The 2025 Connecticut Sun won't look recognizable to WNBA fans. Alyssa Thomas is gone. DeWanna Bonner? In Indiana now. Brionna Jones and DiJonai Carrington? Gone as well.
Expectations for the Sun this year should be kept low. This simply isn't a roster built to win now. Connecticut appears to be in an identity crisis, and on Monday that crisis worsened with reports that the team is for sale and could relocate once sold.
Here are three major questions for the Connecticut Sun in 2025.
Can Tina Charles win another scoring title?
The fact that I'm even asking that question speaks to a much bigger issue with this Sun team: they don't have proven WNBA scorers outside of Tina Charles and Marina Mabrey. The team traded away its entire starting lineup from last season and now has two established scoring threats and then a whole lot of question marks.
Charles, who Connecticut drafted No. 1 overall in 2010, now returns to the place her career began. It wouldn't be shocking at all for this to be a full-circle ending to the long career of the 36-year-old forward, who won the 2012 MVP award with the Sun.
Charles led the league in scoring twice, most recently in a surprising 2021 campaign that saw her average 23.4 points per game for the Mystics. Last year, she signed in Atlanta after taking the 2023 season off and continued to show she could put up buckets, averaging 14.9 points per game.
That was on a team with Rhyne Howard, Allisha Gray and Jordin Canada, who all average double-digit points. Charles will have even less competition for points this year.
2025 is likely a lost year for this franchise, so why not just feed Charles over and over and over?
Which young players have a future on this roster?
The biggest name among Connecticut's young players is French guard Leïla Lacan, but the 20-year-old is still currently fulfilling her overseas obligations. At this point, it wouldn't be a surprise to see her out until after EuroBasket, if she even comes over this year.
So, what does that leave as far as young talent goes?
This year's first round picks Saniya Rivers and Aneesah Morrow are the two obvious names to talk about. Late first-round picks don't have a particularly great hit rate in the WNBA, and both players have numerous pros and cons as far as making it in the league.
Rivers should be a great defender right from the start, but offense is a concern as she struggled with her shot in college. She can serve as a secondary ball-handler, but how effective will she be in that role if defenses don't have to respect her ability to shoot?
As for Morrow, some of her luster faded at LSU as her development seemed to stall a bit. She's an athletic four who can crash the boards, but can she score reliably against WNBA defenders? She's a bit inconsistent at the moment, but the tools are there.
Beyond that, maybe Jacy Sheldon breaks out? She didn't make a huge impact in Dallas as a rookie, but the former Ohio State guard could carve out a role as the backup point guard.
Will the team move Marina Mabrey before the trade deadline?
Marina Mabrey requested a trade in February. The Sun said no.
So, now what?
Mabrey will open the season as Connecticut's best — and possibly only – outside scoring threat, but as the season wears on and the losses pile up, will the Sun explore the idea of giving Mabrey what she wants?
Team president Jennifer Rizzotti told ESPN back in February that part of why the team kept her was the "[value] that we place on her," but Mabrey will be an unrestricted free agent following this season. Normally, you might think the team could excise more value by waiting until the offseason, coring Mabrey and working out a trade where the other team might be willing to give up more value, but with the CBA set to be rewritten this offseason, we don't even know if coring will still be a thing. Mabrey could wind up leaving for nothing.
It would probably be in Connecticut's best interest to see what the market is for Mabrey around the trade deadline. There's bound to be a contending team that could use her, assuming there's a way to make the money work.