How a historic trade in February has helped shape the WNBA semifinals

When the Phoenix Mercury clinched a spot in the WNBA semifinals Friday, Satou Sabally and Alyssa Thomas combined for 43 points, 22 rebounds and 14 assists.

On Tuesday, as the Las Vegas Aces evened their series on the other side of the bracket, starting forward NaLyssa Smith tallied 18 points and 7 rebounds.

Seven months after the largest trade in WNBA history, its ripple effects continue to influence the WNBA playoffs. In all, the four-team trade included 13 players and five draft picks in February. Though some players have subsequently been dealt elsewhere, five are on rosters in this week's semifinals. And despite the injuries, the way the first round played out assured at least one player involved in the February trade will win a championship.

The Mercury were at the center of the deal, highlighted by Sabally and Thomas, two All-Stars landed via sign-and-trade. The Indiana Fever's key addition, Sophie Cunningham, averaged 8.6 points and shot 43% on 3s over 30 games before suffering a season-ending injury in August.

The other two teams in the deal, the Dallas Wings and Connecticut Sun, finished in the lottery. Still, the Wings managed to impact the semifinals by trading away the two key players they acquired, Smith and guard DiJonai Carrington. The top-seeded Minnesota Lynx traded for Carrington in early August, though she is out for the playoffs with a mid-foot sprain. But the Aces and Lynx could end up meeting in the Finals.

Let's break down how the trade came together and what it has meant for the WNBA's championship race before Indiana, Las Vegas, Minnesota and Phoenix continue the semifinals Friday.

Phoenix lands biggest stars

The Mercury had long targeted 2025 as an opportunity to go star chasing in free agency. With the retirement of future Hall of Famer Diana Taurasi and Phoenix's decision to move on from longtime star center Brittney Griner, the Mercury had ample cap space to add multiple max players to a core highlighted by All-Star wing Kahleah Copper.

Ahead of hosting the 2024 All-Star Game, Phoenix strategically completed a new, standalone practice facility, giving All-Stars -- including Thomas -- a chance to see where they might call home. Those efforts paid off when the Mercury landed commitments from Thomas first and then Sabally, two of the four 2025 All-Stars to change teams via free agency.

Because Sabally and Thomas were designated core players by their former teams, Phoenix also had to complete trades for them. The Mercury agreed to send two starters (Rebecca Allen and Natasha Cloud) and the No. 12 pick to Connecticut for Thomas and starting guard Tyasha Harris. The Sun later flipped both of those players, getting two more first-round picks from New York for Cloud, whose Liberty were eliminated by Phoenix in the first round.

To land Sabally and two other players (Kalani Brown and Sevgi Uzun) from Dallas, Phoenix put together a three-team deal with Indiana. The Fever's return was highlighted by Cunningham, while the Wings got Smith and the No. 8 pick from Indiana, plus Harris from the Mercury.

"Basically, Indiana and I worked out a deal for Sophie," Phoenix GM Nick U'Ren told ESPN. "I had simultaneously been talking to Dallas and knew some of those pieces would be moving on there. ... As I think is customary in my mind, once everything was agreed to, kind of asked if they wanted to make it bigger, make it into a three-team trade."

Overall, the Mercury dealt away three of its top six players in 2024 minutes per game to get Sabally and Thomas, an exchange any team would make that nonetheless left them light in depth. Phoenix was able to sign veteran Sami Whitcomb in free agency and later added DeWanna Bonner midseason, but went into the year starting a pair of rookies signed as free agents, Monique Akoa Makani -- who started 40 of the 41 regular-season games -- and Kathryn Westbeld.

Still, the talent of Sabally and Thomas was the driving force leading Phoenix to the semifinals for the first time since 2021. Picking up where she left off during six consecutive trips to the semifinals with Connecticut, Thomas finished third in MVP voting after setting a WNBA record with eight triple-doubles. She added a ninth in Game 3 of the first round against New York, when Sabally scored a team-high 23 points.

"Game 3 was the best example of how we thought it could come together and what it looks like when it looks good," U'Ren said. "That's not going to be every night. Game 1 [against New York], Satou struggles -- whatever, people are going to have good games, bad games -- but Game 3 was a good example of what we thought might be able to come together."

The deal keeps expanding

From U'Ren's standpoint, the transactions for Sabally and Thomas were separate negotiations that made sense to combine given Harris could go directly from Connecticut to Dallas without needing an intermediate stop in Phoenix. Subsequently, the league requested the teams also fold in the Wings' sign-and-trade deal with the Sun for Carrington, which involved swapping two of the first-round picks acquired in the other parts of the trade.

"It's not like all four teams were negotiating simultaneously," U'Ren said. "It was kind of a bunch of single trades that then it just made sense to put into a big, four-team trade."

The result was a historic deal, but also a starting point for wheeling and dealing. Remarkably, none of the three players Connecticut acquired made it through the season before being dealt, while only one of Dallas' four (Harris, also out due to season-ending injury) did so.

In particular, the Wings pivoted midseason after starting the season 1-11. At the end of June, they sent Smith to the Aces in exchange for a 2027 first-round pick. That was difficult for her girlfriend, Carrington, who told Andscape, "it was a really emotional day." A little over a month later, Carrington too was traded to the Lynx in a deal that netted Dallas former No. 2 pick Diamond Miller.

Now, it's possible their teams could square off for a title. Adding Smith proved a turning point for Las Vegas, off to its own bumpy start relative to expectations. A game below .500 at 8-9 when Smith made her first start, the Aces finished the regular season on a 16-game winning streak, ascending to No. 2 in the WNBA standings behind Minnesota.

Smith filled Las Vegas' biggest need, offering more scoring punch alongside MVP A'ja Wilson. Her 8.6 points per game with the Aces, while down from double-figure scoring in all three seasons with the Fever, were still dramatically more than Las Vegas had gotten from incumbent Kiah Stokes (1.1 points per game). Questions about Smith's defensive presence limited her role in her two previous stops, but she was a part of an Aces defense that ranked second on a per-possession basis during the winning streak.

On Tuesday, Smith delivered perhaps her most important game in Las Vegas, putting up 18 points on 7-of-9 shooting in 30 minutes as the Aces evened the series 1-1 with her former team.

The trade also brought out the best in Carrington, who had lost her starting job with the Wings while slumping as a shooter. In 11 regular-season games with the Lynx, Carrington shot 48.5% from the field, including 10-of-22 (45.5%) on 3s. She played a key role off the bench in Minnesota's first-round sweep of Golden State. However, during Game 2, Carrington suffered a mid-foot sprain that will sideline her for the duration of the playoffs.

The next two rounds will decide which player from February's trade will win a championship ring.