Biggest WNBA Trade Deadline Deals of All Time

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The 2025 WNBA season is closing in on the home stretch, but there’s some business to take care of. The league’s trade deadline will happen at 3 p.m. ET on Thursday, August 7, after which time teams won’t be able to swap players.

While the WNBA trade deadline hasn’t been as active as the NBA’s historically, there have been some significant moves made. In fact, a big one has already happened this season.

What follows is a look at the biggest trade deadline trades in WNBA history.

At the 2015 trade deadline, the Chicago Sky sent Sylvia Fowles to the Minnesota Lynx. Chicago drafted Fowles with the No. 2 pick in the 2008 draft, but she turned down a contract extension in late 2014, which essentially forced the Sky to trade her.

In a three-team blockbuster, the Lynx landed Fowles, while the Sky received Erika de Souza and the Atlanta Dream wound up with Damiris Dantas and Reshanda Gray. It’s safe to say Minnesota won the trade.

Fowles teamed with Maya Moore to help lead the Lynx to a WNBA title a few months after the trade, winning Finals MVP in the process. Two years later, Minnesota won another title, and Fowles, once again, was named MVP. Minnesota wound up retiring Fowles’s number, and she’ll be named to the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame and the Naismith Hall of Fame this year.

The Sky traded yet another really good player at the deadline in 2024. Chicago sent guard Marina Mabrey and a 2025 second-round pick to the Connecticut Sun before the deadline and got a significant return. The Sky landed Rachel Branham, Moriah Jefferson, a 2025 first-round pick and the rights to swap first-rounders in 2026.

The Sun lost in the semifinals of the playoffs, but Mabrey was excellent, averaging 15.9 points, 3.0 rebounds, and 2.6 assists in 33.0 minutes per game. During the 2025 campaign, she has boasted solid averages of 14.2 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 4.6 assists per game, though the Sun are far out of the postseason picture.

Another deadline, another Lynx trade. No franchise has utilized the trade deadline to its advantage quite like Minnesota. The 2024 season was no different.

Just before the deadline buzzer last season, the Lynx landed Myisha Hines-Allen from the Washington Mystics, who received Sika Kone, Olivia Epoupa and a 2026 second-round pick. Hines-Allen had led the Mystics to a WNBA title in 2019 and Minnesota added her to help in the franchise’s effort to win one in 2024, which ended with a WNBA Finals loss to the New York Liberty.

After the trade, Hines-Allen averaged 7.8 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 2.6 assists mostly off the bench. In the playoffs, she averaged 4.0 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 1.1 assists in 12.3 minutes per game. Hines-Allen signed with Dallas in the offseason.

Yes, there has already been a significant trade deadline deal in 2025. The Lynx made a move to strengthen what is already the league’s best team. The Dallas Wings sent guard DiJonai Carrington to Minnesota in exchange for guard Karlie Samuelson, forward Diamond Miller and a second-round pick in 2027.

Carrington is a defensive specialist who is averaging 10.4 points, 5.1 rebounds, 1.8 assists, and 1.1 steals this season. She was the WNBA’s Most Improved Player in 2024 and was named to the All-Defensive first team. She’ll be Minnesota’s primary perimeter defender for the rest of the season.