As the WNBA Playoffs ramp up, the thing lingering on everyone’s minds is the upcoming free agency period. Due to the ongoing Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations and the fact that the current CBA expires at the end of October, about 80 percent of the league opted to have their contracts end after the 2025 season. That means when January arrives and teams prepare to start signing players, it will be chaotic.
Here are three players who seem likely to be on the move from their current teams:
Marina Mabrey, Connecticut Sun
In the middle of the 2024 WNBA season, Marina Mabrey requested a trade out of the Chicago Sky. She was moved to the Connecticut Sun, who were charging toward the playoffs as favorites to make it to the WNBA Finals. Mabrey ended up being a great piece for them as the season ended, but they were eliminated in the semi-finals. Then came the mass exodus of the Sun roster, with their entire 2024 starting lineup leaving the team through free agency or trades.
Mabrey, still on contract for the 2025 season, requested her own trade in that process. While the Sun agreed to trade players like DiJonai Carrington and Natasha Cloud, they believed they had simply given up too much for Mabrey mere months before to turn around and trade her. They believed she would be a great veteran presence for the young team they were building. She was, and her season likely went better than she expected.
Still, she will likely take meetings with other teams when free agency comes around. She is an excellent role player with the ability to light it up from distance. While there is some belief she may return to Connecticut, if a contending team wants to sign her, she will likely hear them out.
Arike Ogunbowale, Dallas Wings
The Dallas Wings drafted Ogunbowale in 2018 with the idea that she would be the team’s next franchise leader, and she was for a while. Yet, they were never able to fully break into the championship conversation; instead, they flopped into the lottery more often. Now, the Wings have Paige Bueckers as their leader, and Ogunbowale has dropped to their second option.
The Wings also have the best odds to get the No. 1 overall pick for the second year in a row, and whoever they choose will bump Ogunbowale down to the third option. Arike’s play style prefers high-volume shooting — meaning she needs to make a ton of shots in order to score a lot of points. Bueckers is more efficient, and whether the Wings get someone like 6-foot-7 Lauren Betts or the sharpshooting Azzi Fudd in the draft, Arike won’t have the ball in her hands as much as she needs.
This all leads fans to believe that Arike’s tenure in Dallas may be coming to an end. If a team can assure her she will have the ball in her hands more often than not, it may be something Arike needs to consider.
Angel Reese, Chicago Sky
Despite only being two years into her rookie contract with the Chicago Sky, tensions seem to be brewing between the All-Star and the Sky. Multiple times in 2025, both the Sky front office and Reese herself have tactfully used the media to share their feelings about one another. The Sky’s plans over the past two seasons have flopped, and after the team benched Reese several times to end the 2025 season, followed by not having her do an exit interview, it seems a move may happen.
Reese is a talented player with a strong foundation, as proved by her numerous rebounding records broken over the past two seasons. Through Unrivaled, she’s proved she would benefit from a solid veteran on her team to help quicken her development and decision-making. While the Sky tried to bring on Courtney Vandersloot, she injured her ACL soon after the season started. The Sky are in a position to be rebuilding, but keep trading away their lottery picks for veteran players that don’t fit the description of what it would take to bring this team to the next level.
There’s a long list of things the Sky have done in Reese’s two seasons that have been a disservice to her, and it may already be too much to continue on. While there have been no formal requests for a trade, it will be interesting to see how the Sky operate in this offseason.