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Graham haysESPN.com
The return of Breanna Stewart and the debut of Sabrina Ionescu headline the opening act of the WNBA season, two female basketball stars faced off against each other when the league opened the 2020 season.
Initially scheduled to start on May 15, but delayed by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the WNBA season will now kick off with a morning between Seattle Storm and New York Liberty on July 25 (ESPN, noon ET).
Phoenix Mercury and the Los Angeles Sparks will renew their rivalry later that day (ABC, 3 pm ET) in an even more star-studded encounter, while the Washington Mystics begin their title defense against Indiana Fever that night to complete the opening. Board.
The WNBA released the 132 games 2020 schedule on Monday. The league will play three games a day at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, and Monday is usually a day off. Players, coaches and staff will remain isolated on the IMG campus throughout the season. Each team will play 22 games in the regular season.
“This 2020 season of the WNBA will be truly unique and we look forward to using our collective platform to highlight tremendous athletes in the WNBA as well as their advocacy for social change,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in a statement. .
The regular season ends on September 12. The format of the playoffs has not changed; the first and second round are single elimination, with series of five games for the semifinals and the WNBA Finals.
In total, ESPN, ESPN2, and ABC will host 24 regular-season games between July 25 and August 13.
The game between Storm and Liberty features much more stellar power than their combined record of 28-40 a season ago. The Storm played last season without Stewart, the 2018 WNBA MVP who suffered an Achilles tear while playing in Europe. With Stewart and Sue Bird, who also missed last season with a knee injury, Storm won the championship in 2018. An 11-time All-Star turning 40 later this year, Bird is also expected to regain all her strength.
Liberty finished with the second-worst league record a season ago, and then traded to former MVP Tina Charles in the offseason. New York has seven rookies on its roster, including Ionescu, the No. 1 overall pick in the April draft. Ionescu set an NCAA record with 26 career triple doubles, nearly one in every five games he played in Oregon. He had hoped to guide the ducks back to the Final Four for a final shot at winning a national title, but the pandemic wiped out the NCAA tournament.
The Liberty will play five nationally televised games on ESPN or ABC during the 2020 season. The Storm, Las Vegas Aces, Sparks, and Mercury will each play six.
The first of those nationally televised games for Sparks and Mercury on opening day is also expected to mark the return of Diana Taurasi. Taurasi played just six games a season ago and scored in double digits only once, missing most of the season with a back injury. It will be the first game for the trio of Taurasi, reigning league scoring champion Brittney Griner and Skylar Diggins-Smith. Mercury acquired Diggins-Smith in a successful offseason trade with the Dallas Wings.
After posting the best record in the Western Conference a season ago, the Connecticut Sparks were swept by the Connecticut Sun in a best-of-five semifinal series. That departure came amid considerable turmoil, with general manager Penny Toler fired after reports of a racially charged post-game speech and Candace Parker curiously went to the bench for much of the final game. Toler was fired soon after, but coach Derek Fisher remains.
The mystics are on the opening day schedule after winning their first championship a season ago, but it remains to be seen whether they will have the reigning MVP Elena Delle Donne or Charles. Both players await medical exemption decisions from the league’s independent panel of doctors. Neither of them has traveled to Florida so far.
The defending champions will also be without Kristi Toliver, who was traded to Los Angeles in the offseason, as well as Natasha Cloud and LaToya Sanders, who have chosen to stay out of the season.
The Fever was the last team to arrive at the IMG Academy, delayed by league protocols after two players tested positive for the coronavirus.
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