2022 WNBA Season Preview: Championship picks, storylines and must-watch matchups

• The 2022 WNBA season — the league's 26th — is upon us.
• Insider has fans covered on everything they need to know before tipoff Friday at 7 p.m. ET.

The WNBA season is finally upon us.

The league's 2022 campaign tips off Friday night with a jam-packed slate of four games. The Indiana Fever will face the Washington Mystics at 7 p.m. ET, followed by the Los Angeles Sparks taking on the reigning-champion Chicago Sky at 8 p.m. ET. At 10 p.m. ET, the Las Vegas Aces and Phoenix Mercury will play at the same time as the Seattle Storm and Minnesota Lynx.

But before the action gets underway for the WNBA's 26th season, Insider has fans covered on everything they need to know. From championship picks to top storylines and best matchups, here's our guide to following the 2022 WNBA season.

Who has what it takes to win it all?

The WNBA is famously one of the toughest professional sports leagues for athletes to find a foothold. With just 12 franchises and limited roster spots available, only the best of the best are able to make a team.

For that reason, there's incredible parity between WNBA teams; virtually any team has a reasonable chance of pulling off an upset on any given night. But there are several frontrunners with a legitimate shot at winning the 2022 WNBA Championship.

Last year's WNBA Finals foes have reloaded for 2022:

Since winning their first title as a franchise in October, the Sky have only gotten stronger. Two-time WNBA MVP Candace Parker serves as the centerpiece of her hometown team, where she'll once again find herself surrounded by a group of fellow All-Stars in Allie Quigley, Courtney Vandersloot, and Kahleah Copper. Chicago also recruited Emma Meesseman — the 2019 WNBA Finals MVP — into their ranks, fortifying an already-strong roster with one of the top free agents on the market.

But winning back-to-back championships is tougher than meets the eye, regardless of the talent any one team wields. Parker — a two-time WNBA champion herself — knows as much.

"When you have success, everyone comes back wanting more individually and not wanting to sacrifice and not wanting to do the things that you did previously to win a championship," she told reporters this week. "And I think that's kind of the barrier that we're going to have to talk about and have to overcome."

The Phoenix Mercury, who lost to the Sky 3-1 in last year's WNBA Finals series, went all-in on their roster this off-season in hopes of capturing their first title since 2014. Phoenix made major waves in free agency by bringing in the league's 2021 leading scorer in Tina Charles, as well as a 2019 All-Star and promising young talent in Diamond DeShields.

The Mercury also managed to keep the core of Diana Taurasi, Skylar Diggins-Smith, Brittney Griner, and Brianna Turner that led them through an impressive, somewhat unexpected run to the Finals. But the team will unexpectedly be without its top scorer, rebounder, and blocker in Griner, the superstar center who the US government deems "wrongfully detained" in Russia and will therefore remain overseas for the foreseeable future.

WNBA champions of the recent past are preparing to reclaim their throne:

Though they bowed out of the playoffs earlier than expected last season, the Seattle Storm are perennial contenders looking to once again reclaim the WNBA crown. With many of the same power players who paced their 2018 and 2020 championship runs — including Breanna Stewart, Jewell Loyd, and Sue Bird — the Storm are ready to run it back.

And with Bird teasing that this season could be her last, Seattle has extra incentive to send its four-time champion out with one more ring.

If healthy, the Washington Mystics undoubtedly have championship potential. But there are big questions surrounding their stars' availability for the season. Superstar Elena Delle Donne says she's feeling as good as she has in years, but she's only played three games since leading Washington to the 2019 title and subsequently undergoing multiple back surgeries. Alysha Clark, who joined the Mystics after winning the 2020 championship with Seattle, suffered a Lisfranc injury in her foot and sat the duration of last season.

Even without Delle Donne and Clark, stars like Myisha Hines-Allen, Ariel Atkins, and Natasha Cloud make Washington a fairly solid squad. But with them, the Mystics are arguably the team to beat.

And never count out head coach Cheryl Reeve and the four-time WNBA champion Minnesota Lynx, who have a bit more to fight for as league legend Sylvia Fowles embarks on her final season in the W.

Two of the league's top teams are hoping to break through for their first WNBA title in franchise history:

The Las Vegas Aces have consistently been among the league's best teams over the past few seasons but they have yet to capture the WNBA's top prize. But with a new coach in famed former NBA assistant Becky Hammon calling the plays for the likes of A'ja Wilson, Chelsea Gray, Kelsey Plum, and Jackie Young this season, Las Vegas may finally have what it needs to get over the championship hump.

The Connecticut Sun are another team that's constantly found itself on the brink of winning it all without ever breaking through to earn its first title. But this year, Connecticut's extremely deep roster is finally healthy.

Last year's coach of the year Curt Miller has an embarrassment of riches at his disposal. He'll surround 2021 WNBA MVP Jonquel Jones with four-time All-Star DeWanna Bonner, two-time All-Star Alyssa Thomas, and other All-Stars, like Brionna Jones and Jasmine Thomas. Plus, the Sun added 2021 All-Star Courtney Williams back to the squad after a two-year stint with the Atlanta Dream.

