Michael VoepelOct 14, 2025, 08:00 AM ETCloseMichael Voepel is a senior writer who covers the WNBA, women’s college basketball and other college sports. Voepel began covering women’s basketball in 1984, and has been with ESPN since 1996.Follow on X
play1:42How the Aces’ resiliency led them to back-to-back championshipsRebecca Lobo examines how the Aces won the battle of the superteams vs. the Liberty and became back-to-back champions.
play1:54Jackie Young: A’ja Wilson will be the GOAT when she retiresJackie Young joins “SportsCenter” to discuss the Aces’ championship and A’ja Wilson’s legacy.
What makes this Aces title win so ‘special’ (1:38)Andraya Carter explains how all the Aces’ players stepped up throughout the season and praised Becky Hammon’s “masterful coaching.” (1:38)
How the Aces’ resiliency led them to back-to-back championshipsRebecca Lobo examines how the Aces won the battle of the superteams vs. the Liberty and became back-to-back champions.
Rebecca Lobo examines how the Aces won the battle of the superteams vs. the Liberty and became back-to-back champions.
Jackie Young: A’ja Wilson will be the GOAT when she retiresJackie Young joins “SportsCenter” to discuss the Aces’ championship and A’ja Wilson’s legacy.
When the Las Vegas Aces won their third WNBA title in four seasons, the debate Friday immediately turned to whether they had cemented their status as the league’s next dynasty.
It’s not easy an easy task. There was a big gap this season between the 2025 Aces at their worst versus at their best. Perhaps no other team in league history reversed its fortunes so dramatically, going from 14-14 after a 53-point loss on Aug. 2 to completing a 4-0 sweep of the WNBA Finals on Oct. 10.
The Aces ended the regular season on a 16-game winning streak, but their playoff run had its drama. They were nearly upset in the first round, winning the deciding Game 3 by one point against Seattle. They went to overtime in the deciding Game 5 of the semifinals against Indiana. And Games 1 and 3 of the Finals versus Phoenix were decided by a combined five points.
All of that is why the 2025 Aces aren’t in the top 10 like their 2022 and 2023 championship predecessors.
Speaking of which: Among the biggest challenges for assembling this list is ranking champions who are from the same franchise and were made up of mostly the same players. We’ve attempted to split those hairs.
There is more than one way to assess the teams. ESPN’s Michael Voepel ranked the teams based on discussions with coaches and players around the league, plus some old-fashioned subjectivity. ESPN’s Kevin Pelton ranked the champions 1 through 29 using a similar statistical model to the one he developed to determine the NBA’s top teams. Based on the predictive power of point differential, it starts with that mark in the regular season.
Ultimately, being at the bottom in these rankings isn’t that much different from being at the top. They’re all champions.
As good as they were in winning the 2022 championship, the Aces were even better in 2023. They ranked No. 1 in scoring and defense during the regular season and stumbled just once in the playoffs, in Game 3 of the Finals. A’ja Wilson got her first WNBA Finals MVP honor for her performance in 2023; she won again for the 2025 Finals.
In Chelsea Gray, Kelsey Plum and Jackie Young, the Aces also had trio of guards who were among the best backcourts in league history.
Candace Parker, a free-agent signee who was expected to be a big part of the Aces’ 2023 title run, was sidelined by foot surgery that July. The Aces also lost starters Gray and Kiah Stokes before Game 4 and still won the title, illustrating how good the chemistry was for the team. The Las Vegas bench — then led by Alysha Clark, Cayla George, Sydney Colson and Kierstan Bell — came through when they were needed most. — Voepel
How the Aces’ resiliency led them to back-to-back championships
This was the last of Houston’s four consecutive title teams, the end of the Comets’ version of “Camelot.” In 2000, the WNBA was at 16 teams and most of the former ABL players were in their second year in the league. Sheryl Swoopes won her first of three MVP awards and two-time MVP Cynthia Cooper played her last full season at age 37.
The Comets weren’t the top seed in the playoffs. Despite the best differential in league history, Houston finished one game back of the 28-4 Sparks before sweeping Los Angeles in the best-of-three conference finals. Five of the Comets’ six playoff wins came by eight points or fewer, but all three of their opponents went 20-12 or better during a top-heavy year where the league expanded by four teams. — Pelton
Bird, part of all four Storm title teams, has ruminated over which of them was “best.” Lauren Jackson was the superstar of the 2004 and 2010 Storm title teams; her counterpart in 2018 and 2020 was Breanna Stewart. Bird said an edge goes to the very similarly constructed 2018 and 2020 teams due to the presence of guard Jewell Loyd. Bird then gives a nod to the overall depth and chemistry to the 2020 Storm, who were first in the league in offensive and defensive rating.
