When the Connecticut Sun lost every single starter in the offseason and Marina Mabrey requested a trade, the team seemed doomed to finish with the worst record in the league. They avoided that fate, finishing the season with one more win than the Chicago Sky and Dallas Wings.
With another expansion draft coming up, a wild free agency period, and a possible relocation hanging over the franchise, the Sun enter an offseason full of uncertainties. A few things are for certain, however. First, the front office will try to build around the young core of Leila Lacan, Saniya Rivers, Aneesah Morrow, and Aaliyah Edwards. Secondly, GM Morgan Tuck noted on WNBA Today on CLNS that Rachid Meziane would remain the team’s coach despite the Sun’s lack of success.
Tuck understands that a rebuild takes time and Meziane was not handed a winning roster in his first season with the team. Nevertheless, he proved that he had a vision for the Sun, and he achieved one of the most important goals that a rookie head coach with a young, inexperienced roster can reach: he managed to have the team look significantly better towards the end of the season.
The Sun improved after the All-Star break
Connecticut didn’t start the season off well. In May and June, the team only won two games. Those struggles weren’t surprising considering that the Sun had a new head coach and rookies playing significant minutes. They secured a third win before the All-Star break, going into the second half of the season with a 3-20 record.
The second half of the season looked much better. Connecticut won eight games, including a three-game win streak in August. One major contributor to the Sun’s improvement was Leila Lacan, the team’s first-round pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft. Lacan didn’t come to the WNBA until early July because she played for the French national team in EuroBasket. The 21-year-old guard immediately brought much-needed defensive intensity and playmaking to the Sun.
While the Sun mostly ranked at the bottom of the league in both offensive and defensive rating, there was a notable shift in August and September. In August, the Sun even ranked fifth in defensive rating.
The Sun’s rebuild will take time
This is only the first season of what promises to be a lengthy rebuild. The Sun didn’t have a lottery pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft. Instead, they selected Aneesah Morrow seventh and Saniya Rivers eighth. On top of that, they had Lacan join the team late, and they traded for Aaliyah Edwards before the trade deadline. Those four make for an intriguing young group. However, it is still lacking the young superstar that most rebuilding teams wait for.
Despite finishing with the third-worst record, the Sun don’t have a high first-round pick in 2026 either, because the Sky acquired the right to swap first-round picks in the trade that sent Marina Mabrey to Connecticut during the 2024 season. Because of some other swap rights, the Sun will end up with Phoenix’s and Minnesota’s picks—not great selections considering those teams’ success this season.
The Sun will have to find young talent at the end of the first round and potentially early in the second. In ESPN’s latest mock draft by Michael Voepel, the Sun end up with Spanish point guard Iyana Martin Carrion and South Carolina center Marina Okot in the first round.
While late first-round picks can always surprise the league and Lacan and Rivers already showed star potential themselves, it might take a while for the Sun to find their clear-cut superstar in the making.