We have an upset, folks! Despite not having star guard Caitlin Clark, the Indiana Fever are heading to the semifinals after defeating the No. 3 seed Atlanta Dream on Thursday night in Game 3 of their first-round series. It was an impressive year for the Dream, a team many saw as a fringe playoff contender that instead came very close to finishing as the No. 2 seed in the league.
We head, now, into an offseason of uncertainty around the league, with most veterans hitting free agency. Atlanta, for example, currently has two players — Te-Hina Paopao and Taylor Thierry — under contract next season, plus Rhyne Howard and Naz Hillmon are restricted free agents. Re-signing both should be a key priority this offseason, as should bringing Allisha Gray and Brionna Jones back for another go.
Beyond that, Atlanta's 2026 offseason should focus on building a roster that can play the spaced-out, 3-point shooting offense that head coach Karl Smesko wants to play. That means a handful of current Dream players are unlikely to be priorities this offseason, with the team looking elsewhere to fill those holes.
Here are four Atlanta Dream players who we shouldn't expect to see back in 2026.
Brittney Griner
Brittney Griner's move to Atlanta felt doomed from the start. The team added both Griner and Brionna Jones in an offseason where they also hired a new head coach whose emphasis was spacing, and while there were early experiments into playing those two together, it became clear that the pair couldn't share the floor effectively. It also became clear that at this point, Jones is the better player.
This likely leaves Griner looking for a new home in 2026, somewhere that she can just go out there and play like she always has. Griner deserves applause for how she tried adding a 3-point shot early in the season, and also for abandoning that after it became clear that she couldn't be a stretch four.
Griner played under 10 minutes in two of Atlanta's three playoff games as the team shrank down the rotation, making it very clear that Griner's time with the Dream is about to be over.
Nia Coffey
After shooting under 30 percent from 3-point range in three of the past four seasons, it's become fairly clear that Coffey's two seasons where she shot over 40 percent from deep are the anomalies in her career. Atlanta can't count on Coffey to be a catch-and-shoot option off the bench.
Unfortunately, that means there's really no use for her on this roster. Assuming the Dream bring back starting point guard Jordin Canada, the team will once again not have an ideal starting unit as far as spacing goes and will need wings off the bench who can sub in and provide that. Coffey no longer appears to be someone who can fulfill that role for Smesko's system.
Shatori Walker-Kimbrough
Veteran guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough was a non-factor against the Fever, taking zero field goal attempts across the entire series.
She's a decent shooter, so the fact that Smesko couldn't find minutes for her this season despite a 35.5 percent mark from deep speaks to other flaws in her game. She turns the ball over too much and was a big negative on offense. Defensively, there are reasons to like SWK's game, but the Dream didn't need a defensive stopper at guard with offensive limitations since, well...they already had a much better version of that with Jordin Canada.
Sika Koné
If Sika Koné is ever going to be a good WNBA player, she needs to be somewhere where she can get minutes. That's not a contending team like Atlanta.
Koné has already played for four teams in three WNBA seasons and continues to be ineffective in her limited minutes.
The Malian forward arrived in the league with a lot of hype despite being drafted at No. 29 overall in 2022, with the idea existing that she was the best African-born player of her generation. That idea has not played out on the basketball court. She's struggled to finish inside and has been a liability on both ends of the floor.
Is there still something worth fostering in Koné's game? Maybe. I'd love to see her wind up with one of the two new expansion teams next season, where she might be able to get the extended run that she hasn't been able to get during her first three seasons.