WNBA: Will the Lynx lag behind after a stagnant offseason?

One game. One overtime. Five total points.

That’s all that separated the Minnesota Lynx from winning a fifth championship in last season’s WNBA Finals. If they played just three minutes of better basketball in Game 5, they’d be entering this season on the top of the world. Instead, they have a sour taste in their mouth, and failing to redeem their title aspirations will only make it worse.

For the Minnesota Lynx, it’s championship or bust in 2025.

Betting on experience

The Lynx will look very familiar from a season ago. Their first six of Napheesa Collier, Kayla McBride, Bridget Carleton, Courtney Williams, Alanna Smith and Natisha Heideman are all returning. No big changes in usage or minutes seem to be forecasted for any of them. Dorka Juhász had an impressive EuroLeague campaign in the winter and could trend more towards her rookie season minutes after a downtick in court time last year.

The only real change in Minnesota’s rotation will be trading ex-Washington Mystics off the bench. Last season, they brought in Myisha Hines-Allen from DC at the trade deadline to up their second unit’s physicality. With Hines-Allen departing for the Dallas Wings, the Lynx traded their 2026 first-round pick for Karlie Samuelson, also en route from the nation’s capital. Samuelson, a career 39.7 percent three-point shooter, will help punish teams that help off Napheesa Collier in the paint and is an easy plug-and-play off-ball scorer.

Without a high draft pick or any other notable acquisitions, it’s unlikely that any of the younger Lynx players see meaningful contribution. Like Juhász, Diamond Miller will certainly be fighting for her spot in the rotation after dropping from 26 minutes per game to only 10 minutes per game between her first and second seasons. Minnesota fans will certainly hope to see Alissa Pili break into the rotation in the regular season after flashes of promise as a rookie.

Lagging behind?

Running it back with a nearly-identical roster is as worrying as it is encouraging in today’s WNBA.

In a perfect world, the 2025 season plays out just like last year, and head coach Cheryl Reeve is able to flip the margins in the Finals for a Minnesota title. The Lynx held their own against the New York Liberty, and there’s no telling if a repeat of last year’s championship would produce a different result if replayed. Sometimes the rims just favor one team more than the other.

With that being said, the Lynx seemed content with a stagnant offseason despite other contenders taking notable risks. The Las Vegas Aces moved Kelsey Plum for Jewell Loyd. The Indiana Fever will be getting year two Caitlin Clark, and added DeWanna Bonner, Natasha Howard and Sophie Cunningham to her supporting cast. The Atlanta Dream are adding two of the league’s best bigs, Brittney Griner and Brionna Jones, to a new system under first-year head coach Karl Smesko. The Liberty were pretty content with last season’s championship depth, but even they upgraded at point guard, trading for Natasha Cloud after Courtney Vandersloot departed in free agency, and brought back Marine Johannès, who likely will be a more meaningful addition than Samuelson will be for Minnesota.

None of this has to do with Minnesota, but in a way all of it does. When the league’s top squads are all taking chances at ascension, bringing back an identical roster almost feels like the more dangerous move. Is it even possible for Collier or Williams to take another leap after seeing so much improvement in recent years? What will lead the Lynx to a trophy this season that wouldn’t have worked last season? It almost feels like the Minnesota front office is shorting the rest of the league—betting on the new-look rosters to bust, and hoping to swoop in and redeem themselves in the postseason.

With that being said, the Lynx will not be bad. It’s hard to imagine them ending the regular season without a top-three record. Even when a playoff berth is functionally guaranteed, Minnesota has 44 games to prove that sticking by this roster was the right move. If not, expect a lot more drama next offseason.