How the Lynx rebuilt their roster for a WNBA title run

Sylvia Fowles went out in style. In her final WNBA game two years ago, the Minnesota Lynx center grabbed her 4,000th rebound and notched her 193rd career double-double. Even the opposing fans in Connecticut rose for a standing ovation.

But as Fowles said goodbye to the league, the Lynx ushered in a new era.

Coach Cheryl Reeve battled her emotions as she took it all in. Fowles was the last of the core stars from Minnesota's dynasty years, when the Lynx won four titles in six WNBA Finals appearances from 2011 to 2017.

Reeve had hoped to send Fowles out with one final postseason appearance. But on that August night in 2022, the Lynx capped a 14-22 regular season. Minnesota, with young standout Napheesa Collier sitting out most of the year on maternity leave, missed the playoffs and had a losing record for the first time since 2010, Reeve's first season with the team.

Questions surrounded the Lynx. How would they reload? What did the future hold? How long would it take for the franchise to return to the top?

In 2024, a season when much of the focus was on how quickly the rookie class would make an impact and whether the Las Vegas Aces could repeat, Minnesota slowly emerged as a title contender. The best team since the league resumed after the Paris Olympics, the Lynx trailed only the New York Liberty in the final standings and entered the playoffs as the No. 2 seed.

Entering Wednesday's Game 3 (8 p.m. ET, ESPN) of the WNBA Finals, Minnesota is tied 1-1 with New York and hosts the next two games of the best-of-five series at Target Center. At 30-10, the Lynx exceeded most preseason projections and could be on the cusp of the franchise's fifth title, which would be the most by a WNBA franchise.

"We felt like after last season that we had a foundation," Reeve said of going 19-21 in 2023 and returning to the playoffs. "With that being said, we only brought five players back. We were sure what needed to change. We weren't good enough."

Reeve, who is also Minnesota's president of basketball operations and was the 2024 WNBA Coach of the Year and Executive of the Year, thinks the team's construction is part of what makes the Lynx so hard to beat. They weren't built from multiple seasons of failure that led to stacked lottery picks. Their free agent acquisitions didn't make big headlines. Yet they are two victories away from another championship.

"There's more than one way to do this," Reeve said of Minnesota's roster build. "And so a superteam we are not. But we're a darn good basketball team."

Minnesota's roster this season stands in contrast to both New York and the legendary Lynx teams of the past.

The Liberty have two No. 1 picks ( Breanna Stewart , Sabrina Ionescu ) and two MVPs (Stewart and Jonquel Jones ). They also have a No. 3 pick, Courtney Vandersloot . All but Ionescu, whom the Liberty drafted in 2020, have come to the team via free agency or trade. The Liberty's construction earned them a superteam moniker along with the Aces last season, when those teams met in the Finals.

The Lynx's 2011-2017 dynasty core consisted of two No. 1 draft picks (Seimone Augustus and Maya Moore) and trades for other players who had been lottery picks (No. 4 Lindsay Whalen and No. 2 Fowles). Plus, the Lynx got Rebekkah Brunson from the Sacramento Monarchs' dispersal draft: She was drafted 10th but played like a lottery pick and finished her WNBA career with five championships.

This year's Minnesota squad currently has one superstar: Collier was MVP runner-up and the league's Defensive Player of the Year this season, averaging 20.4 points and 9.7 rebounds. But she is surrounded by players who have fit like pieces in a mosaic, including guard Courtney Williams and forward Alanna Smith , who came as free agents from the Chicago Sky .

Diamond Miller , who was drafted No. 2 in 2023, is the highest draft pick on the current Lynx roster but is a reserve who has been used sparingly in the playoffs. Minnesota's top two players off the bench this postseason -- Natisha Hiedeman and Myisha Hines-Allen -- were both second-round picks whom the Lynx got via trade this year.

Kayla McBride , the No. 3 draft pick in 2014, is the highest pick among the Lynx starters, who include Bridget Carleton (21st pick in 2019), Williams and Smith (both No. 8 picks, in 2016 and 2019), and Collier, whose way-too-low selection at No. 6 in 2019 has made that draft the easiest to second-guess in WNBA history.

Reeve has been the constant in virtually all of Minnesota's success. The Lynx had won only one playoff game, in 2003, when she took over in 2010 after winning WNBA titles as an assistant in Detroit in 2006 and 2008. She is in her 15th season with Minnesota, the longest tenure with one team of any WNBA coach in history. Only four active coaches in other major U.S. pro sports leagues -- two in the NBA and two in the NFL -- have been with their current teams longer than Reeve.

Reeve said the consistency requires doing everything possible to not compromise on the "personality fit" of players even if they bring on-court skills.

"We needed to right the mistakes we made in some past decision-making," Reeve said. "Because every once in a while, you deviate from what you know you should be doing. You say, 'This player can do this,' and, 'We've got other good people, so we'll be OK.'

"We had a couple tough seasons. [In 2022], we didn't make the playoffs. In 2023, we had a good year and we had a group of players -- but not all players -- that felt chemistry together. We were, for sure, in this offseason committed to how we were doing things."

That meant flooding Williams with calls and texts to let her know she was one of Minnesota's primary free agent targets.

"Cheryl straight up was like, 'We want you to be our point guard. I want you to run the team,'" Williams said. "I was like, 'Wow, why me? I'm not even a point guard.' But she just continued to give me those words of affirmation. And she convinced me I'm a point guard a little bit."

Collier did her part in free agency, too. She thought Smith would be a good fit in the post for Minnesota based on her impressions of playing against the former Stanford standout. While both were competing in Turkey during the WNBA offseason, Collier and Smith had a three-hour dinner of pasta and wine in Istanbul. They discovered a lot of common ground, and Smith said she was impressed that Collier was "really down to earth, super humble and just stands for the right things."

With their time together for the Sky in 2023, Williams and Smith already had a bond. It didn't take long for them to mesh with everyone else in Minnesota. The talent of the players Reeve and Minnesota general manager Clare Duwelius brought together has stood out, too.

Carleton had her best regular season, averaging career bests in scoring (9.6) and rebounding (3.8). Smith also set a career high in scoring average (10.1), while McBride averaged a career-best 2.7 3-pointers per game.

When you talk to the Lynx about their individual successes, they point to what the whole group has done that has allowed each to excel.

"I think it's noted when teams watch us, they always talk about the Lynx chemistry," Reeve said. "We didn't get it right every year. We certainly have had our challenges, but we knocked it out of the park this year."

ESPN's Alexa Philippou contributed to this story.