“The way we shot 3’s, the way we moved the ball — if you took something away, we’d just keep it moving,” Bird said. “We talked before every game that we were going to wear teams out with the pace that we played.” — Voepel
In 2012, Minnesota lost 3-1 in the Finals to Indiana, which irked the Lynx because they were five games better than the Fever in the regular-season standings. The 2013 team didn’t allow any openings in the playoffs, sweeping Seattle, Phoenix and Atlanta. — Voepel
This Lynx championship team was the league’s best from start to finish, sweeping its way to a title with the best playoff point differential ever (+15.4 PPG). We were denied playoff matchups against either of the other two teams to win at least 20 games during the regular season because both Chicago and Los Angeles were upset earlier in the postseason. — Pelton
Cooper said if she had to pick just one Comets championship team as her favorite, it would be this one. As Kevin noted, the team’s .900 winning percentage remains the best in WNBA history. Swoopes was second on the team in scoring at 15.6 PPG to Cooper’s 22.7. Cooper won her second consecutive MVP award; she was Finals MVP for all four championship teams.
And there’s another reason this team is dear to Cooper’s heart. Her close friend, Kim Perrot, the Comets’ spark plug point guard, averaged 8.5 points and 4.7 assists in what would be her last season in the WNBA. Perrot had 13 points, five rebounds and four assists in the title-clinching win over the Mercury. Five months later, she was diagnosed with cancer and died in August 1999 at age 32. — Voepel
Amid the Lynx dynasty from 2011 to 2017, the Mercury owned this season. Their 29 wins is a WNBA record, and they were first in offensive and defensive rating. All five starters — Diana Taurasi, Brittney Griner, Candice Dupree, Penny Taylor and DeWanna Bonner — averaged double digits in scoring.
Their only loss in the playoffs came to Minnesota in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals, but they bounced back to win the series with an 18-point Game 3 victory. In the WNBA Finals, Chicago was no match. Taurasi, who averaged 16.2 PPG in the regular season and 21.9 PPG in the playoffs, was WNBA Finals MVP for the second time. — Voepel
The 2014 Phoenix team still holds the best winning percentage for any team outside the expansion era. Relative to that record, the Mercury’s +9.5 differential wasn’t especially dominating, the reason Phoenix falls outside the top five in my rankings. In the playoffs, Phoenix was outstanding, beating the defending champion Lynx 2-1 in the conference finals and sweeping a 15-19 Chicago team in the Finals by an average of 18.3 PPG. — Pelton
The top-rated one of the Lynx’s four title teams in my model fully integrated Sylvia Fowles, who won MVP and Finals MVP, to the core of the team that had already won three championships in the previous six years. After sweeping Washington in the semifinals, Minnesota rallied from a 2-1 deficit to win a Finals rematch against the Sparks in five games. — Pelton
Minnesota was still smarting over a 3-2 Finals loss to Los Angeles in 2016, and the teams were again archrivals in 2017. Minnesota was first in the league in offensive and defensive rating and Los Angeles was second in both.
Compared to a regular season that saw the Mystics win a record 13 games by 20-plus points — four more than any other team in league history — their playoff run was a slog. Washington outscored Las Vegas by just one point in a hard-fought four-game semifinals win, then needed the full five games to beat Connecticut in a classic Finals. A formula that puts more emphasis on the playoffs would drop the Mystics in the statistical rankings. — Pelton
Elena Delle Donne said this was the best team she has ever played on: “Not just talent-wise, but the way emotionally and mentally we were so on-point with one another. That’s what took us to the next level.”
The Mystics also overcame a back injury that hampered Delle Donne during the Finals and has impacted her career since. Delle Donne was the MVP in 2019, but teammate Emma Meesseman was the Finals MVP, averaging 17.8 points in the championship series. — Voepel
The 2022 Aces ran into more challenges in the regular season than the 2023 version of Las Vegas. But by the playoffs, they were in control as the league’s best team.
In coach Becky Hammon’s first season with the franchise, the Aces changed their playing style — 3-pointers became a far bigger part of the offense — and Plum and Young matured into even better players. Wilson won her second regular-season MVP award and was Defensive Player of the Year. Then Gray was on fire throughout the playoffs, winning Finals MVP.
Only by contrast to Houston’s championship teams before and after would the 26-6 Comets look unspectacular. Houston came within Teresa Weatherspoon’s unforgettable buzzer-beating heave of sweeping the playoffs and came back to finish off New York in the winner-take-all Game 3 of the Finals to hoist the trophy a third time. — Pelton