent recovering privately, she signed a one-year contract to return to the Phoenix Mercury.Griner played no basketball during her imprisonment and is still working to get back into game shape. “Everybody tells me to give myself grace and that it’s going to take time,” she said at a news conference in April, “but that’s the hardest thing to do for a pro athlete because we always want to be right back at our top shape.”Griner and the Mercury open their season on Friday in Los Angeles against the Sparks.Star players are joining forces.The off-season was dominated by free-agent signings and trades that established what could be two superteams: the Liberty and the Las Vegas Aces.The Liberty made three key moves: First, they traded with the Connecticut Sun for Jonquel Jones, the league’s most valuable player in 2021. Then they landed one of the top free agents: Breanna Stewart, the 2018 M.V.P., who had won two championships in Seattle. Finally, they signed the league’s active assists leader, Courtney Vandersloot. Those three join the returnees Betnijah Laney and Sabrina Ionescu, who have each made an All-Star team.Breanna Stewart was one of the top free agents. She had been with the Seattle Storm since she was drafted No. 1 overall in 2016.Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesThe reigning champion Aces already featured an impressive collection of talent: last year’s M.V.P., A’ja Wilson (who also won in 2020); Chelsea Gray, the 2022 finals M.V.P.; and their fellow All-Stars, Jackie Young and Kelsey Plum. And then they went and signed Candace Parker, the two-time M.V.P., two-time champion and seven-time All-Star. They also picked up the veteran Alysha Clark, who won two titles with Seattle.The rest of the league isn’t backing down from the superteams. “In the best movies, the underdog ends up on top,” Elena Delle Donne of the Washington Mystics told reporters this month.But still, the Aces and Liberty are far and away the betting favorites to win it all.Rookies look to make their mark.Some of the newest W.N.B.A. players are just weeks removed from finishing their college careers. How they make that transition will be crucial to the fortunes of their new teams.Aliyah Boston was the obvious choice of the Indiana Fever as the No. 1 overall pick in the April draft. Boston, who led South Carolina to a national title in 2022 and back to the Final Four this year, is expected to be a franchise cornerstone for the Fever as they rebuild. Though the competition she faces will be tougher in the W.N.B.A., Boston should be able to score more easily without facing the same double and triple teams she saw in college.With this year’s No. 2 pick, Minnesota drafted Diamond Miller, who led Maryland with nearly 20 points a game in the 2022-23 season. Miller is a versatile and athletic wing who should pair well with Napheesa Collier.Haley Jones, the No. 6 pick in the draft, was a leader for four years at Stanford, including the Cardinals’ 2021 title run. She slots in well on an Atlanta Dream team looking for more playmakers.New rules will add new wrinkles.The league also updated its rule book this off-season.W.N.B.A. coaches will now be able to challenge one — and only one — call per game. Coaches can ask for reviews on three kinds of calls: a foul called on their team, an out-of-bounds call, or a violation for goaltending or basket interference. Coaches will be limited to one challenge even if the challenge is successful, and even if the game goes to overtime.W.N.B.A. coaches, like Seattle’s Noelle Quinn, will have one challenge per game this season as part of series of rule changes.Steph Chambers/Getty ImagesOfficials may also now penalize players for committing a foul during a fast break without making a legitimate play on the ball. For this, a transition take foul, the offensive team will be awarded one free throw, which can be taken by any player on the floor, and the offensive team will keep control of the ball.The W.N.B.A. also has new guidelines governing sideline behavior. In an effort to limit disruptions and distractions, the league is telling players who are not in the game that they may not stand “for a prolonged period.” Players and coaches are also prohibited from “attempting to distract their opponents in an unsportsmanlike manner.” Teams could receive a delay-of-game warning or a technical foul for a violation. More

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      The Liberty Took a Few Jets and a Boat to Become a Superteam

