Caitlin Clark, #22, and Aliyah Boston, #7, of the Indiana Fever throughout a preseason recreation earlier this month. Collectively, the 2 back-to-back No. 1 draft picks hope to steer the Fever to their first playoff look since 2016.
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Caitlin Clark, #22, and Aliyah Boston, #7, of the Indiana Fever throughout a preseason recreation earlier this month. Collectively, the 2 back-to-back No. 1 draft picks hope to steer the Fever to their first playoff look since 2016.
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It is shaping as much as be a giant yr for the WNBA. The league’s opening night time comes on the heels of a record-breaking girls’s school basketball season throughout which extra folks watched the ladies’s title recreation than the lads’s.
Now, as a few of these school stars make their official WNBA debut as rookies — together with Iowa’s Caitlin Clark and LSU’s Angel Reese — the WNBA will tip off Tuesday hoping to seize that pleasure.
The WNBA is trying to construct on the success of its 2023 season, its most-watched in over 20 years, with viewership up 21% and attendance up 16% over 2022. And now, the league is trying towards growth in 2025 and 2026.
The common season will run by mid-September, with a break for the Paris Olympics in July and August, wherein dozens of gamers will compete. The playoffs will run from late September into October.
Here is what to look at for because the season will get underway this week:
Can anybody topple the Las Vegas Aces?
A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces walks on the courtroom throughout a coaching camp scrimmage at Las Vegas Aces Headquarters on Might 2 in Henderson, Nev. The Aces are the favorites to win the championship in 2024.
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A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces walks on the courtroom throughout a coaching camp scrimmage at Las Vegas Aces Headquarters on Might 2 in Henderson, Nev. The Aces are the favorites to win the championship in 2024.
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The Aces have gained the WNBA title two years working (and so they have been runner-up in 2020), that means this yr they’re in search of the three-peat. Led by the All-Star MVP A’ja Wilson, the Aces are the odds-on favorites to take the title but once more.
Their likeliest challenger is the New York Liberty, final yr’s runner-up. Their roster is stacked, led by two-time MVP and the league’s no. 2 scorer, Breanna Stewart, and level guard Courtney Vandersloot, who topped the league in assists per recreation final yr.
In distinction to the Liberty’s older roster, preserve your eyes on the Chicago Sky, who’ve put their chips on youthful gamers. Through the offseason, the Sky despatched away their main scorer as a part of a blockbuster commerce to web the No. 3 general draft decide. With that decide, they selected school star Kamilla Cardoso (who’s now out with an harm till at the very least June), and with their very own No. 7 decide they selected Reese. Now, the Sky will look to these rookies to carry the crew again to the Finals for the primary time since 2021.
Can Caitlin Clark assist flip across the Indiana Fever?
Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever appears on whereas enjoying the Dallas Wings throughout a preseason recreation at School Park Heart on Might 3 in Arlington, Texas.
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Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever appears on whereas enjoying the Dallas Wings throughout a preseason recreation at School Park Heart on Might 3 in Arlington, Texas.
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On the opposite finish of the spectrum are the Indiana Fever, who have not appeared within the playoffs since 2016, and their most up-to-date title, which got here in 2012, appears like historic historical past.
However their fortunes are altering. With the No. 1 general decide in April’s WNBA draft, the Fever chosen Caitlin Clark, the transcendent school guard who got here to the league straight from a championship recreation loss in her senior school season with Iowa. With Indiana, Clark joins the 2023 Rookie of the Yr, Aliyah Boston.
The joy round Clark’s rookie season has sparked a run on Fever season tickets and sellouts for different groups when the Fever are city. Some opponents, together with the Aces and the Washington Mystics, have moved house video games in opposition to the Fever to bigger venues to accommodate ticket gross sales.
That is plenty of pleasure for a crew that has misplaced 100 video games over the previous 4 seasons. However the WNBA is pleasant to groups making large turnarounds. The previous few groups to draft back-to-back No. 1 picks have all gained titles inside a couple of years. Odds are the Fever can do it too — the one query is: how shut can they get this yr?
Who will get charters, and who would not?
For years, WNBA gamers had complained in regards to the league’s coverage of business air journey for many common season away video games.
That is lastly set to vary. Final week, the WNBA introduced {that a} constitution journey program can be “phased in” starting with the beginning of this yr’s common season.
However not each crew will fly constitution straight away. This week, solely two groups are touring by constitution — together with Clark and the Fever, who have been seen having fun with the leather-based seats and legroom in a video posted to Instagram by guard Erica Wheeler.
Different groups touring this week glided by bus or business flight. That features the New York Liberty, who took a constitution bus to Washington, D.C., for his or her Tuesday recreation, mentioned Breanna Stewart, who can also be a WNBA gamers’ union vp.
That two of the league’s groups traveled by constitution was “a win,” Stewart wrote on social media. “It could be a bigger one if the [WNBA] allowed teams who were not offered League charters to secure their own until a full 12 team solution is ready.”
Growth is on the horizon
On Tuesday, the Golden State Warriors homeowners introduced the title of the Bay Space’s new WNBA crew: The Valkyries. The Warriors possession was awarded the brand new growth franchise final yr. The crew is about to start out enjoying subsequent season.
The Valkyries are the league’s first growth franchise since 2008, and so they’ll carry the overall variety of groups within the league to 13. A 14th crew is anticipated to return to Toronto in 2026, the CBC reported final week. A Toronto growth there would mark Canada’s first-ever WNBA crew, and it will likely be the biggest the league has been in additional than 20 years.
