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Although athletes who say they’re “in the best shape of their life” after a long off-season aren’t usually to be trusted, the oft-overlooked W.N.B.A. had a solid claim on the cliché heading into its 24th year.
Following a hard-fought five-game finals in 2019, the league saw one of its most dramatic free-agency periods ever as the shuffle of A-listers like Skylar Diggins-Smith and DeWanna Bonner created an almost entirely new field of competition. The W.N.B.A. welcomed point guard Sabrina Ionescu — a triple-double phenom and one of its buzziest prospects in years — and most notably, players secured a new collective bargaining agreement that allowed the average W.