The Minnesota Lynx dynasty, built on biennial WNBA championships from 2011-2017, dissolved as expeditiously as it arrived. Nearly a decade later, they’re reassembling in the Naismith Hall of Fame as swiftly as they’re eligible.
When Maya Moore and Sylvia Fowles are inducted as members of the 2025 class this weekend in Springfield, Mass., it will nearly complete the enshrinement status of the “best show in town.” Lindsay Whalen, for both Fowles and Moore, was inducted in 2022; Augustus, another of Moore’s five presenters, was inducted in 2024. Rebekkah Brunson, who won a previous title with the Sacramento Monarchs in addition to her four with the Lynx,
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The ceremony all but officially closes the loop on those dynasty years, all while the 2025 Lynx are closing in on what would be their first championship since that era. Their exits helped form the current roster, one last assist for head coach Cheryl Reeve as she built a new championship contender around draft pick steal Napheesa Collier.
The Hall of Famers became Lynx champions quickly, headlined by two-time UConn champion Moore, a generational talent who headlined newspaper clippings when few women were given the honor. The Lynx and second-year head coach Reeve drafted Moore at No. 1 overall in 2011, combining her with Whalen (), Augustus (No. 1 pick in 2006) and Brunson (2010 Monarchs dispersal draft).
The Lynx won four championships in a seven-year span between 2011 and 2017. (Photo by David E. Klutho /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
(David E. Klutho via Getty Images)
Few could stop that group as it tore through the league as the No. 1 seed in three consecutive seasons. Moore won a title as a rookie and the Lynx won again in 2013 after losing to the Indiana Fever in the Finals the year prior. After a Western Conference finals defeat in 2014, Reeve and the Lynx front office put together the league’s first by trading for Fowles midseason. Fowles, drafted by the Chicago Sky, sat out the first half of the 2015 season, and only wanted to join the Lynx.
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They went to three consecutive Finals, winning in 2015 and 2017. The only better streak is (arguably) the 1997-2000 Houston Comets that won the league’s first four WNBA titles. The early 2000s Los Angeles Sparks and the Las Vegas Aces, winners of back-to-back championships this decade and the league’s hottest second-half team, are in the conversation.
The one certainty heading into the 2018 postseason after a barely .500 regular season was that it would be the final games of the starting five. Whalen, then the newly named University of Minnesota head coach, declared ahead of the postseason she was retiring, an expected move for the 15-year pro with multiple top-five MVP finishes highlighting an illustrious career.
The news that came six months later was much more shocking. Moore, a superstar in her prime, for “ministry dreams” and social justice pursuits. She never returned to the WNBA, .
The Lynx retired Maya Moore’s jersey in August 2024. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
(Stephen Maturen via Getty Images)
Hall of Famers are inducted for their accolades, but those typically accompany extensive careers. Sue Bird, a 2025 class member, won four WNBA championships over a 21-year career that spanned three different decades. Ten-time NBA All-Star Carmelo Anthony, another inductee this weekend, played 19 seasons. Fowles played 15 WNBA seasons.
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Moore’s abridged WNBA career was eight seasons, during which she became one of the most decorated players of all time with four WNBA titles, seven all-WNBA nods, two All-Defensive awards and six All-Stars (the WNBA did not name All-Stars in the 2012 and ’16 Olympic years). She won the All-Star MVP three times, led the league in steals in 2018, won 2013 Finals MVP and led the league in scoring to win the 2014 league MVP. She also won two Olympic gold medals and two FIBA World Cup gold medals in addition to her two NCAA titles and back-to-back undefeated seasons at UConn.
The 2018 first-round playoff loss to the rival Sparks was her final game, as it was for Whalen. Brunson, ruled out with a concussion, also skipped 2019 while recovering and retired in February 2020. Augustus , and Fowles . The 2017 MVP retired as the all-time leader in rebounds, double-doubles and field-goal percentage, a collection of . She will be enshrined with Bird earlier than others after new rules reduced the waiting period.
It was clear even then that this group would come back together in the Hall. How many other collections of players in any professional sport experienced the level of success they had for that long a period? Even when they faltered in 2018, no one could have known at the time how consequential that dismal 18-16 season would become in league lineage.
It was the worst record since Reeve’s rookie 13-21 season in 2010 that netted the No. 1 overall pick for Moore. In 2019, Reeve used the Lynx’s No. 6 pick for UConn forward Collier. The steal of the draft flourished into the 2024 Defensive Player of the Year and leading MVP contender this season. In the second round, they selected Jessica Shepard, a Sixth Player contender, and Natisha Hiedeman, who returned to Minnesota from Connecticut in 2024.
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Whalen and Brunson joined the Lynx coaching staff immediately upon retiring, and Whalen returned home ahead of the 2025 campaign. Fowles is mulling over the idea, instead visiting the team while she enjoys the early stages of retirement. Minnesota (32-8) secured the No. 1 seed last week for vital home-court advantage in the expanded best-of-seven Finals. It’s their first league-leading finish since 2017, when they were 27-7 (.794). In the nine seasons since the league moved away from a conference-based postseason format, the No. 1 seed won six times.
The Lynx dynasty fell on each side of that, losing to the Sparks in 2016 as the No. 1 seed and rebounding to win it in 2017. They didn’t know it would be the end. But they also didn’t know what they would create.
