WNBA truths and fictions: the real state of the league in 2025

The Guardian

7 days ago

The WNBA is one of those leagues that is perpetually at the crossroads. In the 1990s, the league saw off the challenge of the American Basketball League (ABL), which paid higher salaries but lacked the NBA's marketing muscle, but perhaps that victory gave the NBA and WNBA a dose of complacency. Attendance steadily dropped for several years, and went through revolving doors from city to city – or into permanent hiatus.
Now, with women's sports in the middle of a growth spurt and the dazzling skills of Caitlin Clark on display, the WNBA has an age-old issue: More money, more problems – or, at least, more critics conjuring up more questions.
We live in a media landscape in which the fretting over 'generational talents' is so robust that NBA fans started panicking about Cooper Flagg when he had a poor shooting performance in his first Summer League game. As anyone knows from following her college career, she doesn't just have extraordinary shooting range. She can dominate a game with her passing even if her shots aren't falling.
To be sure, Clark certainly has a lot of work to do before she turns the corner from being the league's most exciting player to becoming the league's best player. In her rookie year, Basketball Reference calculated her PER, a measure of overall effectiveness, at 18.8, nowhere near the top four of A'ja Wilson (34.9), Breanna Stewart (26.4), Brittney Griner (26.0) and Napheesa Collier (25.1).
But PER tends to favor forwards and centers – such Clark's Indiana teammate, 2023 top overall draft pick Aliyah Boston, who was also ahead of Clark. Among guards, she was third. She also led the league in assists per game with 8.4, with only Alyssa Thomas (7.9) anywhere close. On the other hand, she also led the league in turnovers with a staggering mark of 5.6 per game – Thomas again was second at 3.6.
This year, Clark is struggling with injuries, and most of her scoring and shooting numbers have dropped significantly. Given the ridiculously short window of a WNBA season, she may not have time to pull her season averages up to where they were last year.
The WNBA actually has a trio of young 'generational talent' guards who have come into the league in the 2020s. The first was Sabrina Ionescu, a record-smashing triple-double machine from Oregon who had a slow, injury-riddled start to her pro career but has since made the All-WNBA second team three straight years – and surely had a case to make the first team ahead of Clark last year. The next is Paige Bueckers, who is putting together a rookie season almost on par with Clark's season last year. In a year or two, depending on when she declares for the draft, the WNBA will add USC's JuJu Watkins.
In the media and player All-Star voting, the leader was Bueckers' teammate in Dallas, Allisha Gray. Funny how they don't seem to be held responsible for the Wings being in last place, and yet critics harp on Clark because Indiana isn't dominating.
So the fans got it wrong in ranking Clark first and Ionescu fifth. But the players' votes were harsh on stars (Clark) and Olympians (Jackie Young was 12th; Kelsey Plum a bewildering 16th). For once, the media may have gotten it right, ranking her third.
Truth or fiction: Truth
In a recent anonymous survey of WNBA by the Athletic, a majority of respondents said Clark will be the face of the WNBA in five years. But it was a slim majority of 53.8%. Watkins was second, Bueckers was third. Next was the first non-guard, Clark nemesis Angel Reese, and A'ja Wilson, who was merely the MVP of the WNBA (for the third time) and the Olympics in 2024.
And yet the WNBA is headed toward its highest average attendance ever (see below), propelled somewhat by Clark but also by the fervor behind the expansion Golden State Valkyries. While ratings certainly drop when she's out injured, they don't fall through the floor.
Perhaps the fact that Clark has not immediately established herself as the best player in the league has made people realize that veterans like Wilson, Stewart, Griner, Collier and Ionescu know how to play some ball, too.
Truth or fiction: Fiction
In the cartoon Futurama, a female computer is horrified to learn that the men who have landed on an all-women's planet made fun of women's basketball.
'What??! Did you explain how the women's good fundamentals make up for their inability to dunk?' roars the computer, voiced by Bea Arthur.
The men scoffed at the concept. But WNBA players' fundamentals are indeed pretty good, most notably free throws – the NBA's highest overall percentage of the past 10 years (78.4%, 2023-24) trails behind the WNBA's lowest (78.5%, 2024, down from 80.0% the year before and 80.8% in 2021).
The WNBA is also more of a passing league than the NBA, which sees its stars shine in one-on-one isolations. In 2024, 68.6% of field goals in WNBA play were the result of assists. In the NBA last season, the number was 63.6%.
In the NBA, you may see Anthony Edwards explode past a defender for a dunk. In the WNBA, you may see Caitlin Clark whip a pass through a seam mere mortals wouldn't have anticipated. True basketball fans appreciate both, and the US has a lot of true basketball fans.
Truth or fiction: Fiction
WNBA officials have had their share of detractors this year, among them standout players Angel Reese (Chicago) and Kelsey Plum (Los Angeles), coaches Natalie Nakase (Golden State) and Stephanie White (Indiana).
The latter's criticism followed a game against the Connecticut Sun in which Clark was poked in the eye in the third quarter, and Clark's assailant was fouled near the end of the game with the outcome not in doubt, prompting a scuffle that saw three people ejected.
White's complaint was a familiar refrain: 'The referees lost control of the game.'
Did they?
The eye poke on Clark drew a flagrant foul on Connecticut's Jacy Sheldon, while Clark and two Connecticut players got technical fouls for the ensuing fracas. In the last minute, Sheldon drove into Indiana's Sophie Cunningham, who pulled Sheldon down onto the floor.
Cunningham could argue that Sheldon initiated the contact by lowering her shoulder and charging into her like a running back or rugby player, and that she accidentally pulled down Sheldon while stumbling backwards. But she and the Fever have embraced the notion that Cunningham filled the role of an NHL enforcer, protecting their star player when the refs wouldn't. Cunningham's jersey sales went through the roof, and entrepreneurs are selling commemorative T-shirts in her honor.
Maybe the WNBA has found a new source of revenue?
WNBA refs are paid far less than their NBA counterparts, so no one should be surprised if the men's league attracts more experienced referees. But the refs aren't the ones escalating things even after the flagrant and technical fouls have been called.
And NBA refs aren't exactly above reproach. Even if we toss out the aberration of Tim Donaghy, the referee who spent time in prison after a gambling scandal, NBA referees have been the object of many fine-worthy infractions through the years. Anthony Edwards' fines in a single season could pay several WNBA players' salaries.
Should WNBA refs do more to protect stars like Clark so that Cunningham won't feel compelled to do it herself? Maybe. But they'd also do well to avoid the absurdity of the 1990s, when the mere act of trying to guard Michael Jordan could draw a whistle.
Truth or fiction: Mixed
That's not the easiest set of questions, and it's just part of the league's to-do list right now. The WNBA has to manage expansion carefully while also landing a fair collective bargaining agreement to prevent a work stoppage.
But these are also happier questions to consider than 'Will the league survive the season?'