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      Clara Wu Tsai and Joe Tsai, the Liberty owners, improved their facilities and chartered flights, drawing a W.N.B.A. fine — and enticing top free agents.In January, Clara Wu Tsai flew to Turkey on a trip that altered the balance of power in the W.N.B.A.Wu Tsai, who owns the Liberty with her husband, Joe Tsai, went there to chase Breanna Stewart, the off-season’s most coveted free agent. Accompanied by her team’s coach and general manager, Wu Tsai pitched Stewart in the middle of her Euroleague season with a team in Istanbul.But Wu Tsai left the rest of the team’s brass behind as she made the final push. She rented an 80-foot tour boat and took Stewart, Stewart’s wife, Marta Xargay, and the couple’s 1-year-old daughter, Ruby, for a cruise. Gliding through the Bosporus, Wu Tsai reeled in Stewart, the two-time league most valuable player, with questions.“It was just her curiosity that grabbed me,” Stewart told me during an interview this month. “She wanted to know what I needed, what we needed as players, to perform at our best. I could see she wanted to improve the league as much as I do.”After days of cryptic tweets, Stewart announced on Feb. 1 that she would join a Liberty roster that had also added Jonquel Jones, the 2021 league M.V.P., to play alongside guard Sabrina Ionescu, a 2022 All-Star. The four-time All-Star guard Courtney Vandersloot inked with the team the day after Stewart, forming a megateam built to contend with the defending champion Las Vegas Aces — a supersquad in its own right that added the two-time M.V.P. Candace Parker this off-season.“Having a lot of players go to different teams is great because it’s shaking things up where we’re not just in this continuous track, running over and over, playing for the same teams,” Stewart said. “It’s creating a buzz. But there’s something more. Free agency also adds pressure on the owners to compete for us.”The Tsais, whose multibillion dollar wealth comes primarily from Joe’s leadership role with the Chinese tech giant Alibaba, sit at the forefront of the W.N.B.A.’s free-agent arms race, where players enjoy the attention of a group of team owners eager to invest.The former league M.V.P.’s Breanna Stewart, left, and Jonquel Jones joined the Liberty in the off-season, as did the four-time All-Star guard Courtney Vandersloot.Sarah Gordon/The Day, via Associated PressIn Atlanta, the Dream’s Larry Gottesdiener, founder of a real estate private equity firm, said he planned to spend $100 million to turn the team into a success. Mark Davis, who also owns the N.F.L.’s Las Vegas Raiders, recently built a 64,000-square-foot training facility for the Aces and last season signed Coach Becky Hammon to a record contract worth $1 million annually. (On Tuesday, the W.N.B.A. suspended Hammon for two games for comments she made to the All-Star forward Dearica Hamby about her pregnancy, which the league said violated its policy on respect in the workplace. The league also rescinded the team’s 2025 for first-round draft pick for promising Hamby impermissible benefits during contract negotiations.)When the Tsais bought the Liberty in 2019, the team had bottomed out during the last stages of James Dolan’s ownership. The franchise had made the finals in three of the W.N.B.A.’s first four seasons but was pushed out of Madison Square Garden to the 2,300-seat Westchester County Center for 2017 and ’18.After moving the team to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, which the Tsais own and where their other team — the N.B.A.’s Nets — also play, the couple set out to give the Liberty amenities equal to their male counterparts. There’s an eight-person performance staff — multiple trainers, a sports psychologist and a nutritionist. An in-house chef prepares meals before and after practices and games. Players recover in brand-new hot and cold therapy tubs.Like every other team in the W.N.B.A., the Liberty fly commercial to away games for most of the season. They huddle in cramped seats and endure delays, transfers and cancellations like the rest of us.Tsai bristled at the limitation. So in 2021, he paid for the Liberty to use private jets, then shielded that fact from the league until the team was caught. The result: a $500,000 fine, the biggest in league history. Perhaps not unrelated: In 2021, the Liberty made the playoffs for the first time in five years and then repeated that feat in 2022.The fine was steep, but a point was made by the Tsais, loud and clear: Travel conditions must evolve. For now, the league has settled on a partial change, allowing teams to charter flights for the playoffs and a small number of games during the regular season.It was a key point of agreement for Wu Tsai and Stewart during that nautical conversation. Stewart, a vice president of the players’ union, has also been one of the league’s most vocal proponents for chartered flights, a factor she said played into her free agency decision.Over coffee at a Manhattan restaurant in early May, Wu Tsai — a self-described “hoop head” who grew up in Lawrence, Kan. — said she sees in Stewart a kindred spirit. “It was clear our interests were aligned on the potential” for lifting the Liberty and changing the W.N.B.A., Wu Tsai said.Asked about the travel contretemps with the league, Wu Tsai paused, drew a breath, and measured her comments carefully. “I don’t think you can put your best product on the floor if you’re not really focused on health and wellness,” she said, declining to elaborate.The Tsais, it must be noted, have a complex history. Few team owners in any sport have given as much support to social justice, including $50 million to boost economically distressed communities following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. But Alibaba has been criticized for business ties with Chinese companies said to violate human rights in China. And Tsai once called pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong a “separatist movement,” echoing language from Beijing.The world of sports is hardly immune from contradiction.What can also be said of the Tsais is that support for how they are advancing conditions in the league is widespread among players. The charter planes issue is perhaps the most salient litmus test. Stewart, for one, would play only for a team that is doing all it can to push on the issue until it becomes a reality all season long.She is not alone.