WNBA: New-look Phoenix Mercury seek return to title contention

The 2025 WNBA season marks the beginning of a new era of Phoenix Mercury basketball, and though the team’s roster will look almost entirely different than it did just one year ago, its goal remains the same: compete for a WNBA championship.

The retirement of basketball legend Diana Taurasi this past winter, as well as the loss of perennial All-Star Brittney Griner in free agency, left the Mercury in a position they hadn’t been in for quite some time. Phoenix general manager Nick U’Ren had to find a way to not only replace the duo’s on-court production, but also their status as the Mercury’s franchise players. Simply put, the team needed a new foundation to build upon.

U’Ren solved that issue quickly, pulling off a massive four-team, 13-player trade that brought star forwards Alyssa Thomas and Satou Sabally to Phoenix. Thomas and Sabally will join guard Kahleah Copper, who earned All-WNBA honors last season in her first year with the Mercury, as the core pieces of that foundation.

Granted, the cost of the trade was significant as Phoenix gave away fan favorites Natasha Cloud and Sophie Cunningham, as well as all of its picks in the 2025 WNBA Draft. Beyond a couple of other veteran players the Mercury acquired in free agency, the rest of their regular-season roster is filled with question marks. Phoenix currently has 19 players participating in its training camp, and as of May 5, the team has yet to make any cuts.

It’s much easier to fill out the end of a WNBA roster than assemble the star power necessary to truly be a competitive team, though, and in trading for Thomas and Sabally, the Mercury have already done the hard part. Rather than letting the cloud of Taurasi and Griner’s departures hang over them, the Mercury did what they had to do to remain in the WNBA’s upper echelon, and in doing so have created a renewed energy and optimism about the franchise’s direction.

The Mercury will embrace their stars’ versatility with positionless basketball

Team secrets generally aren’t handed out during media availability, especially before a season even begins. But Mercury players have been raving about their roster’s potential from an X’s and O’s perspective, crediting head coach Nate Tibbetts for his positionless approach and willingness to let them be the best versions of themselves.

“I love that our offense is positionless,” said Copper, who led the Mercury in scoring last season at 21.1 points per game. “It allows us to be comfortable.” “Just having that flow and that unpredictable movement … it’s a new concept for me and I love it,” added Sabally.

For many years, the Mercury had typically ranked near or at the top of the leaderboards in offense generated from post-ups. Having a generational back-to-the-basket player in Griner made offense in the halfcourt simple, albeit somewhat predictable; when Griner was playing at her best, the Mercury were virtually unstoppable, but they were also prone to stagnation with the basketball and often lacked a reliable offensive scheme when she was on the bench.

Ideally, that won’t be a problem for the Mercury in 2025. Copper, Thomas and Sabally are all players who can take over a game offensively, and while each of them thrive at pushing the ball in transition, there isn’t much redundancy among their respective skillsets, meaning that Phoenix won’t have to rely too much on any one of their stars.

“No one person can replace [Griner],” Tibbets said matter-of-factly, stressing the importance of changing lineups often enough to keep opponents off balance. While the Mercury still have size on the interior with Kalani Brown (6-foot-7) and Natasha Mack (6-foot-3), Tibbetts hinted to media that he’ll frequently switch things up with smaller lineups that are more reliant on speed and shooting.

It’s what ultimately makes the Mercury’s new core of players so appealing: Phoenix won’t be married to any one specific style of play. That suits Thomas just fine, and she wants everyone to know that they’ll be able to push the envelope on the other end of the court, too.

“When you’re trying to play positionless basketball and uptempo, it starts on the the defensive end,” Thomas explained. A six-time All-Defense honoree during her time in Connecticut, Thomas was arguably the most important defender on Sun teams that routinely ranked among the league’s best in defensive efficiency, despite not being a typical playmaker at power forward. She proved that activity, communication and versatility can make up for a lack of pure size and shot blocking, and that key to success may carry over to her new home in Phoenix.

Can the Mercury compete with the WNBA’s best teams?

The excitement surrounding the 2025 Mercury is certainly well-founded, and as long as their high-end talent stays healthy, they’re a safe bet to make the playoffs, at the very least. Until the games start in earnest, though, almost everything about this Phoenix team is theoretical; starting anew can feel invigorating, but it can also take time for the results to come around, and if the Mercury are going to compete for a championship, they’ll need to establish chemistry quickly.

A big part of this process will play out in training camp as Tibbetts and his staff choose a group of players to complement their stars. Veterans like Brown and guard Sami Whitcomb are locks, as is Latvian sharpshooter Kitija Laksa, despite her never having played in the WNBA until now. The Mercury will still need multiple other training camp invitees, which include seven undrafted rookies, to earn spots.

At the end of the day, though, the Mercury will go as far as the trio of Copper, Thomas and Sabally takes them. Established title contenders like the New York Liberty, Minnesota Lynx and Las Vegas Aces await; how well the Mercury’s top players match up against those of their opponents will determine if they’re truly championship-worthy.