WNBA: Phoenix Mercury training camp projects to be highly competitive

The Phoenix Mercury’s 2025 WNBA Draft was about as quiet as their free agency period was loud.

After an enormous four-team, 13-player trade brought star forwards Alyssa Thomas and Satou Sabally to Phoenix and sent a considerable number of players and assets elsewhere, the Mercury didn’t have much left to work with in the draft. In fact, they had nothing at all; Phoenix was left with zero picks and made no further moves to acquire any, content to participate in the draft only as a spectator.

That doesn’t mean that the Mercury’s training camp won’t be a competitive one. Phoenix currently has a whopping 14 players signed to training camp contracts, and not many of them seem like locks to make the team’s final roster, creating a blank slate of sorts that, in a way, mirrors the Mercury’s approach as an organization to the 2025 season.

Which players will have an upper hand in Mercury training camp?

The Mercury may have assembled an impressive amount of high-end talent during the offseason, but they’ll essentially be starting over in terms of who will actually be on their roster. The 2025 WNBA season will be the Mercury’s first in well over a decade without either Diana Taurasi, who recently announced her retirement after 20 seasons in the league, or Brittney Griner, who signed with the Atlanta Dream after anchoring the Phoenix frontcourt since the team drafted her in 2013.

Starting at the top, things look good. Thomas and Sabally join All-WNBA wing Kahleah Copper to form a dynamic and versatile trio of players that will ideally be the Mercury’s foundation for years to come.

After that, though, the Mercury’s roster is filled with question marks. Veterans Sami Whitcomb and Kalani Brown figure to play prominent roles on the team at guard and center, respectively, as does sharpshooter Kitija Laksa, despite having no prior WNBA experience. These fits are, for the time being, only theoretical; none of Whitcomb, Brown or Laksa played for Phoenix last season.

They’re in good company. Of the 20 players currently listed on Phoenix’s roster, only three were on the team in 2024. Of those three, Copper is the only one whose salary is guaranteed for 2025.

With so few holdovers from last season, Phoenix will be learning about a good chunk of its roster on the fly. There seems to be a good chance forward Natasha Mack and guard Celeste Taylor make the team, if for no other reason than the time they spent in Phoenix last year, but the rest of the Mercury’s camp invitees will have quite a bit to prove in a short amount of time.

That’s especially true for Anna Makurat, Helena Pueyo, Julia Ayrault, Kathryn Westbeld, Lexi Held, Megan McConnell, Monique Akoa-Makani, Murjanatu Musa and Temira Poindexter—none of whom have any WNBA experience.

One thing the Mercury’s camp invitees can do to distinguish themselves is show that they can play well alongside the team’s new core. Phoenix might take it easy on Thomas, Sabally and Copper at the beginning of camp, but they’ll need to take the court at some point to establish chemistry not only with each other, but with their prospective regular-season teammates, as well. Thomas, in particular, spent years in Connecticut as the hub of the Sun’s offense, so Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts and his staff will have plenty of data on what works with Thomas and what doesn’t.

Regardless of which players Tibbetts chooses to roll with out of training camp, they’re going to be part of a pivotal season in Mercury franchise history. Whether or not those players arrived in Phoenix via the draft is irrelevant; they’ll still have an opportunity to make an impact for what should be one of the WNBA’s most exciting teams in 2025.