The 2026 WNBA season is young, but the Connecticut Sun are already struggling. The team is is ranked 15th in the league, which is dead last — just two spots over where they finished out last year. And while it's easy to point to the current iteration of the Sun as the reason why they're not succeeding, the roots of the Sun's crisis are buried in 2023 (if not before).
The Sun were a championship-caliber team for about a decade before several players departed. The problems were many, but primarily seemed to be centered on a pretty harsh reality: the team was winning, but their resources weren't keeping pace. The Sun notoriously once shared a practice facility with a child's birthday party as they were preparing for the playoffs, and their facilities have not improved since.
The team is moving to Houston ahead of the 2027 season, so perhaps some of this is moot. But the Sun deserve to invested in and to have a better chance at succeeding, so looking at the past may be useful.
Jonquel Jones sparked a huge exodus
Jones actually first opted out of the 2020 season with the Sun to stay home in the Bahamas and quaratine with her family during the Covid-19 pandemic. That decision wasn't seen as reflective of anything other than her preferences during an uncertain time, and she had the full support of her team (as well as Curt Miller, then the team's coach, and Amber Cox, then the organization's vice president).
But her move ahead of the 2023 season was a different thing entirely. Jones requested a trade to the New York Liberty despite having one year left in Conneticut; the team honored her request. The deal brought Rebecca Allen to the Sun and Natasha Howard to the Dallas Wings, and the Wings sent Kayla Thornton to the Liberty and Ty Harris to the Sun.
Notably, Allen, Thornton, and Harris no longer play in Connecticut.
Tiffany Hayes also had an impact on the team that season. She began playing for the Sun, but announced her retirement from basketball in December 2023. Many were surprised when she came out of retirement to play for the Las Vegas Aces in 2024, and Hayes has been with the Golden State Valkyries since the 2024 season.
The end of the 2024 season was also a tough one for Connecticut. Three important members of the roster — Alyssa Thomas, DeWanna Bonner, and Brionna Jones — left the team. Thomas went to the Phoenix Mercury, Jones to the Atlanta Dream, and Bonner initially to the Indiana Fever and then the Mercury. The Sun also traded DiJonai Carrington ahead of the 2025 season.
All that movement has left the Sun in a lurch. The team signed Brittney Griner ahead of the 2026 season, but she's been off the court of late with an injury. There's no sign that the Sun will bounce back from their challenges anytime soon, which could make their final season one that most fans will end up wanting to forget.
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