The Minnesota Lynx entered the 2023 season with a bit of uncertainty as to exactly what this team would look like and the direction they were going in. With the retirement of Sylvia Fowles in 2022, Minnesota officially turned the final page on the organization’s dynasty era and began the next chapter in a new era of Lynx basketball.
After swinging and missing on big-name free agents last offseason, the focus in Minnesota during the 2023 campaign was more on development than competing for a championship, a change from the organization’s aspirations over the past decade or so. But with that shift came more questions.
The new face of the franchise would be Napheesa Collier, but it was unknown if she would return to All-WNBA form after missing nearly the entire 2022 season due to giving birth to her daughter Mila. There would be an insertion of youth with second-overall pick Diamond Miller and second-round steal Dorka Juhász, but it was unknown just how quickly they would adjust to life in the WNBA after transitioning from college. There was also uncertainty at the point guard position, an area that has seen a rotation of players since Lindsay Whalen retired in 2018.
“At the beginning of our season, as a staff, we felt a great deal of uncertainty around exactly who we were and what we were going to be good at. So we knew it would be an evolution and that we were going to be focused on development,” Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve said in a one-on-one interview. “If you think about being in training camp, as we came out of training camp unprepared for say our first few weeks of the season, we didn’t have any idea up until the last day of training camp—when the rosters were due—who exactly was going to be on the team.”
The Lynx were learning about themselves as a team on the fly. And while they carried uncertainty and questions leading up to the 2023 campaign, they found several answers over the course of the season, and they also found success along the way.
“We were just resilient all season long. I’m so incredibly proud of this group in how we continue to grow, continue to believe in each other, continue to just figure it out and enjoy the process,” Kayla McBride said after the season. “Where we are right now and where we can potentially be, it makes me happy. … Where we’re going is a really special place, and I know I’m excited to be a part of it.”
The Year That Was
It’s been well documented that Minnesota’s season didn’t start off as hoped. Reeve explained that was largely due to the insertion of youth on the team and the search for a clear identity.
Entering the season as a rebuilding team, the Lynx began the 2023 campaign 0-6, quickly dropping to the bottom of the WNBA standings. But like we’ve seen the last few years with slow starts for the Lynx, they didn’t let that start impact the outcome of the year.
Minnesota went on to once again turn things around, ascending up the standings and reaching as high as the fifth seed toward the end of the regular season. In the end, the Lynx claimed the sixth seed to return to the postseason a year after failing to do so, even taking the third-seeded Connecticut Sun to a series-deciding third game in the playoffs in the opening round.
“I think the success of the remainder of the season was largely where we sort of had shortcomings in the beginning,” Reeve said. “We ended up really flipping that narrative and being a team that found success. Probably, I would imagine, because of what we learned early in the season. That’s kind of what our team was about. I said this a lot—that though we were winless through the first six games, if you showed up to the gym and were around our team, you would never know it.
“I think one of the greatest wins in my time, so 14 seasons, and we’ve had a lot of great series wins along the way on this path, the Game Two win in Connecticut is right up there with some of my favorite all-time wins.”
The turnaround the Lynx made was in part due to the MVP play of Collier, the lone Lynx captain in 2023 who battled back from missing all but four games in 2022 on maternity leave. She not only returned to the All-Star caliber player seen at the start of her career, but she took her game up a notch, finishing fourth in the WNBA’s MVP voting, earning her third All-Star selection, being named to the All-WNBA First Team and All-Defensive Second Team, and earning the title of the Associated Press’ Co-Comeback Player of the Year.
“I think I’m proud of the resilience of the year. It was such a hard offseason; I didn’t know what I was going to look like coming into the season. It was really tough, just the rehab I had to go through,” Collier said. “Then to come back—I think just that will that I had to want to be great this season was really high, the highest it’s ever been. I felt like that allowed me to push through a mental barrier, whatever it was, to know that I am a great player and I can perform like this every night. That was really fun to kind of grow, and I felt like I saw myself grow this year as a leader, as a person, as a player.”
Along with the success of Collier, Minnesota saw the immediate insertion of two rookies—Miller and Juhász—into key roles in the starting lineup, both of whom finished with All-WNBA Rookie Team honors. The Lynx also saw Kayla McBride step up even more as a veteran leader while boosting the team on both ends of the floor. Additionally, Lindsay Allen took over starting point guard duties and put together a strong year, and other players on the roster held roles they perhaps hadn’t yet took on in their careers thus far.
All of those developments and successes were a result of the Lynx figuring things out as the season went along, and Minnesota felt 2023 was a successful foundational year to build upon moving forward.
“I didn’t know what to expect this year with so many new people and you have no idea how they’re going to perform, obviously,” Collier said. “You don’t know what it’s going to look like until you go through it. Especially now that the season is over, I think the future is really bright. … The improvements we made this year already, the growth that we’ve had from start to finish is huge.”
The Future
Now with 2023 in the rearview mirror and the offseason in full swing, the Lynx hope to use last season as a stepping stone to an even stronger future. That will start with this offseason, as Minnesota will have plenty of cap space available to potentially add players to the roster.
With six players under contract following the 2023 season (Collier, McBride, Miller, Juhász, Tiffany Mitchell, and Jessica Shepard), Minnesota still has just under $642,000 in cap space available, according to Her Hoop Stats.
Some of that salary will be used to re-sign players, potentially the likes of Rachel Banham, Bridget Carleton, Allen, and others, and some of that will be used for the incoming rookies the Lynx select in the 2024 WNBA draft. But Minnesota could also dip into free agency to explore adding a player from the open market this offseason as well. However, the Lynx are focused on not overspending for any free agents.
“Free agency is something we will look at, but I’ll tell you we won’t overreach. We won’t put ourselves in a situation where you look at it and go, ‘Okay, it’s a stop-gap. Why’d you do that?’,” Reeve said. “There’s probably one position that we would consider—when we say a stop-gap, meaning maybe it’s somebody that is going to be with you for a year or two, but maybe we feel like it’s a necessity. But again, making sure that we don’t overreach financially; that will be a priority for us.
“By and large, we really want to focus on players that will be a part of the future, as you can see a vision over the next three to five seasons and what we can grow into. I don’t think there’s any need for me to talk about free agent names, but I think for us, more positionally, we have certainly a focus that will be probably obvious to anyone that has watched our team.”
One clear need for the Lynx comes at the point guard position, a spot Minnesota has been trying to solidify since the retirement of Lindsay Whalen. That is a position the Lynx will try and focus on in free agency and/or in the upcoming WNBA draft. Shooting is also a need on the team following a 2023 campaign during which Minnesota ranked eighth in field goal percentage (43.5 percent) and second-to-last in three-point percentage (32.5 percent).
Although adding talented free agents is something the Lynx will explore this offseason, they are more so focused on the commitment they made as an organization entering the 2023 season of building from within and developing the players currently on the roster.
“[We are] focused on being forward thinking and having some young players that you now focus on developing. That’s where we’re at as we go into this offseason,” Reeve said. “Our focus is on how we can help them improve, the information that we’ve given them, the ways that we’ll support them; that will be big for us.”
Minnesota came into the 2023 campaign with many unknowns looming over the organization’s head. Now heading into the upcoming offseason, the Lynx have a clearer vision of their future, one that they believe will be bright for years to come.
“I think we have such a great foundation, a lot of young players too. I think the rebuilding stage that people are talking about is going to be way shorter than what was anticipated,” Collier said. “I’m really excited to see what we do next year, and I think we’re really close.”
Unless otherwise noted, all stats courtesy of WNBA.com.
