With the WNBA championship approaching, Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve is enjoying her “best” year

MINNEAPOLIS — It took two practices in April for Cheryl Reeve to really believe this could work. The new talent acquired during the WNBA offseason – not through high-profile signings or superteam designations – and the remaining players developed in Minneapolis in recent years could actually develop in a way that feels like previous seasons.

After two training sessions, players and coaches looked around the hall and realized that the chemistry they felt and how quickly players and staff came together was a rare feeling. External expectations for Minnesota, which failed to make the playoffs in 2022 and were eliminated in the first round of the 2023 playoffs, were not very high. But inside the gym, the lynx saw, heard and felt something completely different. Sometimes it takes weeks to build such a foundation, which in a three-month season often means a team has to climb out of a hole and fight their way back from the bottom. But for the Lynx it was clear by exercise #2.

“The way we played for each other on the court,” Reeve said. “I didn’t know all the personalities, how we would get through the journey, road trips, all that stuff, wins, losses. But on the second day of training camp, we had a way of playing for each other. … I didn’t necessarily know what it would mean, but for me it was a second day.”

THIS IS OUR COACH. 💪

Cheryl Reeve is the 2024 WNBA Coach of the Year. pic.twitter.com/9qSrFPpNn5

– Minnesota Lynx (@minnesotalynx) September 29, 2024

It's been seven years since Minnesota won a WNBA championship, which in Lynx years (a little longer than dog years) is practically an eternity. Between 2011 and 2017, Minnesota won four titles and reached the WNBA Finals two more times. The core of players on these teams were All-Stars in their own right (and in the WNBA All-Star sense of the word). As the 2024 WNBA season came to a close, all but one of the key players of that legendary run – Maya Moore – hung their jerseys from the rafters. In August, Moore's was also at the top, joining Lindsay Whalen, Rebekkah Brunson, Sylvia Fowles and Seimone Augustus. There were always the naysayers and the whisperers. Sure, Reeve had won titles while coaching four Olympians and five players with retired jerseys, but who couldn't?

A season after Minnesota won its last title in 2017, Moore, Whalen and Brunson had all retired. Fowles and Augustus remained, but the Lynxes passed on to a younger generation. In 2019, Minnesota drafted Napheesa Collier of Connecticut. Brunson, now an assistant at Minnesota, said: “Nobody yelled 'Draft Phee!' But the potential was there.”

One of the greatest successes in the history of professional sports – just twelve months after hanging up the fourth title banner – was once again about talking about potential and growth. But that's how dynasties work. They have lifespans – a rise and a fall; quickly, gradually or otherwise.

There was no going back to those days and in some ways it just wasn't possible. The league changed and with it free agency changed drastically.

Free agency really opened up ahead of the 2021 cycle, and the Lynx made big moves, bringing in Kayla McBride, Natalie Achonwa and Aerial Powers. Superteams formed across the WNBA as players had more opportunities to choose their destinations. The Las Vegas Aces added point guard Chelsea Gray to their already strong 2022 team that won the franchise's first title, and ahead of the 2023 season they added Candace Parker. At the same time, the New York Liberty were recruiting two-time MVP Breanna Stewart, MVP Jonquel Jones and All-Stars Betnijah Laney-Hamilton and Courtney Vandersloot.

Minnesota threw its hat in the ring for some of these big-name players, but emerged from free agency empty-handed.

Beginning of 2024: Other franchises followed the lead of the Liberty and Aces, as Seattle signed All-Stars Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins Smith to join Jewell Loyd and Ezi Magbegor, and the Mercury brought in Kahleah Copper to join Diana Taurasi and Join Brittney Griner. But Minnesota chose a path a little less traveled (read: less heralded).

“Everyone has a goal to improve every year,” said Lynx GM Clare Duwelius. “We were very clear about what we wanted. It’s not unlike a basketball game where you take possession one possession at a time.”

With this mindset, Minnesota has taken the liberty of not signing the biggest names or stealing headlines. The Lynx wanted to address a few fundamental areas: players who could add offensive firepower around Collier and McBride, who already had multi-year deals, and defensive stalwarts who would thrive in Reeve's system. Equally crucial, Reeve emphasized that any player coming into the franchise must be a culture fit, someone who will buy into the goal of exceeding expectations.

