Our experts' takes from the opening WNBA weekend

New York Times

21-05-2025

We might be less than a week into the 2025 WNBA season, but opening weekend already delivered plenty of drama, excitement and storylines for our reporters to dive into.
On the latest episode of 'No Offseason,',Zena Keita, Ben Pickman and Sabreena Merchant dished out their 'half-baked takes' from the early games.
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Watch the discussion below.
A partial transcript has been edited for clarity and length. The full episode is available on the 'No Offseason' feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Keita: The WNBA season is officially underway, and we have got some early takes and overreactions — we're calling it our 'half-baked' takes. Guys, I want to know your best half-baked take after opening weekend. Ben, you're going to go first, and Sabreena, we'll see if this one's worth eating. (laughs)
Pickman: My take is a broad one, and it's that the WNBA's middle tier, which we were so high on in thinking many teams were going to be really competitive because there was so much stacked talent around the league, is actually just not as good as we thought. There are four really good teams in the WNBA, and then there's a huge gap between (them) and the rest. I have the first four being New York, Las Vegas, Minnesota and Indiana, in no particular order. And I'm just going to throw out some quick facts on some of the other teams.
The Seattle Storm had a really underwhelming performance with Gabby Williams and Ezi Magbegor shooting 2-of-18 from the field. Atlanta took a franchise record 36 3-pointers in their opener against Washington, but didn't really execute down the stretch. Clearly, they have a lot to learn and figure out, especially on the defensive end of the floor in Karl Smesko's first year. Phoenix had a great win over the Storm, but Kahleah Copper is out with a knee injury, and she's going to miss four to six weeks to start the season, so that doesn't exactly inspire confidence in a team that already doesn't have a ton of depth.
The Chicago Sky shot 29.1 percent from the field, 22 percent from 3, and had 17 turnovers. I get that they were playing the Fever, but it still wasn't a great performance. And with the Dallas Wings, I understand they have a lot of new players, and we're giving them time. But one of the things that stuck out to me is that there were eight times in that game, per Synergy, that they got scored off cuts. If you look at Minnesota, they were just slicing through back door, baseline cuts and slicing through the paint. So especially defensively, Dallas has a lot of room to grow.
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Those were some of the teams people were really high on when they thought, 'Wow, every team is going to be so close and maybe someone can jump into that next tier.' But I came away thinking, 'Not so fast, maybe we still have a big gap between the legitimate finals contenders and everybody else.'
Keita: If you're watching this on YouTube, you're seeing me wince. And if you're not watching this on YouTube, I hope you can feel me wince. Mainly because Ben just went through three teams that we all said were sleepers, and they showed up looking a little half asleep. It was a rough opening for some of these teams, and I was disappointed in Seattle because it still looks like they haven't really figured it out on defense. I was also a little disappointed in how Dominique Malonga looked because of all the expectations we had out of the No.2 overall pick. But we'll see what happens there as the season goes on.
Merchant: In fairness to us, we did say that there was a big gap between tier one and tier two in the WNBA, and that gap was apparent. You're not going to pick a sleeper team from tier one, … shame on us for no one picking Washington (laughs). But when given the choice of those teams, you do what you've got to do.
Half-baked is a good word for my take here. Which is I think it's low-key a good thing for Phoenix that Kahleah Copper is going to be missing the first month of the season, because they have so many new things to integrate and to do it all at once would be a little challenging. I like the way they looked where you got the Alyssa Thomas minutes, you got the Satou Sabally minutes, and each of them just got to cook. … We're really going in on those words. But I think it'll be better in the long term to get those superstars more time on the court where they get to be the lead actor versus bringing all three of them in together.
Keita: OK, interesting, I was not expecting that. Ben, what do you think about Sabreena's half-baked take?
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Pickman: The benefit is that it allows these role players who may not have a ton of WNBA experience to actually settle in, get more comfortable, get live game reps and adjust to the WNBA. We saw Kathryn Westbeld making her WNBA debut as a 29-year-old rookie, having never played in the WNBA before. And she scored nine points, made an early impact in the first quarter, and had five rebounds. And Lexi Held had 11 points in 22 minutes off the bench for Phoenix. So there are players who are big question marks who are forced into bigger roles and will gain valuable experience, so there's truth there.
I do think it felt comfortable to watch the Phoenix Mercury without Kahleah Copper, in that it felt like we were watching Alyssa Thomas from the Connecticut Sun. Satou Sabally was also playing a little point guard, bringing the ball up the court and orchestrating the offense, and Thomas was doing the same at times when Sabally wasn't on the floor. Those players know how to play those roles, and in that way, the comfort is good. But I don't know how much that will impact the reintegration of Copper when she comes back. And when she does come back, there's still going to be a lot they have to figure out because although she's a very good player, she's a very high usage player who will have to fit in next to them.
The other thing — and this is why this is a half-baked exercise — is that they played the Seattle Storm, who put up a real stinker with just 59 points. So let's wait and see a little bit on the Phoenix Mercury. I'm not ready to give a stamp of approval on my take yet, so I'm not ready to say, let's take this out of the oven, it's ready to go, on Sabreena's take either.
You can listen to full episodes of No Offseason for free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and watch on YouTube.