“Two things can be true at once,” Jones said. “You can look at it and see what they did with those charters as definitely an unfair advantage. And you also can step back and be like, ‘Wow, at least they were making sure their players were taken care of.’ The Tsais sent a signal, a strong signal, of how much this means to them.”“They treat us as the professionals we are.” More

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      Chicago Sky Silence Liberty Crowd With Game 3 Win

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      The Chicago Sky had to play the decisive game of their first-round series against the Liberty on the road — unusual for a team tied for the best record in the W.N.B.A.As the public address announcer at Barclays Center called the names of the Chicago Sky starters, the deafening boos of the white-knuckled Liberty fans filling the stands drowned out his voice.Boos are typical for any team playing in an opposing arena but uncommon for one like the Sky, who tied for the league’s best record in the regular season and, on this night, were in the decisive game of a playoff series against a team that sneaked into the playoffs as the seventh seed. Home-court advantage in big moments is supposed to be the reward for having a better record. Not this time.The W.N.B.A. switched playoff formats this season, replacing a single-elimination opening round with best-of-three series that put the lower seed at home in Game 3. Sky Coach James Wade has said that he is “not a fan of it at all.”Still, the raucous environment didn’t seem to bother the No. 2-seeded Sky on Tuesday. With the boos raining down, the starters went through their special handshake routines with guard Kahleah Copper, then propelled Chicago to a 90-72 victory over the Liberty in Game 3 to win their first-round series. The Sky advanced to the semifinals, where they will play the winner of Wednesday night’s matchup between the Connecticut Sun and the Dallas Wings.Chicago won its first-ever championship last season and, with a win this year, would be the first W.N.B.A. team to repeat since the Los Angeles Sparks in 2002.On Tuesday, Copper and guard Allie Quigley led the Sky with 15 points apiece, and forward Candace Parker added a near triple-double with 14 points, 13 rebounds and 8 assists. Betnijah Laney led the Liberty with 15 points.Quigley said the crowd energy played a role in the game and that she wished the Sky could have hosted the first and final games, instead of the first two. “I do remember the crowd at one point and just all the towels flying, and I’m like, ‘All right, we’ve got to figure it out,’” Quigley said with a laugh.Sabrina Ionescu, the Liberty’s All-Star guard, didn’t have much of an impact in the first three quarters, with just 9 points. But even with her low-scoring output, the Liberty were only down 10 points after the third quarter. When the final period began, Ionescu attacked the basket and scored 2 points while drawing a foul. She missed the free throw, but collected the rebound a few steps behind the 3-point line and launched the ball, scoring again.The 3-pointer sent the crowd into a frenzy. The Sky called a timeout, and fans swung Liberty towels in the air and roared. After Wade addressed the team, Parker huddled with her teammates and spoke emphatically before the group returned to the floor.Parker missed a 3-pointer out of the timeout, and the Liberty got the rebound. Laney hit a layup to cut the Sky lead to 3, reigniting the crowd. But the run ended there. The Sky scored 16 unanswered points, which effectively ended the game.The Sky fell apart in Game 1, losing after the Liberty went on a 13-0 run in the fourth quarter. But Chicago has played like a different team since.“I think we saw a version of ourselves that we fell in love with,” Copper said, “and that we want to grow on, and there’s just no going back.”The Sky set a W.N.B.A. playoff record for the largest margin of victory with a 38-point win against the Liberty in Game 2.“We done set the tone, so anything under that is just unacceptable,” Copper said. “We know how we want to play, and we know what we’re capable of. And that’s what we’re going to do.”Despite the 18-point margin of victory in Game 3, the win didn’t come easily, even from the start. The Liberty responded to most of the Sky’s scores early, keeping the game tight for much of the first quarter.Copper, who willed the Sky to their Game 2 victory, helped Chicago stay ahead in the first quarter with a steal and 6 points that included a tough layup over the outstretched arms of multiple Liberty defenders. Sky guards Courtney Vandersloot and Quigley helped extend the lead with 21 of the Sky’s 54 points in the first half. Vandersloot also had four assists in the first half.Liberty Coach Sandy Brondello said “the more experienced team won tonight.” But she was proud of how her team bounced back from the 38-point loss in Game 2 and is looking forward to improving next season, she said.