WNBA trade deadline: Lynx load up for another Finals push, Mystics stockpile for the future

Yahoo

3 days ago

Watch out for Minnesota, New York and ... Washington?
The 2025 WNBA trade deadline passed on Thursday, delivering a clear picture of which teams are buying into their postseason hopes and which are packing it in to head home. Minnesota and New York are clear winners, though only the Lynx made a trade. The reigning champion Liberty aided their repeat hopes in typical superteam fashion, winning the free agent sweepstakes for Emma Meesseman over their Midwest foes.
Six of the top seven teams in the standings as of the 3 p.m. ET deadline made some sort of in-season move to bolster their roster. The Storm, sitting in sixth, traded for All-Star guard Brittney Sykes in an effort to reach deep into the postseason. Phoenix (signed DeWanna Bonner in July), Indiana (signed Aari McDonald in June) and Las Vegas (traded for NaLyssa Smith in June) made moves far ahead of the deadline to complete their rosters.
No team made more deliberate future-facing decisions than the Mystics in head coach Sydney Johnson and general manager Jamila Wideman's first season. Cruising into uncertain terrain while the WNBA Players Association (WNBPA) and league negotiate a collective bargaining agreement (CBA), the Mystics are doubling down on their commitment to a methodical rebuild.
Mystics stay the course, build for future
In addition to retaining all of their young rostered talent — a significant boost as most veteran players are unrestricted free agents in 2026 and there will be a two-team expansion draft — the Mystics continued to stockpile draft picks. Not even a potential playoff spot deterred them. That they could sneak into the postseason field is a luxury, not a need. Their eyes are steadfast on championships down the road.
But there was one exception to their hold on youth: Aaliyah Edwards, the franchise's sixth overall pick in the 2024 draft. The 6-foot-3 power forward fell out of the rotation, taking a diminished role in a strong pack of young frontcourt options.
Rather than leaving her unprotected for Toronto or Portland to claim in the expansion draft, or working a trade in an unpredictable offseason, the Mystics jump-started the development of a different young player under contract. They traded Edwards to Connecticut, where she starred for UConn, hours before the deadline in exchange for second-year guard Jacy Sheldon.
Known first for her defensive intensity, Sheldon adds offensive spacing and a perimeter shooting game to a team ranking 10th in 3-point efficiency. And Washington has the right to swap first-round picks with the Sun. The picks belong to Minnesota and New York, the league's best teams on a collision course for the Finals. Even moving one spot higher is a win.
The Mystics will enter the 2026 free agency period with one of the most secure and least expensive rosters of the pack. They'll return rookie All-Stars Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen, as well as guards Lucy Olsen and Georgia Amoore (ACL injury).
Even though the salary cap will assuredly change in the new CBA, the total salaries are a bottom-barrel bargain of $383,534. It's even more of a steal considering the salaries and salary caps will rise significantly past the current player supermax of $256,000 and cap of $1.55 million the CBA had scheduled for 2027.
They can also choose to keep forward Shakira Austin should they want to pay the bill. Austin is a restricted free agent under the current CBA, allowing the Mystics to match any team's offer.
The 2027 WNBA draft class will be another coup for the Mystics. They have three first-round picks, two second-round picks and one third. Their first-rounder will be in the lottery range for a class that features projected top-three picks UCLA center Lauren Betts, UConn shooting guard Azzi Fudd and TCU point guard Olivia Miles. The class also includes shooting guards Flau'jae Johnson (LSU), Ta'Niya Latson (FSU) and Ashlon Jackson (Duke).
The pick the Mystics acquired from the Storm in the Sykes trade will likely land in the middle, and the Lynx pick from the preseason Katie Lou Samuelson trade at the end. With two more teams in the league, it's more likely than ever that draft picks taken in the later rounds can stick on a roster.
The Mystics both packed it up and bought it. Their work now could set them up in future years to add a late Finals game-changer at the deadline, as Minnesota did this week.
Lynx level up to New York
Cheryl Reeve, the longest tenured head coach in the league and the Lynx president of basketball operations, added another feather to her illustrious cap this week. Her season-changing move on Sunday for DiJonai Carrington cost the franchise essentially nothing, while setting them up to potentially win everything.
The reigning Most Improved Player with a penchant for 'seatbelt' defense joined a squad already running away with the No. 1 seed. The Lynx were 5½ games ahead of New York at the deadline.
The addition came on the heels of losing out on Meesseman and allowing the Liberty's three starting guards to score a combined 57 points, shooting 50%, in their first meeting on July 30. Those are untenable numbers in a playoff series should the Finals rematch come to pass. And it came without Meesseman or Breanna Stewart in the lineup.
Carrington's defense will be a 'crazy game changer,' as Courtney Williams described it this week, in that New York series. Williams' praise came after Carrington held Storm point guard Skylar Diggins near a season-low in the Lynx win on Tuesday. Chipping in double-digit points on 70% shooting is a plus.
Once Napheesa Collier returns from an ankle injury, Minnesota is a tougher matchup than New York saw last fall. Health remains the great question for nearly everyone in Finals contention.
For that impact, the Lynx shed end-of-bench weight to the Wings that they either couldn't or didn't want to utilize. Karlie Samuelson (left foot) is out for the rest of the season and will be an unrestricted free agent. Diamond Miller, their 2023 No. 2 overall pick, barely notched minutes and hasn't played significantly since her rookie season. The Wings also received a 2027 second-round draft pick, a selection that could gain importance in an expanded league. More often, it means little than a body in training camp.
Storm try to save offense, season
The sixth-place Storm (16-14) were the only other buy-in team to pull off a trade this week, acquiring All-Star guard Sykes from Washington by sending away low-impact rotation players. They also sent a potentially impactful 2026 first-round draft pick.
Seattle is putting all of its chips in, a fair strategy for an aging roster amid a landscape that's been short on patience for head coaches of late. Seattle hasn't won a playoff game since 2022, the final season of Breanna Stewart and Sue Bird's careers in the Pacific Northwest. Noelle Quinn, the second-longest tenured coach, is 52-58 since reaching the 2022 semifinals in her first full season at the helm.
They've relied heavily on defense while their offense stagnates. Inconsistency nags at their heels. Sykes' addition alone won't fix it, but it's worth a try. She is one of the best at getting to the free-throw line, a frustration Quinn had out earlier in the week when Diggins didn't make it to the stripe once.
It's a tougher climb than the Lynx. The Storm are 2½ games back of Phoenix for the fourth seed and home-court advantage in the first round. In the nine seasons since the league eliminated conference seedings, four teams seeded outside the top two spots reached the Finals. Twice, they were No. 3 seeds. In 2021, the No. 6 Sky defeated the No. 5 Mercury for the title.