I don’t believe it is hyperbole to say this is the biggest offseason the WNBA has ever had. This offseason will feature: a new collective bargaining agreement that will pay the players more, a draft lottery featuring two playoff teams, an expansion draft featuring two teams, the second season of Unrivaled, a free agency in which all but two veterans are free agents, and potentially the deepest WNBA draft in years. Oh, and five teams need to hire a new head coach. That is a lot, especially considering we don’t know when any of it is actually going to happen. Here is what you need to know heading into the WNBA offseason.

The current collective bargaining agreement expires on October 31, and all reporting seems to indicate that the league and the Players’ Association will not reach a new deal by that deadline. There seems to be some cautious optimism that they could agree to an extension, which would give them more time to hammer out a deal. If that doesn’t happen, the league will head to a lockout.

While a lockout sounds bad, there would still be plenty of time for a new CBA before May, when games are set to start. One advantage of the WNBA having such a long offseason is that even if an agreement isn’t reached right away, they could still have plenty of time for everything that needs to happen this offseason.

I believe the WNBA is making too much money for either side to risk a work stoppage that eats into the season. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has already stated publicly that she wants the players to get paid more; the only question now is how much more. In most American sports leagues, players collectively receive roughly half of the income for that sport. WNBA Players currently receive 9.3 percent of the league’s income. We’ll see where the new figure comes in, but my guess is the new agreement will see the players come close to 50 percent of basketball-related income, though it may be gradual. Either way, it will be interesting to see when a deal gets done and what the new player salaries look like.

Cathay Engelbert has said that the draft lottery and the expansion draft will not be scheduled until after the new CBA is agreed to, and I cannot wait for those dates to be set. This draft may not have an obvious franchise-saver like Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers the last two seasons, but there is plenty of talent at the top. The Minnesota Lynx fell short in the playoffs this season, but the team with the best record in the regular season has a 25 percent chance to add the number one overall pick thanks to two trades with the Chicago Sky. If the Lynx can convince Napheesa Collier to return in free agency and add someone like Lauren Betts or Azzi Fudd, they could be the title favorites next season.

Seattle is the other playoff team with a lottery pick, thanks to the 2024 trade that sent the Sparks the pick that became Rickea Jackson. I don’t know if any of Seattle’s veterans will be back, but adding a lottery pick to the 2025 second overall pick, Dominique Malonga, should give Seattle a strong base to build from.

Dallas has the best lottery odds at 40 percent. The most fun pick for Dallas would be Azzi Fudd, but any of the top picks would fit well with Paige Bueckers and the slew of interesting young talent Dallas has under contract. Washington only has an 11 percent chance at the top pick but with two rookie All-Stars this season and three first-round picks, plus Georgia Amoore returning from her ACL injury, Washington should have an interesting young team, even if they’re not particularly aggressive in free agency. The team that most needs to win the lottery has the lowest odds, as Chicago has a seven percent chance, thanks to the midseason trade that sent Marina Mabrey to Connecticut in 2024.

Presumably, after the lottery, Toronto and Portland will add the first players to their rosters via the expansion draft. We don’t yet know what the rules will be for the expansion draft, though they probably won’t look too drastically different from last year’s, when teams could protect six players and the Valkyries could take one player from each team. With so few players under contract around the league, I’m interested to see if the rules will change.

I also want to see if the expansion teams deploy different strategies. I was surprised Golden State didn’t make any trades with teams to protect certain players. We don’t know if that was because the Valkyries wanted to make all their picks, or if there wasn’t an appetite around the league to surrender assets to keep someone who wasn’t a top-six player on their roster. Given the Valkyries’ success in year one, Toronto and Portland may opt to make all of their picks as well. Of course, having an extra team in the mix could change things. It may also be that with the league’s talent pool diluting, there just aren’t as many quality rotation players available in this expansion draft. I am fascinated to see how the expansion draft plays out.

The first dominoes of the offseason will likely be the new coaching hires. Former Liberty and Mercury head coach Sandy Brondello will almost certainly have one of those jobs if she wants, and I have to wonder if her surprise dismissal led to the Wings firing Chris Koclanes a week later. The league does not have any Black female head coaches following Seattle’s firing of Noelle Quinn, but hopefully that changes this offseason.

Breanna Stewart has already stated her intention to return to the New York Liberty, which automatically makes that the best job opening of the five. Dallas and Seattle both have young stars and another lottery pick incoming, but Dallas has more intriguing young players under contract, and I believe in Executive Vice President and General Manager Curt Miller. Toronto and Portland are both blank slates, which is intriguing. Those coaches could benefit from lower expectations in their inaugural seasons, especially if their teams take a more future-focused approach than Golden State did this season.

I don’t really know what to make of free agency. Sportsbooks seem to believe most of the stars will return to their teams based on the current championship odds. It is certainly hard to believe A’Ja Wilson, Napheesa Collier or Alyssa Thomas would leave their current teams after the success they enjoyed in 2025, but just about anything is on the table at this point. I wonder if Toronto and Portland might try to make a bigger splash in free agency than Golden State did. Golden State had some very shrewd signings in the 2024 Sixth Woman of the Year Tiffany Hayes, Monique Billings, Janelle Salaun, and Chloe Bibby, but they didn’t chase any big stars via free agency or trade. I wonder if this season’s expansion teams will be as patient, especially considering the league’s landscape is different.

No matter when these big offseason events take place, or what shape they take, we will be with you the entire way to break down what it all means for your favorite teams, players, and the league at large. All we know for certain is that change is coming, and nobody really knows what this league will look like when the dust settles.