Rough Notes Roundup: Your 55 Essential WNBA Memories

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• I can’t believe the WNBA season is over. A summer of expansion, of soaring revenues and mounting protest, of A’ja Wilson’s total GOAT status reclamation, of Caitlin Clark + Angel Reese’s early retirements (I’m kidding.) Now we find ourselves in the final sprint of the CBA negotiations: an enduring marathon that could screech everything to a halt with a work stoppage. Meanwhile, we’re swimming in WNBA season reviews and recaps and a million takes about how to make sense of it (never mind the incomprehensible fascist horrors in our world beyond.) It’s a frantic, anxious-making time.

• But this weekend, as I read and re-read all of your responses to The People’s Exit Interview, I felt so soothed.

• Not that all the answers were comforting - no, definitely not. But I loved feeling the not-alone-ness of this past WNBA season, and of women’s basketball fandom in general. Like one person wrote in their response "it’s like the end of summer camp: we’ll never have this exact summer again, but we’ll keep coming back bc we love this place.”

• I think it’s worth sitting around the campfire one last time, pulling out the most glorious, heartbreaking, potentially overlooked memories — and letting them flicker in the light. That’s why I’ve used *your* contributions to create a list of 55 essential memories from the 2025 WNBA season. Here are they are, in a particular order I chose (but not one that ranks them or anything like that!)

55 Memories from the 2025 WNBA Season, According To You:

1. How good the Liberty were at first!

2. Sky fans chanting “fire Jeff” so loud you could hear it on the broadcast:

3. When Kamilla Cardoso lost her shoe during a play, retrieved it during a dead ball and then did NOT tie it even though she had time to, and played at least one minute with her shoe untied / loose. Sums up the Sky’s year.

4. Julie Van Loo’s insane back to back to back 3s during the season opener

5. The elevator pic from All-Star Weekend!!

   

6. Carla Leite’s insanely good passes. Carla Leite’s insane turnovers.

7. Carla Leite bouncing around like a ping pong ball the whole season but somehow sustaining no injuries

8. How sick this league was without Caitlin Clark taking up space!

9. Skylar hitting the tongue out zany face celly and worried that whoever needed to see it didn’t see it so she did it again

10. How expensive games are now

11. The dildos. Fuck those guys forever.

12. Players smiling while trash talking each other:

13. Watching Marina Mabrey and Saniya Rivers slowly ‘troll’ themselves into an actual romantic relationship

14. How Marina initially wanted out of Connecticut

15. When Marina posted a tunnel thirst trap and Dijonai commented, then Saniya commented:

16. RED PANDA’s INJURY?!?! 😢😢😢

17. “The Bria Hartley Regime”

18. CONNECTICUT SUN BLOWING OUT THE LIBERTY *ON WICKED NIGHT*.

    

19. Jess Shepard’s triple double against the Indiana Fever. Fastest in league history!

20. Kayla McBride’s hotel room heartbreak sing along crash outs:

21. Modern Frank Capra character Paige Bueckers trying to keep her chin up in a poverty franchise.

22. Paige wasn’t even ‘out’ when this season started !!!!!!!

23. The fact that Kelsey Plum freakin kicked Veronica Burton in the shin and didn’t get ejected????

24. When Tip first broke her nose and had blood streaming down her face and still put her “V’s up”

25. Fever hardship team almost making it to the finals

26. The WNBA stifling a Native American tribe’s ability to sell a team to a more marketable location for a massive profit

27. A’ja’s pride cake:

28. The entire StudBudz stream

29. Special shout-out to the StudBudz moment with Megan Rapinoe at All-Star weekend 😅😅😅

30. StudBudz sharing a scooter they had DoorDash’d to their hotel room

    

31. All of us crying when Kayla McBride was crying in her presser after the Lynx got knocked out

32. Phee crying while walking off the court with an injury, twice

33. Napheesa Collier’s greatness

34. Kaitlyn Chen’s sideline celebrations

35. The fact that Kate Martin stopped wearing her braid after her breakup

36. Kaitlyn Chen smacking Kate Martin in the face as she jumped so hard:

37. Jackie Young dressed up as her type

38. The Violet hatching hype!

39. Diamond DeShields getting waived and not being able to find a way out of Connecticut, devastating and eye-opening

40. That Angel Reese fan sitting courtside with a protest shirt on:

41. The fact that arena security thought they would be able to stop dildos from entering by banning bags

42. Lexie’s double black eyes:

43. What happened to Sarah Ashlee Barker…

44. When Jaylen Sherrod got super overwhelmed on the Lynx bench during a close game with the Liberty right after being traded to Minnesota from New York and it was really relatable

45. Natalie Nakase talking about cussing all the time

46. Phoenix beating the Lynx in game 2 by erasing a 20 pt lead:

47. Paige’s 44 point game in an insane duel with Kelsey Plum

48. Sami Whitcomb’s 36 point game

49. Kayla McBride’s eight 3’s in a half

50. Natasha Cloud after winning the skills challenge at ASW

51. When Angela Davis came to Ballhalla

52. Saniya Rivers borrowing a fan’s pompoms to cheer for Marina Mabrey giving a post-game speech

53. Everything about Saniya Rivers

54. Saniya Rivers playing through grief without her mom

55. Every most recent thing being the most indelible delightful and heartbreaking thing

    
    Aaand…
    

56. Okay, this is cheating, but I’m adding one more - I hope you also remember all the coverage from Rough Notes this season. If you appreciate my vantage point — from uncovering hidden histories to building queer community to diving into adventures courtside — please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. Your subscriptions are seriously what keep me going (this is a one woman show!)

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Rough Notes is created and written by me, Maya Goldberg-Safir with art & design by the badass team at Rough Notes Productions: Stefania Gomez, Justine Tobiasz, and Clara May.