Editor’s note: Valley sports fans are dialed in to their teams’ past and present, and they have a good idea about 2025. To complement that anticipation, we’ve asked five beat writers for The Arizona Republic for their five most intriguing 2025 storylines. The math worked, so we’ll call it “25 for 2025” and we’ll start with the first five on the Mercury.
Diana Taurasi’s decision
As of now, it’s unclear whether Diana Taurasi, the face of the Mercury franchise, will play in her 21st season with Phoenix.
Taurasi doesn’t have anything more to prove after bringing three championships, two WNBA Finals MVP awards, and one MVP award to Phoenix. Not to mention, she’s the league’s all-time leading scorer with 10,646 points.
Outside of the Mercury, Taurasi collected her sixth gold medal with Team USA at the Paris Olympics, setting a record for most gold medals for any U.S. basketball player. Taurasi has said she doesn’t plan to go for a seventh medal at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, but never said anything definitive about her WNBA career.
Taurasi isn’t one to welcome a spectacle, but the Mercury created hype surrounding the final regular-season home game and labeled it as one of the last times to see Taurasi “if this is it.” The tribute felt like her final go-round as fans wore shirts dedicated to her career and Taurasi gave an emotional postgame speech in front of family, friends, former teammates and fans.
Her competitive edge didn’t leave in the 2024 season as she started in all 36 games played and averaged 14.9 points. Taurasi hit a season-high 31 points against the Los Angeles Sparks on June 2 and had a heroic effort with 21 points in the first-round elimination game against the Minnesota Lynx.
Whatever Taurasi decides — whether it’s playing in her 21st season or potentially having a behind-the-scenes role in the Mercury organization — she’ll still be making an impact in Phoenix.
Kahleah Copper is taking the reins
The Mercury made a splash in last year’s offseason when they traded their third overall pick for veteran wing Kahleah Copper.
Her arrival was highly anticipated as the Mercury chose to ditch the talent-loaded draft in favor of one of the best players in the league. Copper lived up to her billing as she went on a scorching start with three games with 30 or more points in her first five games.
Copper wowed Phoenix with her clutch moments, including winning a game against the Lynx with a last-second 3-pointer on June 7.
Known for her downhill style of play, she expanded on her speed and athleticism with Brittney Griner in pick-and-rolls. Her presence throughout the season made the entire team better. Copper posted her best season with 21.1 points per game and was named All-WNBA second team.
The 29-year-old is poised to take over the franchise, and it was evident in that buzzer-beater win over Minnesota. Head coach Nate Tibbetts revealed that he drew up the winning shot for Taurasi but Taurasi elected to pass the baton to Copper to make it.
There’s a lot of promise in the Mercury’s core. Not only will Copper, who’s signed through the upcoming season, return, but point guard Natasha Cloud, wing Rebecca Allen and wing Sophie Cunningham are under contract. Griner, an unrestricted free agent, is expected to return as she’s made it clear that her roots are in Phoenix.
Mercury fans will get to see how Copper’s offseason training is going as she’s slated to play for Rose Basketball Club in the inaugural season of Unrivaled, a 3-on-3 league founded by WNBA stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart. Cloud and Griner will be teammates on Phantom BC.
Each Unrivaled team plays 14 regular-season games over eight weeks. The season began Jan. 17 and the entire schedule will be broadcast on TNT and TruTV.
Brittney Griner climbing the record-book mountain
There’s a potential for a block party for the Mercury this season as Griner edges closer to reaching more career milestones.
The 11-year veteran will go down as one of the best centers in the WNBA and she’s easily within range of surpassing Lisa Leslie for second all-time in blocks (822). She’s 10 behind Leslie, but what’s even more exciting is that she’s 65 blocks from from Margo Dydek’s all-time mark of 877.
Her total of 46 blocks last season wasn’t among her season-best numbers, but Griner missed 10 games with injuries. Her foot injury at the start of the season caused her to be a little more hesitant, but as the season progressed, she started to find her rhythm at the rim. Her biggest performance came against the Chicago Sky where she laid down five blocks in her first game back since winning the gold medal at the Paris Olympics.
