Minnesota Lynx

The Minnesota Lynx dynasty of the 2010s was not merely the best run of sustained excellence in WNBA history—it was a blueprint for what a women's basketball franchise could be when every element aligned. Four championships in seven years (2011, 2013, 2015, 2017), a core of Maya Moore, Sylvia Fowles, Lindsay Whalen, and Seimone Augustus, and the steady hand of head coach Cheryl Reeve, now the longest-tenured coach in WNBA history. The Lynx proved that a small-market team sharing Target Center with the Timberwolves could become the gold standard of an entire league. And then Maya Moore walked away—not because the game had nothing left to offer her, but because she had something more important to do. Moore stepped away in 2019 to pursue criminal justice reform, ultimately helping free Jonathan Irons from a wrongful conviction. She later married Irons. It was the kind of sacrifice that transcended sport, and it left a hole in the Lynx lineup that no roster move could fill.

What makes the Lynx remarkable is that they refused to accept that the dynasty's end meant a descent into mediocrity. Under Reeve's stewardship, Minnesota rebuilt around Napheesa Collier, who in 2025 put together one of the finest individual seasons the league has ever seen. Collier joined the exclusive 50-40-90 club—shooting 53 percent from the field, 40 percent from three, and 91 percent from the line—while averaging 29.5 points per game at the midseason mark. The Lynx posted the best regular season record in the league at 34-10, earning the number-one overall seed. It felt, for a while, like the dynasty had been reborn.

But the 2025 postseason delivered a cruel reminder that regular season dominance guarantees nothing. After falling to the New York Liberty in the 2024 Finals in five games, the Lynx entered the 2025 playoffs as overwhelming favorites only to be upset by the Phoenix Mercury three games to one in the semifinals. Collier was injured during the series, and Reeve was suspended for Game 4—a confluence of misfortune that turned what should have been a coronation into a collapse. The pain of that exit lingers in Minneapolis, but so does the conviction that this team, with Collier and Reeve at its core, is built to contend for years to come.