The franchise's first move was a January trade with Connecticut that received little attention to bring in Natisha Hiedeman as a backup guard and 3-point threat.

A day later, the Lynx announced that they had re-signed Bridget Carleton. Their 2023 numbers were good, but not overwhelming. She was thought to be a player with rotational depth, but coaches believed she was on the verge of a breakthrough if they could just give her more confidence on her outside shot (spoiler: they were right. She's shooting 44 percent in more minutes this season from Long Range to High Volume).

On February 1, the first day for WNBA free agents to sign, Minnesota announced contracts with guard Courtney Williams and forward Alanna Smith, addressing offensive and defensive questions for the Lynx.

Smith, like Carleton, once assumed her WNBA days might be over. After the fever hit her in 2022 (a season in which she won just five games), she thought she would focus on her Australian national team and the professional game overseas. Williams, who played for three teams in three seasons, was brought to Minnesota as the starting point guard.

In April, with room for another 3-point shooter, Reeve and Duwelius went in search of Cecilia Zandalasini, who had been under contract with the franchise since 2017 but whose timing hadn't worked out regularly, to arrive from Italy come to play in the franchise US

Heading into the 2024 season, Minnesota's free agency was largely rated as decent – good enough for a team looking to compete, but not as impressive as what other teams around the league have accomplished. Swish Appeal finished eighth for the Lynx in free agency success. ESPN ranked ninth in its preseason power rankings. “If everything works out, the Lynx could make the playoffs again,” the story goes.

Former Sparks coach Curt Miller of Los Angeles viewed Minnesota as dangerous. “It may not be noticeable on free agent signing days, but they had an incredible free agent offseason,” he said.

Midway through the season, as the Lynx's playoff potential became increasingly apparent, Reeve decided there needed to be one more move to address some paint issues: signing undersized position guard Myisha Hines-Allen from Washington.

On their previous championship-caliber squads, Reeves' job was to take superstars and mold them into form pieces. During the 2024 season, her mission with the Olympic team was the same: to turn the best players in the world into the best team in the world. This often included asking players to minimize aspects of their own games and be smaller than in any other basketball environment.

But in Minneapolis it was almost the opposite. Take a unique star in Collier and players who have made careers by being complementary pieces and make them the best team in the league. It was here, Brunson said, that Reeve's ability to find the right culture fit was most evident.

She was a part of all four of the Lynx's WNBA titles and felt the selflessness of that locker room. She knew what that second practice felt like during those championship seasons, and when the 2024 squad — question marks and all, new faces abound — took the floor, she felt something familiar.

“You feel like the team is going to do well or not,” Brunson said. “As soon as this team entered training camp, you could tell we had an opportunity to be special.”

.@minnesotalynx Coach Cheryl Reeve on the mindset before Game 3 of the WNBA Finals:

“You understand it's two home games, but we're limited to the first five minutes of Game 3. How we approach our business will determine everything.” @FOX9 pic.twitter.com/JdPkUhW5i0

— Jeff Wald (@JeffWaldFox9) October 15, 2024

The road from Practice No. 2 to WNBA Finals Game 3 was long and, despite the ups and downs, didn't quite require the catwalk that many expected. But now the Lynx are just two wins away from returning to the familiar place where the franchise once seemingly merely existed. This version of Minnesota is canonized in the rafters. This starting five? It's hard to say how many other than Collier actually have a chance of getting into those five jerseys.

Over the next three days in Minnesota, these current players — the underrated signings and need-filling, unheralded Lynx — have a chance to achieve what few outside their locker room thought possible in the Twin Cities this year: become a championship team , that defeats a super team.

“I personally think this is her best year coaching in the WNBA, despite all these championships,” Miller said of Reeve, who won the WNBA Coach and Executive of the Year awards this season. “I think she did her best coaching work in her historic and award-winning career this year, putting together a team with high basketball IQs, playing with great energy, but most importantly, playing some of the most selfless basketball players our league has has ever seen.” ”

(Photo of Cheryl Reeve, right, and Courtney Williams: Elsa / Getty Images)