Hello, hoopheads! The day many of us feared might not come so soon, or perhaps even at all, is finally upon us. I’m referring, of course, to the long-awaited release of MUNA’s fourth album, Dancing on the Wall. Things felt a little iffy there after Katie Gavin launched a solo career, but the world’s greatest purveyors of sad dance music have indeed blessed us with another masterpiece. Oh, and the WNBA season is also starting on time tonight after a highly contentious months-long labor dispute. Or maybe it was actually several months of essentially nothing happening before the two sides hammered out a deal over the course of eight straight days of marathon negotiating sessions which seem to have been about as civil as you could ask. Either way, the world’s best women’s hoopers will embark on the WNBA’s 30th and busiest regular season, with 15 teams set to play 44 games each for a total of 330 tilts plus a Commissioner’s Cup title game before we even get to the postseason. My plan is to write some sort of preview and recap for every last one of them. Feel free to bookmark The Post Presence and check back late tonight for brief thoughts on three games after I’ve come home from Barclays Center and caught up. I won’t spam your inboxes with the nightly recaps, they’ll just go straight up on the web, and I’ll link to them in the next gameday’s preview post as well (in this case, that’s tomorrow). With that bit of business out of the way, let’s knock 330 down to 327.
If I had to guess, there’s a pretty good chance that four of the bottom five teams in the final standings are among the six in action tonight. As such the best game of the night, almost by default, is the one between two teams expected to be among the league’s worst. In addition to being the only one of the three games with a point spread lower than 6.5 points, it’ll also be historic, as the Toronto Tempo host the franchise’s inaugural game against Washington Mystics (7:30 ET, ION/League Pass/local). Despite being an expansion team, the Tempo undoubtedly bring the more established roster into opening night, headlined by veteran guards Marina Mabrey and Brittney Sykes, each of whom signed a seven-figure contract for this year and next. It’ll be a revenge game for the 32-year old Sykes, who spent the 2023 and 2024 seasons in Washington and earned the first All-Star appearance of her career last July just a few weeks before being traded away. A two-time league-leader in steals, Slim averaged 15.4 points and 4.4 assists per game during the Mystics portion of her 2025 season. Mabrey, who will turn 30 later this season, endured a tough 2025 season in the WNBA, playing a good portion of it at less than 100% for a miserable Connecticut Sun team, but she was the leading scorer in Unrivaled this winter, averaging 25.3 points per game.
By contrast, Washington has two players born in the 20th century on its entire opening roster (Michaela Onyenwere and Alex Wilson), one of whom is both a 32-year old rookie and the team’s only millennial. The Mystics are headlined by a boatload of very young talent, starting with Sykes’ co-All-Stars last year Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen, who were the only true rookie teammates (translation: not veterans of the ABL) to make the All-Star game in WNBA history. Another of last year’s first-round picks, Georgia Amoore, is set to make her WNBA debut after missing 2025 due to a torn ACL, as will two of this year’s first-round picks, former UCLA stars Lauren Betts and Angela Dugalić, who had Onyenwere as an assistant coach during the run to last month’s national championship. Another of this year’s promising Mystics rookies, Cotie McMahon, won’t play due to an elbow injury. Aside from Onyenwere, the only player on the Mystics roster with more than one season of WNBA experience is 25-year old center Shakira Austin, who signed an offer sheet with the Toronto Tempo last month before the Mystics matched it and locked her up for the next three years.
Tempo coach and two-time WNBA champion Sandy Brondello was most recently in charge of the New York Liberty, who host the Connecticut Sun (7:30 ET, ION/League Pass) simultaneous to Brondello’s debut in Toronto. The Libs will be without a third of their roster for their first game under first-time head coach Chris DeMarco, but the former Golden State Warriors assistant will still have a pair of former WNBA MVPs at his disposal in “Her Air Guitarness” Jonquel Jones, a nickname I will use forever despite last season falling apart, and Breanna Stewart. Sabrina Ionescu (foot) and Satou Sabally (cyst) are both unavailable due to injury, while Leonie Fiebich and Raquel Carrera are still finishing up overseas commitments. A hardship signing is expected today, but Ionescu’s absence should mean big minutes for a pair of French guards in Liberty fan favorite Marine Johannes and 24-year old Pauline Astier, who might even get the start in her WNBA debut. Betnijah Laney-Hamilton is also set to make her return to the Barclays Center floor for the first time since winning the 2024 WNBA title after missing last season due to a knee injury suffered in Unrivaled.
The Sun might well be in for an even more miserable season than 2025, when they were the league’s third-worst team, but future Hall of Famer Brittney Griner will make her debut with the team after signing as a free agent, and seeing BG play is always a treat. I’m also excited for an opportunity to watch another young French guard — famously the only thing France exports — in the Sun’s 22-year old PG Leïla Lacan, who was recently given the EuroLeague Rising Star award. Expect a very warm welcome for former Liberty guard Kennedy Burke in her debut for the rival Sun.
The nightcap sees last year’s expansion team, the Golden State Valkyries, visit the new-look Seattle Storm (10:00 ET, ION/League Pass). The Valkyries aren’t as shorthanded as the Liberty, but they announced some more impactful news yesterday both on and off the court, as they’ve filed for a replacement contract for presumed starting center Iliana Rupert due to pregnancy. Setting aside the fact that I’m sure there’s a way to do this that doesn’t result in the team seemingly announcing a player’s pregnancy following the word “additionally” in a press release, Rupert’s absence will be a massive blow to the Valkyries on the court. Her ability to stretch the floor — Rupert hit 44.2% from deep on 5.0 attempts per game in 21 games for the Valkyries last season — is pretty damn hard to replace even with a full offseason, but it’s basically impossible on the eve of the season starting. Free-agent signing Kiah Stokes, who is known as a defensive specialist, will likely see the lion’s share of minutes at the center position in Rupert’s absence. In this case, “defensive specialist” means “the only player in WNBA history to play 4,500+ minutes and average fewer than 7 points per 40 minutes” and there’s no doubt the Valkyries will have to play differently with Stokes on the floor. She’s gone just 43-for-204 (21.1%) from beyond the arc over 10 WNBA seasons with the Liberty and more recently the Las Vegas Aces.
The Storm will be starting a new era under former Liberty and Memphis Grizzlies assistant Sonia Raman, and will also be moving on without most of the veterans from last year’s team — most notably Skylar Diggins, Nneka Ogwumike and Gabby Williams, who was the Valkyries’ marquee free-agent signing. Seattle brought back forward Ezi Magbegor on a three-year deal and also signed StudBud Natisha Hiedeman away from the Minnesota Lynx, but the Storm are in the early stages of a youth movement headlined by 20-year old French center Dominique Malonga and 19-year old No. 3 overall pick Awa Fam Thiam. The latter won’t debut for a little while yet as she’s also wrapping up her overseas season, but comes with a similar level of hype as Malonga did last year. This year’s No. 8 pick — who was traded to Seattle by the Valkyries, although it was really the pick that was traded in advance, but the trade couldn’t be executed because of an archaic league rule so Golden State had to draft on Seattle’s behalf, and it all got awkward and everyone should stop talking about it, especially Valkyries GM Ohemaa Nyanin, but I digress — Flau’jae Johnson will make her Storm debut. Alas, I think I’m done, but I’m not really sure how to wrap this one up, so I’m just gonna keep on going, like Sam Elliott at the end of Lebowski, drifting along like the tumbling tumbleweed, musing about the little Rupert on the way and perpetuating the whole darned human comedy on down through the generations, westward the wagons, across the sands of time until we — ahh look at me, I’m rambling again.