Let's Make a Deal
A history of trading in the WNBA
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This post was written by Chris Gunther from Charting Hoops. Follow Charting Hoops on Substack and Instagram.
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We’ve officially passed the WNBA trade deadline, with three major deals completed in the last few days. They were between the:
Minnesota Lynx and Dallas Wings: DiJonai Carrington for Diamond Miller, Karlie Samuelson, and a 2027 second-round pick
Storm and Mystics: Brittney Sykes for Alysha Clark, Zia Cooke, and a 2026 first
Sun and Mystics: Aaliyah Edwards for Jacy Sheldon and the right to swap 2026 first-round picks
You can read all about the rationale for these trades and who comes out the “winner” elsewhere. But I was curious how these trades fit into the broader pattern of trading in the WNBA.
Lynx and Wings: Day Traders
To start, it’s not surprising to see Dallas and Minnesota make the first big move — these two teams have been some of the most willing to swap assets throughout their histories. This is Dallas’s fourth trade of the year, and 68th in franchise history, putting it ahead of Phoenix for the most ever, despite existing for one fewer season.1 Minnesota isn’t far behind, with the move for Carrington its 63rd as a franchise. This season, each team has clear, complementary priorities — win a championship (Lynx), win the lottery (Dallas) — so we did see some version of this deal coming.
You can also bet on Dallas getting a draft piece out of any trade it’s involved in. Its new 2027 second-rounder is the 50th pick they’ve gotten from deals, the most in league history and 21 more than the Mercury have received from roughly the same number of trades.
That strategy has allowed the Wings to draft new stars and role players year after year. They earned Paige Bueckers on their own (i.e., by having one of the worst records in the league the last two seasons), but Aziaha James was selected with the 12th pick, which the Wings picked up in a 2023 trade. Just in the last three years, the Wings have drafted James, Jacy Sheldon (more on her shortly), Maddy Siegrist, and Lou Lopez Sénéchal with picks acquired in trades. And they are restocking once again.
Storm and Mystics: Trusted Partners
Meanwhile, the Storm-Mystics trade marks the fifth time these two teams have swapped assets directly (i.e., excluding multi-team trades). That makes them each other’s number one or two trade partner. Seattle in particular doesn’t make a lot of trades, but when they do pick up the phone, they dial the 202 area code: 1 in 6 of their trades have been with DC.
This chart is interactive. Go here and hover over your favorite team to see their trade partners.
The two teams that transact with one another the most, however, are Dallas and Phoenix: nine different one-on-one trades. Most of the swaps were fairly inconspicuous, but over time the Wings got the slightly better end of the partnership. Dallas has acquired more in future win shares than they traded to Phoenix, mostly thanks to getting those aforementioned draft picks and landing Plenette Pierson in a highly uneven 2005 trade.
That is, of course, until the 2020 blockbuster that sent Skylar Diggins to Phoenix for three top-eight draft picks. That may have seemed like a high price to pay, but Phoenix got to the Finals with Diggins in 2021, while those picks haven’t done much for the Wings.2
Mystics and Sun: I’m Really Glad to Meet You
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Edwards-Sheldon trade is just the second time the Mystics and Sun have made a one-to-one trade.3 The first was last year, when the Sun got Queen Egbo for Bernadett Határ and a 2025 pick. That’s surprising when you remember that Mike Thibault coached the Sun for 10 years and then went immediately to the general manager chair with the Mystics for another decade. You would think he’d have the close ties that grease the wheels of trade packages, but at least he got one done before he stepped down.
With the worst record in the league, the Sun were expected to be sellers, and ultimately they decided to ship off Sheldon. This is the third time she’s been traded in just one-and-a-half seasons in the WNBA. She should have an easier time figuring out where to book her ticket this time though — the first two trades involved eight and 10 teams respectively.
A lot of the focus on the Sun going into the trade deadline was on their other shooting guard, Marina Mabrey. Mabrey had asked for a trade in preseason but the Sun said no, presumably because they didn’t get any offers they liked. Did they ask the Sky?
Sky: A Rock and a Hard Place
Chicago was expected to be a seller at the deadline as well, as its high preseason expectations ran up against the harsh reality of injuries and slower-than-hoped-for development. As Richard Cohen wrote earlier this week:
Outside of the young players they consider parts of their core for the future, Chicago should be trying hard to sell anything that's not nailed down . . . If you have veteran pieces with any value left, take the damn value.
The team that made “win now” moves in the offseason, notably trading the third overall pick (which turned into Sonia Citron) for Ariel Atkins, is now essentially tanking.4 But the Sky have been making win now moves for years, going back to James Wade and this monstrosity:
Prior to 2023, no team had ever traded away more than five picks in a season. When teams do trade a lot of draft capital, it’s usually so they can load up on current talent and make a run in the playoffs. The 2015 Lynx, for instance, traded five picks and got back Sylvia Fowles, Asjha Jones, and won the title. The Sky dished out five in this single 2023 trade, plus a swap, and haven’t won a playoff game since. Oh, and they traded another four picks in 2024. Maybe the WNBA needs to adopt the NBA’s Stepien Rule to require league approval before this team can make any more trades.
Sure, the Sky have already received some of those picks back, but in trying to contend before they were ready, they’ve gotten stuck in a place with little hope for this year or the future. Chicago should have used this trade deadline to claw back some of its future, but maybe it has just been burned by trades one too many times.
Conferences: We don’t want to play with you, but we don’t want to play against you either
Two of these three deadline trades were between teams in the same conference (Lynx-Wings and Sun-Mystics). That’s not usually the case. My ingoing assumption would be that teams trade more often with the other conference so they don’t have to face off against their former players too regularly. This effect should be less pronounced in the WNBA than in other leagues given the conference-agnostic playoff setup adopted in 2016, but we can still see an effect in the data:
Almost all of the teams in the graphic above generally have bigger orange slices, indicating more of the trades were inter-conference. ATL is the one exception with more intra-conference trades and SEA, WAS, and LVA are close. Sometimes the trade just makes sense regardless of the source.
These recent within-conference trades might not actually be incongruent with the overall hypothesis, though, and help to explain the exceptions. None of the 2025 deadline trade partners are competing with one another for a playoff spot the remainder of this season, and with expansion and a record number of free agents coming in the offseason, the landscape will look so different next year. Minnesota just wanted another lock down defender for this title run, and doesn’t mind if they have to face Diamond Miller and a future pick down the road.
I’ll leave you with the full history of trade partners and a fun fact: the Fever and Sparks are the only set of teams5 to have never traded with one another.
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Looking at trades per year, to normalize for the number of seasons a franchise has been around, Dallas and Minnesota are still second and third in the league. Atlanta jumps to number one with 2.44 trades per season in their 18 seasons.
If you’re curious, the picks Dallas got back for Skylar Diggins turned into Bella Alarie, Tyasha Harris, and Shyla Heal.
They have been involved twice in three-team trades.
They may not be trying to lose yet, but they are 1-9 in their last 10 games.
Excluding the Valkyries, who have yet to make a trade with anyone.
Thanks, good ideas, and glad you like it
I think it would be more interesting if
a) the data were more recent -- what happened in 2005 doesn't have much relevance now, I don't think; and
b) the connections were between the people who made the trades (coaches and GMs) rather than franchises.
But still, lots of work, lots of data. Good stuff.