“Even when we were losing, we thought we were getting better,” Brondello said. She added: “I think with a few extra players, we can be more aggressive, and that will help us moving forward.”Liberty forward Natasha Howard, who had 14 points and 11 rebounds, said she was impressed with how the team remained focused despite losing games and dealing with the many “ups and downs” of the 2022 season. Laney, who missed most of the season with a knee injury, echoed Howard.“I think we grew a lot individually and as a team,” Laney said, “and that’s what it’s going to take. It’s going to take a team to come out and get to the goal we want.” More

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      At 36, Candace Parker Posts a Triple-Double, a W.N.B.A. Rarity

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      The Chicago Sky player became the third W.N.B.A. player to have multiple triple-doubles in a career. It was only the 11th one in the league’s 26 seasons, and she was the oldest to do it.Retirement may have been on Candace Parker’s mind before this season, but on the court she is showing no signs of being done.Parker on Sunday became the third player in W.N.B.A. history to record multiple triple-doubles in a career, finishing with 16 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists in the Chicago Sky’s 82-73 win over the Washington Mystics. At 36 years 33 days old, Parker is the oldest player to record a triple-double in the league.She completed the triple-double in the final minute with an assist to Courtney Vandersloot, who last year joined Sheryl Swoopes as the only player in league history with more than one triple-double. Vandersloot’s effort, only the second postseason triple-double in W.N.B.A. history — Swoopes had the first — helped Chicago beat top-seeded Connecticut in a semifinal series.“She was adamant about me getting my 10th assist,” Parker said of Vandersloot in her postgame news conference. “So you know that’s why I love this group. You know, I think we play for another, we get hype for others’ successes and we celebrate it, and I think that’s huge.”Parker nearly went out as a champion last year. After playing 13 seasons with the Los Angeles Sparks, she returned to her home state and helped deliver a W.N.B.A. title to the Sky. But her daughter, Lailaa, persuaded her to play in 2022, Parker said in an interview with Kristen Ledlow on NBA TV’s “WNBA Weekly.” Through five games, Parker is averaging 14 points and 8 rebounds and shooting 49.1 percent from the field.Parker’s feat Sunday is all the more impressive given the scarcity of triple-doubles in W.N.B.A. history: Sunday was the 11th in the league’s 26 seasons. The Liberty’s Sabrina Ionescu became the youngest player to record a triple-double last season.With two college national titles at Tennessee, two Olympic gold medals and two W.N.B.A. titles, Parker has won at every level, and her Chicago team looks poised to contend again this year. The Sky retained much of last year’s roster, including Kahleah Copper, the 2021 finals most valuable player who made her season debut Sunday, and they added Emma Meesseman, who won finals M.V.P. in 2019 with Washington.Chicago prevailed Sunday in a matchup featuring two Most Valuable Player Award winners: Parker (2008 and 2013) and Washington’s Elena Delle Donne (2015 and 2019). Delle Donne finished with 17 points, 7 rebounds and 3 steals. Six Chicago players, including Copper and Meesseman, finished in double figures. More

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      Sky Bring Hoops Championship Buzz Back to Chicago

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      Sky forward Kahleah Copper’s hot shooting against the Mercury in Game 3 of the W.N.B.A. finals has the team one win away from its first title.CHICAGO — It has been more than 23 years since Michael Jordan stole the ball from Utah Jazz forward Karl Malone, drove the length of the court and nailed a jumper to give his Chicago Bulls a 1-point win in Game 6 of the N.B.A. finals. The unforgettable sequence secured the Bulls’ sixth championship and had Chicago fans reveling in a shared moment of pride.It has been a while since this city’s pro hoops fans have known that feeling, but the W.N.B.A.’s Sky have kept them familiar with high-stakes basketball.Draped in blue and yellow jerseys Friday night, eager Chicago fans packed into Wintrust Arena to watch the Sky take on the Phoenix Mercury in Game 3 of the W.N.B.A. finals.The city’s yearning for a championship manifested in the atmosphere. Fans swirled towels above their heads during the Sky’s player introductions. They booed and heckled Mercury players every possession. And they roared and bounced up and down all over the arena with every made Chicago basket. Every. Single. One.Late in the game, after Chicago was well on its way to an 86-50 victory that would put the Sky one win away from clinching their first championship in franchise history, a Sky fan yelled “better luck next year” at the Mercury players on the court.By the fourth quarter, both teams had already subbed out their starters. “Sky in four” chants erupted as Chicago’s bench entered, making one reality clear: Chicago is, again, ready for a championship moment.Game 4 is Sunday in Chicago. The Sky lead the best-of-five series, two games to one.