Several storylines are set to define the 2022 season

Far and away the most talked about story heading into this summer's WNBA campaign has been Brittney Griner's detention in Russia.

The 6-foot-9 Phoenix superstar was arrested in February, when customs agents at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport claimed to have found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. Now, on the eve of the 2022 season, Griner remains in Russian custody. Her charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, but investigations into her case are still underway in Russia.

As recently as this week, the US government announced a shift deeming the two-time Olympic gold medalist "wrongfully detained" in Russia, indicating that the Biden administration will increase efforts to negotiate for Griner's release rather than waiting for her case to make its way through the Russian judicial system.

Griner was headed to Russia in the first place to play for European powerhouse club UMMC Ekaterinburg. Like roughly half of her fellow WNBA players, Griner heads overseas every off-season to supplement her relatively low salary from the domestic league.

This year, the seven-time WNBA All-Star is set to take home a league-maximum $227,900 annual base salary from the Mercury, though she's eligible to make more between bonuses and marketing opportunities should she stay in the US for the winter. She reportedly earns $1 million per season with UMMC Ekaterinburg, according to The Arizona Republic's Jeff Metcalfe.

Griner's arrest and subsequent detention has rocked the WNBA community, and even though the Texas native won't be suiting up for Phoenix for the foreseeable future, she'll be top of mind across the league throughout the year.

Several activations have already been announced in Griner's honor. Each WNBA team's home floor will have the superstar's initials and her number, 42, painted along the sideline.

Additionally, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert and the Mercury have kicked off "a league-wide philanthropic initiative," inspired by Griner. In 2016, the Texas native founded "BG's Heart and Sole Shoe Drive" after she witnessed houseless individuals struggling without shoes on their feet during the blazing hot Phoenix summers.

Griner began the effort by carrying extra sneakers in the trunk of her car to hand out to those who needed them. But once her franchise caught wind of the effort, they joined forces to collect new and gently used shoes to distribute throughout the community; more than 2,000 people have benefited from the shoe drives.

Now, all 12 WNBA franchises have committed to similar efforts in their markets in Griner's honor. Fans across the country can also donate to non-profit Phoenix Rescue Mission, which had partnered in past shoe drives, and include "BG" in the comments so the Mercury can track Griner's continued impact.

"The activations that we will do, the Mercury and the league, are intended to remind us of BG's spirit of giving and do the work she'd be doing if she were here," Engelbert said ahead of the 2022 WNBA Draft. "And certainly the work she will join us in when she returns."

Several WNBA legends could hang up their sneakers after this summer's campaign:

Diana Taurasi, Sylvia Fowles, and Sue Bird are the WNBA's all-time leaders in basketball's three major statistical categories: points, rebounds, and assists. The iconic trio could all retire at the end of the 2022 season, ushering in a new era as they say their goodbyes.

Fowles — who has pulled down an unprecedented 3,712 rebounds over her 14-year career, split between the Chicago Sky and Minnesota Lynx — has already announced that this will be her final season in the WNBA. But before she goes, the 2017 MVP and seven-time All-Star could become the first WNBA player to reach the 4,000-rebound benchmark.

She'll look to add a third championship ring to her collection. And, if she's really at her best, she could tack on a third Finals MVP award for good measure.

Bird, who has been the Storm's starting point guard since they drafted her No. 1 overall in 2002, has more assists than any other player who's set foot on a WNBA court. She's won four championships and earned 12 All-Star nods since then, but she's still going for more.

At 41 years old, she's been the oldest player in the league for several seasons and has earned the nickname, "Our Tom Brady," from the WNBA commissioner. And even though she very nearly retired at the end of last season, Bird decided to come back after fans chanted "one more year" upon the Storm's elimination from the 2021 playoffs.

She hasn't fully closed the door on playing another season after this one, however. While Bird says it's entirely possible this could be her swansong, the five-time Olympic gold medalist has also noted that she's feeling better physically to start the year than she did the one prior.

In 2019, the one-two punch of back surgery and a hamstring injury left Taurasi off the court for all but six games, and it increasingly appeared as though the league's all-time leading scorer could call it quits.

But the Phoenix Mercury sharpshooter — who also leads the league in all-time three-pointers made — found her way back for a majority of games during the abridged 2020 season, and she played incredibly well throughout. She signed a two-year contract with the Mercury that off-season, then played 16 games of the 2021 campaign.

Though the 39-year-old, during Phoenix's media day, outright dismissed claims that this season will be her last, she's also rebuffed suggestions that she's "going to ease my way out" of the league. Instead, Taurasi insists that she's "just going to stop playing" when she's decided she's had enough or, as she puts it, "when I suck."

