Phoenix Mercury offseason defined by continuity as WNBA heads into a new era

PHOENIX – It was a monumental offseason in women’s basketball, not only for the Phoenix Mercury, but the WNBA as a whole. 

The Mercury are coming off a 27-17 season in 2025, capped by a run to the WNBA Finals where the team was swept by the Las Vegas Aces. The ensuing offseason proved to be a busy one, as the Mercury had to juggle what to do with expiring contracts and the league’s new collective bargaining agreement.

The new CBA ushers in a new era of WNBA basketball, with significant changes to the structure of the league, such as an increase in the salary cap from $1.5 million to $7 million, with average salaries exceeding $583,000 and significant investment into player benefits and league standards.

“I’m so happy for our players in our league, an incredibly exciting time, and the players have deserved this for a long, long time, and I’m so happy that they’re getting what they deserve,” Mercury general manager Nick U’Ren said Tuesday.

It was a busy time for U’Ren and the Mercury, who made only a few significant additions from outside the team, but were able to re-sign core members of last season’s Finals squad, including forward Alyssa Thomas, guard Kahleah Copper, forward DeWanna Bonner and guard Sami Whitcomb.

Continuity was a key for the Mercury as Phoenix constructed a roster designed to build off last season, with hopes of a different outcome in the WNBA Finals. It’s a quick turnaround as training camp begins Sunday and the season opener is May 9 at Las Vegas against the team that dominated the Mercury in last year’s Finals.

The Mercury’s home opener is May 12 versus Minnesota.

“Bringing back a majority of our core, I think will be really helpful next year,” U’Ren said. “We talk about continuity a lot, and I’m hopeful that in year two we can build on what we did last year.” 

The Mercury were unable to retain forward Satou Sabally, who signed a two-year contract with the New York Liberty. Sabally averaged 16.3 points and 5.9 rebounds per game last season. Sabally was the Mercury’s leading scorer during their 2025 WNBA Finals run.

Even without Sabally, the Mercury quartet of Thomas, Copper, Bonner and Whitcomb combined to average nearly 50 points, 18.6 rebounds and 14.2 assists per game.

“We are really excited about the group we’ve got coming in in terms of experience, in terms of opportunity,” U’Ren said. “I think we’ve got a ton of depth, and a ton of flexibility, and I’m really excited about it.”  

With that depth and experience, the focal point of building a roster for this season revolved around finding complementary athletes to play alongside Thomas, who finished third in MVP voting and earned first team All-WNBA and All-Defense, averaging 15.4 points, 8.8 rebounds, 9.2 assists and 1.6 steals per game.

“It’s a mix of finding players who have upside and could fit into any system, and it’s a mix of putting the right players around someone like A.T. to make her thrive and to make our team thrive,” U’Ren said.

U’Ren and the Mercury addressed other roster needs through the European market. The Mercury drafted Inès Pitarch-Granel from France with the 27th pick in the WNBA Draft and Eszter Rátkai from Hungary with the 42nd pick. Additionally, the Mercury signed Valériane Ayayi, a two-time Olympic medalist from France, and also signed fellow member of the French national team Noémie Brochant to a training camp contract.

“We do go over to Europe and scout a ton,” U’Ren said. “We’ve got an international scout over there doing work on the ground for us. So it’s a year-long effort. This is not something where we’re kind of throwing darts at a wall.

“These are people we’ve targeted. These are people we’ve watched. These are people we’ve identified. And we are looking forward, as we were last year, to see who makes it, who can contribute, and we’re intentional about how they fit in terms of their skill sets, their personalities, how they fit around our existing players, and yeah, very excited to see what comes of it.”

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