PHOENIX – The Mercury’s 30th season began with more of a whimper than a bang on Tuesday night at Mortgage Matchup Center. There was pomp and circumstance and a pregame introduction for the ages of this year’s roster.
But sometimes the staging is better than the game and that turned out to be the case. Playing their third contest in four nights to open the schedule, the Mercury withered at the end with an 88-84 loss to the Minnesota Lynx, a hot playoff rival the past two years.
But there was nothing to be despondent about as the raucous sellout crowd of 10,826 acknowledged. For the most part, the Mercury played upbeat and entertaining basketball despite having an incomplete roster, as several players have just returned from or are still immersed in international play.
How long will it take to get the team together?
“That’s a very good question,” third-year Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts said during his postgame media session. “This is the first time we’ve come out of camp and did not have everyone. I don’t think we’re there. I didn’t get that feeling tonight. It might just take us a little bit longer to find out who we are because we’ve had quite a bit of change in the last week.”
Mercury Are Seeking Their Fourth WNBA Title
The goal, of course, is to get back to the WNBA Finals and win this time around. Last year, the Mercury surprised by vanquishing the Liberty and Lynx in the opening rounds before the Aces swept them in the Finals, the third title for Las Vegas in the past four years.
It’s a long walk home, as Bruce Springsteen sings.
“We need to keep working,” Tibbetts said. “We opened with a good game [a 99-66 win over the Aces] in Las Vegas and now have dropped the last two. I’m kind of disappointed. We wanted to protect home court, especially on opening night. We’re going to have to be better than we were tonight.”
Valeriane Ayayi had just been cleared by her club in Prague and started even though she didn’t have one minute of practice time with the Mercury. Monique Akoa Makani is still playing ball in Europe while Sami Whitcomb’s recovering from her May 7 surgery to remove floating cartilage in her left knee and could be out for as long as two months.
Right now, the Mercury has a lot of missing parts, including Satou Sabally, a mainstay from last year’s Mercury team who signed as a free agent with the Liberty.
“We have to go back to the drawing board,” veteran forward DeWanna Bonner said. “We’re just keep adding people to our lineup. Our offense was a little choppy, all over the place. We’re just trying to figure it all out. Everybody looks just a step slow. When everybody gets comfortable we’ll be better across the board.”
Bonner began her pro career with the Mercury in 2009 and returned to Phoenix as a free agent last July after seeking and receiving her release from the Indiana Fever. At 38 years old, she’s the squad’s elder stateswoman and part of the fabric of Mercury history.
By any stretch of the imagination that history has been a successful one.
The Mercury has won the WNBA title three times in 2007, 2009 and 2014 and lost in the Finals three times: 1998, 2021 and 2025. Bonner, who’s back for her 17th season, played alongside franchise icons Diana Taurasi and Brittney Griner on the 2014 team that won it all.
The Mercury have been in transition since the Lynx eliminated them in two playoff games to end the 2024 season. Taurasi retired and Griner signed with Atlanta as a free agent and has moved on to the Connecticut Sun in the same fashion.
The rebuild included a four-team trade during the 2025 offseason that netted Sabally and Allysa Thomas. Kahleah Copper, a throwback to the last season of the Taurasi-Griner era, had a team-high 30-points in 35 minutes on Tuesday night.
The New CBA Helped Players Like Bonner
Bonner was a real benefactor of the new hard-fought WNBA collective bargaining agreement with a salary cap that rose from $1.5 million per team last season to $7 million this year. The Mercury spent to the cap both seasons, this year at $6.5 million, sixth highest in the league.
Last year, Bonner was signed at midseason for $78,831. This year she’s earning $500,000, just under the projected league average.
“Definitely I’m a lot more comfortable, excited and refreshed,” said Bonner, who contributed 16 points in 30 minutes. “Last year, because I came in so late, it took me some time to get to know the players. I had to get to know them on the fly. I didn’t have the time in training camp to get to know the coaches or to get around Phoenix a little more because I had to just come in and play.”
Last year, the Mercury got off to a 15-6 start and then finished at 27-17. This year, the season has expanded from 40 to 44 games. After just three games and at 1-2, it’s hard to say the Mercury have floundered out of the gate. The sample size is too small.
The Mercury pick it up again Friday night at home against Chicago and then play two more games in Phoenix against Toronto and Los Angeles before hitting the road for a three-game swing.
Let’s give it at least another two weeks. One night, be it a disappointing home opener, does not a season make.