Between her noted aversion to retirement tours and her Mercury contract expiring at the end of the season, Taurasi may exit the WNBA without an advanced goodbye. That could come as soon as this fall, but it could also come as late as after the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Elena Delle Donne is ready to make her return after two seasons off the court:

Elena Delle Donne put her body on the line to lead the Washington Mystics to their first championship as a franchise, breaking her nose and playing through three herniated discs in the 2019 WNBA Finals to take down the mighty Connecticut Sun.

Though she was on her way to recovery through the following off-season, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic complicated her quest to defend her 2019 MVP award and her team's title. Because Delle Donne has chronic Lyme disease and medical experts were unsure how the autoimmune condition could impact an individual's ability to fight off the virus, the WNBA's lone member of the exclusive 50-40-90 club heeded the advice of her doctor and chose to sit out the 2020 WNBA season.

The league refused to authorize her medical waiver, forcing her to choose between her health and her paycheck. Fortunately for the 6-foot-5 superstar, her franchise picked up the tab, but there was plenty of cause for Delle Donne to want to prove her worth.

Despite her desire to get back on the court and form a lethal duo alongside 2012 WNBA MVP Tina Charles — who joined the Mystics for the 2021 season but has since departed for the Mercury — Delle Donne faced an injury setback that kept her out for all but three games of last season.

But now, after multiple back surgeries, and two years away from the league she once dominated, the 32-year-old says she's finally feeling "phenomenal" and "like I'm moving again like my younger self, but even better and more efficient."

Becky Hammon is back in the WNBA, where everyone knows her worth

A WNBA legend-turned-coaching star, Hammon was long considered the obvious candidate to become the first female head coach in NBA history. She spent eight years as an assistant under Gregg Popovich with the San Antonio Spurs, and despite her aptitude and preparedness for a head coaching job, NBA franchises continuously opted against hiring her to lead their teams.

So after countless "firsts" as a woman coaching in the NBA, the six-time WNBA All-Star left men's basketball to become the head coach and general manager of the WNBA's Las Vegas Aces.

"This was not really about the NBA or the WNBA," Hammon said during a media availability following the move. "This was about me personally being ready to have a team and wanting to have a team and wanting to sit in that chair and then being presented with an opportunity to do so."

Though Hammon conceded that she previously "had no intentions of leaving the NBA at this point," the Aces gave her an offer that was too good to refuse: near-full control of her own team and a chance to return to her roots.

So on New Year's Eve, Las Vegas announced that both parties agreed to terms on a historic five-year contract that will make Hammon the highest-paid coach in the league. Later, Aces owner Mark Davis revealed that his new head coach would be the first coach in the WNBA to make seven figures.

But Hammon's move is significant beyond the dollar signs. The decision to leave the NBA for a WNBA gig helps signal that the league is a legitimate competitor for top coaching talent — not just in the women's game, but across all of basketball.

Circle these WNBA matchups on your calendar

• Saturday, May 7: Atlanta Dream at Dallas Wings
  • The Atlanta Dream bet big on Rhyne Howard by trading assets to get her with the No. 1 pick in the 2022 WNBA Draft. She was a three-time AP All-American and a bona fide bucket-getter during her college days with the Kentucky Wildcats, but whether she's the franchise-changing talent she's been billed as still remains to be seen. This matchup — her first game in the WNBA — could very well mark the start of an iconic professional basketball career.

• Sunday, June 19: Connecticut Sun at Washington Mystics
  • A repeat of the epic 2019 WNBA Finals that came down to a decisive Game 5, you say? Yes, please. Mystics superstar and MVP of that series — as well as that entire WNBA season — is back after two full years away from the court. And now, a stacked Sun roster complete with reigning WNBA MVP Jonquel Jones finally looks healthy and poised to be the class of the league.
• Friday, July 22: Seattle Storm at Phoenix Mercury
  • Last year, when the Mercury narrowly took down the Storm in overtime to end their 2021 season, best friends Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird participated in a jersey swap riddled with emotion. As the two legends posed with the other's threads, fans chanted "one more year" and wound up convincing Bird not to retire just yet. Now, as Bird is almost certainly set to hang up her sneakers and Taurasi gears up to follow suit, their final regular-season matchup is one you won't want to miss.

• Tuesday, July 26: Commissioner's Cup Championship Game
  • The finale of the WNBA's in-season tournament will see the top Eastern and Western Conference teams face off with much more than pride on the line. With teams representing charities of their choice and players competing for a $500,000 prize pool, this is undoubtedly the highest-stakes game this early in the season.
• Sunday, August 14: Chicago Sky at Phoenix Mercury
  
  • On the final day of the regular season, the reigning WNBA champions will travel to the desert to take on the team they beat for the 2021 title. This was no run-of-the-mill WNBA Finals series; it came with plenty of drama and gloating. In the end, Mercury star Diana Taurasi may or may not have slammed a door so hard it splintered in half, and the Sky may or may not have brought that same door with them to their championship parade. Needless to say, tensions will already be high for this matchup. Sprinkle some playoff implications into the mix, and who knows what could happen?