5 Takes From WNBA Opening Weekend - Aces, Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers, More
The WNBA’s 30th season was in peril two months ago.
The league and the players’ association seemed miles apart during tedious and, at times, acrimonious collective bargaining negotiations over the 17 months since players opted out of the current collective bargaining agreement in October 2024.
But both sides deprived themselves of sleep for hours on end, as reported by ESPN’s Alexa Philippou and Ramona Shelburne, to reach a historic new CBA. The WNBA board of governors ratified it on March 24, and free agency opened in early April.
With that obstacle finally cleared, we can all refocus on the basketball. The 2026 regular season tipped off on Friday, and there’s already plenty to discuss. Read our top-five takes from WNBA opening weekend below.
Don’t worry about the Las Vegas Aces
Reigning WNBA MVP, Finals MVP, and Defensive Player of the Year A’ja Wilson was asked which finger she planned to don her new championship ring when entering T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday.
“Middle!”
Period.
The Aces received their third championship ring in four years before their season opener against the Phoenix Mercury, whom Las Vegas swept in the 2025 WNBA Finals. The special 2-in-1 ring was the only highlight, as the Mercury got their revenge and spoiled ring night with a 99-66 win.
“It's the largest loss by a defending WNBA champion in a season opener, as well as the Mercury's largest season-opening win in franchise history,” Philippou wrote on X.
The Aces won’t overreact, and neither should you.
The Aces lost to Minnesota by 53 points to fall to 14-14 on Aug. 2, 2025. They didn’t lose again for the rest of the season. Las Vegas isn’t about to rip off 43 straight wins, but this team will be there in September.
Maybe worry about Caitlin Clark
The Indiana Fever were the most resilient team in the league last year, as they made the WNBA semifinals despite relentless injury across the roster. Caitlin Clark was limited to just 13 games due to a quad strain, two groin injuries, and a bone bruise.
Soft tissue injuries are every athlete’s boogeyman, and Clark received another scare in the Fever’s season-opening loss to the Dallas Wings.
Clark was seen going back into the tunnel a few times during the ESPN broadcast. Clark said after the game that she was simply “getting my back adjusted,” and Fever head coach Stephanie White downplayed it further.
“This is gonna be an ongoing thing, and not just her,” White said postgame. “We’ve had multiple players who have gone back, and we don’t have a blue tent, right? But they’re gonna go back and get it adjusted and make sure that the body’s working.”
Even if it is routine, nothing is routine when it comes to Clark, and her injury-riddled 2025 will color every move she makes in 2026.
Definitely fear Paige Bueckers
Same game, different lens: Paige Bueckers is going to be a problem this season.
It’s not a hot take to say that the 2025 No. 1 overall pick and reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year will continue to be good as a second-year player.
But ESPN’s Holly Rowe reported during the game that Bueckers put on 15 pounds of “lean muscle” during the offseason, and Bueckers looked even stronger in her shot-making and more confident in her court vision in the Wings’ 107-104 season-opening win in Indiana.
Paige Buckets bucketed 20 points on an extremely efficient 80% shooting from the floor, though her two missed free throws with 1.6 seconds left gave the Fever a chance to tie the game. Her +8 was the best plus-minus rating of anyone in the game.
It’ll be fascinating to see whether Bueckers’ individual excellence translates into wins for the Wings under first-year head coach Jose Fernandez. Dallas finished with a league-worst 10-34 record last year.
Déjà vu in New York?
The New York Liberty started last season at 9-0 and, in WNBA pundit circles, were getting fitted for their championship rings before mid-June. Injuries to Jonquel Jones and Breanna Stewart derailed the Liberty in July and August, and they lost their first-round playoff series to Phoenix.
The Liberty were struck by the injury bug before this season even started, as Sabrina Ionescu (left foot injury) and Satou Sabally (cyst) are ruled out until further notice. But New York looked full strength in a wire-to-wire 106-75 domination of the Connecticut Sun at Barclays Center on Friday night.
The Liberty entered the season as the odds-on favorites to win the 2026 WNBA Finals, and recreated the narratives from the beginning of last season on opening night, but a much tighter 98-93 overtime win over the Washington Mystics in D.C. on Sunday left room to entertain the question of whether injuries will loom as large in 2026 as in 2025.
We can’t assess this team until we see their new “Big 4” of Jones, Ionescu, Stewart, and Sabally play together for the first time, and we don’t know when that will happen.
The people demand more women’s basketball
The expansion Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire staged their first regular-season games on Friday and Saturday, respectively.
The Tempo hosted the Washington Mystics at Coca-Cola Coliseum in Toronto. While they lost to the Mystics, 68-65, they did so in front of a sold-out crowd of 8,210. The Fire also lost their opener, 98-83, to the Chicago Sky at Moda Center in Portland. The Fire set a WNBA attendance record for an expansion franchise with a sellout crowd of 19,335, per Ryan Clarke.
The Golden State Valkyries set the bar high for expansion franchises moving forward when they went 23-21 and made the playoffs in their inaugural season - a first for a WNBA expansion team - last year. But, for now, on-court results are secondary to the clear demand for more women’s basketball nationwide (and in Canada). Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia - franchises set to join the WNBA in 2028, 2029, and 2030, respectively - are watching closely.
2026 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
This story was originally published May 10, 2026 at 4:48 PM.