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An earlier blog called blockbuster trades “rare in the WNBA.” In fact, they happen twice a week now. We regret the error.
To use the convoluted prose of ESPN’s Shams Charania, Sunday’s big Sparks-Aces-Storm swap was a “league-altering domino… causing a shockwave across the league and an arms race to get underway.” On Tuesday, Charania’s network returned with two more scoops: The Connecticut Sun are trading Alyssa Thomas to the Phoenix Mercury, at her request. So that Thomas might more easily barrel into the paint, the Mercury have let star center Brittney Griner walk after 11 seasons. Griner, an unrestricted free agent, will sign a one-year deal with the Atlanta Dream when the free agent signing period starts on Feb. 1. When the Thomas trade becomes official, the Mercury will send Connecticut point guard Natasha Cloud, wing Bec Allen, and their 2025 first-round pick, No. 12 in this year’s draft.
Because no one is signing multi-year deals right now due to the impending Big Bang of 2026, I’d braced myself for a tame offseason. But there was a hypothetical team I could see going big: one in the mushy middle of the league; one that thought it was a piece away from breaking into the top four; and one high enough on its own facilities and free-agent recruiting pitch to feel like there was little risk in sitting out the next few drafts. In retrospect, it makes sense that it’d be the Mercury. Let Mat Ishbia cook.
Thomas, a perennial MVP candidate and 6-foot-2 point-whatever, might seem like an odd fit on a Mercury team known for its shooting volume. “We want to be 35 to 40 threes. That’s the style we’re going to play,” head coach Nate Tibbetts said last season. His newest acquisition has attempted 20 regular-season threes in her career, and it has been a full decade since her only make, as a rookie. But in other ways, Thomas is kind of perfect for Phoenix: a player suited to the positionless game Tibbetts seemed keen to try at points last year.
Dunc’d On, the sicko NBA podcast for which I gladly hand over $[redacted] per month, has taught me this team-building heuristic: You are allowed to have one player who cannot shoot in your starting lineup, and they are now your “center.” If that player can’t actually handle the defensive responsibilities of a center, your team’s literal center must be able to shoot. Thomas, though, can do the center-y things herself. A rebounding force with enough strength to guard bigs, she likely starts at the five for Phoenix. In my own (and I suspect in Tibbetts’s) vision of the team, four shooters surround her.
ESPN’s Kevin Pelton wisely notes that Mercury general manager Nick U’Ren was the brains behind a dominant Golden State Warriors lineup that put Draymond Green in the same role. The Mercury tinkered around with small-ball lineups last year, but the possibilities were constrained a bit by Griner. Thomas has spent most of her career playing next to traditional centers, and it’ll be fun to watch her skills finally maximized.
As with Ishbia’s other basketball outfit, the Suns, the problem with the Mercury hitting the BIG TRADE button in consecutive offseasons is that it’ll take some work to fill out the rest of the roster. Kahleah Copper, one of the coolest off-ball movers in the league, is a good start. Tyasha Harris will also come to Phoenix in the Thomas trade; she shot 39.5 percent from outside last year. Sophie Cunningham, a 37.8 percent three-point shooter last year, makes three. The rest is blank space. The Mercury have a bunch more roster spots to fill, and no more picks left to trade. Unlike Ishbia’s other basketball outfit, the Mercury are hemmed in by some extra WNBA rules. Per CBA expert Richard Cohen, teams can’t trade picks further out than 2027 right now, and they have to keep at least one first-rounder in a three-year window. All the Mercury have left is their 2027 pick.
When the Mercury hosted last year’s All-Star Weekend, they showed off their new $100 million practice facility to the best players in the sport. In Thomas’s most recent playoff run with Connecticut, the team she led to two WNBA Finals, she lamented that the Sun had to share their practice court with a kid’s birthday party. The “ultimate disrespect,” she called it. That’s one reason not to worry too much about picks. Build a destination, and great players will find you.