“I really feel Chicago. I really feel it,” Sky Coach James Wade said after Friday’s game. “The way they came out and supported, you can feel the passion that they have. It just gives us more passion. Hopefully we can see the same things Sunday, and we can all celebrate together.”Chicago’s ability to rely on its stars’ strengths has the team on the verge of a title. Candace Parker’s vocal leadership on both ends of the floor. Guard Courtney Vandersloot’s skill in finding open teammates and facilitating the offense (she had 10 assists on Friday). And Chicago has increasingly relied on forward Kahleah Copper’s athleticism, the way she blows past defenders and how she takes advantage of one-on-one matchups — skills that have made her one of the most impactful players in the finals.The sixth-seeded Sky used a dominant team defensive performance and a statement game from Copper to gain potentially series-clinching momentum in Game 3, after upsetting the fifth-seeded Mercury in Game 1 and falling short in overtime in Game 2. They tied a W.N.B.A. finals record for the largest lead at halftime (22), set the record for largest margin of victory in a finals game (36) and held the Mercury to 25.8 percent shooting on the night.Parker, who is from the Chicago suburb Naperville and signed with the Sky after 13 seasons with the Los Angeles Sparks, had 13 points, 3 assists and 4 rebounds.Copper scored 20 of her 22 points in the first half as the Sky pulled away early, eliciting deafening roars from the home crowd, which included the Chicago native Chance the Rapper, N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver and Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields.“The one thing that probably doesn’t get talked about as much — her competitiveness,” Wade said of Copper. “That’s what it takes to get to the next level. We used to see it every day, even when she wasn’t playing as much. So it’s no surprise to us because we know what we have in her. Now she’s letting the world know. It’s just who she is.”Mercury Coach Sandy Brondello said after the game that Phoenix simply could not handle Copper, who was 6 of 10 from the floor.“We allowed her to sweep and go baseline way too much,” Brondello said. “When she’s shooting it from outside, you’ve got to give up something, don’t you? And she was making it. She had a really good game, and obviously that took the life out of us a little bit.”The scoring of Phoenix’s Big Three, Diana Taurasi, Brittney Griner and Skylar Diggins-Smith, has kept the team alive in critical games throughout the postseason. They combined for 56 points in the decisive Game 5 of the semifinals against the Las Vegas Aces. Now, even after an unusually poor shooting night against the Sky in Game 3 — they were a combined 10-for-36 from the field — they can be the key to keeping the Mercury’s season alive Sunday.Teams this postseason, and during most of the regular season, have had few answers for Griner’s dominance under the basket. She is a nightmare one-on-one matchup in the low post, and has gotten better at passing out of double teams to find open teammates on the perimeter.The Sky crowded Griner early, though, and held her to just 4 points in the second half Friday, for a total of 16 after she had scored a career-playoff high 29 in Game 2.When she got open looks, “she just missed them,” Brondello said. “They played in her space a little bit more. I think in the second half, you saw she went to the right hook.”Brondello added later, “She’s still someone we need to get the ball to as much as possible.”Mercury center Brittney Griner, left, defending Candace Parker. Griner was the only Phoenix player to score in double digits, with 16 points.Paul Beaty/Associated PressPhoenix last won the league title in 2014, when it defeated the Sky for its third championship in franchise history. This time, both teams have had a difficult path to the finals. The Sky finished the regular season with a 16-16 record, and few pegged them to make the finals. The Mercury limped into the postseason on a three-game losing streak, plagued by injuries.Could Sunday mark the end of an unlikely playoff run for both teams?With her head lowered in a postgame news conference and Taurasi sitting to her left, Diggins-Smith summed up what the Mercury have to do to extend the series and send it back to Phoenix.“Charge it to the game,” Diggins-Smith said, indicating Phoenix’s need to quickly move past Friday’s disappointing performance and refocus.“We didn’t lose the series tonight.” More