When it comes to dunks, Griner still is in a league of her own. She leads all-time with 18 in the regular season. She’s also dunked twice in the playoffs and seven in the All-Star Game. Due to her foot injury, Griner never dunked last season, the third time in her career she didn’t record a single dunk in a season.
When healthy, Griner is easily one of the most exciting players to watch for the Mercury.
Year 2 under Nate Tibbetts
The Mercury made a splash last season not only when they hired Nate Tibbetts, but when they made him the WNBA’s highest-paid coach with a contract paying more than $1 million annually.
Tibbetts’ hire drew criticism as he had never coached women’s basketball and his only head coaching experience came in 2007-09 when he coached in the then-called NBA D-League. Tibbetts also has 12 seasons as an assistant with three NBA teams on his resume.
He made a smart move by adding three-time WNBA All-Star Kristi Toliver as associate head coach, which helped him learn more about the differences between the WNBA and the NBA.
Still, he faced heat from the outside before he even coached his first game. As one of the WNBA’s founding teams, the Mercury have a standard to uphold and had come in from a rare season at the bottom of the league’s standings.
Compared to the season before where the Mercury went 9-31, the Mercury had a solid start under Tibbetts. However, they couldn’t stay above .500 and that seemed to be a growing issue.
The team was good enough to stay in the playoff picture, but the Olympic break seemed to hurt more than help as the Mercury beat only one playoff team and went 6-9. The Mercury fell to the No. 7 spot in the WNBA playoffs and were swept by the No. 2 Lynx.
Now that Tibbetts has had one year to implement his coaching style, the Mercury need to make a big step forward. Injuries caused Tibbetts to find new combinations without his full roster healthy, which means the team could’ve been even better.
If the roster remains healthy, a major achievement on its own, then it’ll be a true test to see if Tibbetts has what it takes to help the team make a deep run.
WNBA is on the rise
Footprint Center had long been one of the most well-attended WNBA arenas, but now other places around the league are catching on.
The Mercury were sixth in average attendance last season, a significant drop compared to past seasons. In 2023, Phoenix was second in attendance. However, in 2024, the Mercury had over 30,000 more people at games last season.
The WNBA’s attendance ballooned overall, partly because of Caitlin Clark’s rookie season. But Clark visited Phoenix only once.
And for those who missed Clark in Phoenix last season, the Fever will be at Footprint Center on Aug. 7 and Sept. 2.
Overall, people are catching on.
According to a study conducted by Morning Consult, the WNBA was named the fastest-growing brand in 2024 among adults in the U.S.
The league secured a major $2.2 billion media deal, greater investment from corporate partners, and broke TV viewership records. The players also had chartered flights all last season after years of advocating against commercial flights.
And 2025 is set to be another big season.
The WNBA has been steadily increasing the schedule and will now have 44 games, up four from the each of the past two years.
Many players and organizations have fought for the WNBA to expand and establish stability. More places and fan bases will be reached through the expansion.
New teams and cities are set to join the league in the coming years, including the Golden State Valkyries this season. The WNBA will expand to Canada next year with the Toronto Tempo and a return to Portland, which receives a second shot after Portland Fire folded in 2002 following three seasons.
The growing popularity of college women’s basketball will pair perfectly with the league’s expansion as more players garner attention.
Players and fans have long wished for more teams as talented players have been cut from training camps due to roster limitations. Soon fans will be introduced to more players who deserved a shot but couldn’t get it based on limited roster spots.
It’ll be interesting to see how the Mercury responds to the expansion. Although more teams now stand in the way of the championship, it’s a major motivating factor.
The Mercury proved last season they were willing to take risks to build a better team by trading for Copper. Who knows what this offseason can bring?
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix Mercury storylines: Diana Taurasi passing baton, Brittney Griner, WNBA popularity
