The Morning After: Lynx Open as 2027 Favorites, Aces Face a Jackie Young Decision

The parade route gets announced this morning in San Francisco. The rest of the WNBA is already at work. Hours after the Golden State Valkyries beat the Atlanta Dream 68-63 in Game 7 to close the league's 30th season, DraftKings posted its opening championship odds for 2027, and the board tells the story of where this league thinks it is going: the Minnesota Lynx are the favorites at +310, the Las Vegas Aces sit second at +340, the runner-up Dream are +400, and the newly crowned Valkyries — champions, at home, in a Game 7 — open fourth at +450, according to the New York Post's rundown of the futures board. The New York Liberty and Indiana Fever round out the realistic contenders at +900.

A new era, priced in

There is a changing-of-the-guard argument baked into those numbers. Golden State's win snapped a four-year run in which the championship was owned exclusively by the Aces and the Liberty (New York Post), and the oddsmakers' response was not to crown a new dynasty but to spread the money around. Minnesota went 33-11 in the regular season before suffering a stunning first-round upset, and the Post notes that soon-to-be sophomore Olivia Miles could make the Lynx a handful — with one large caveat, addressed below. Las Vegas, 31-13 and the No. 3 seed, was swept out of the semifinals by Golden State, and Bleacher Report's final, forward-looking power rankings slot the Aces at No. 3 for 2027, arguing that the sweep exposed the depth problems behind five-time MVP A'ja Wilson and that the supporting cast has to be rebuilt through free agency. That is the winter, in one sentence, for half the league: the middle got crowded, and nobody's roster is finished.

The champions open fourth — and unbothered

Fourth on the board would sting most champions. Golden State has built an entire identity out of being underrated — the first team in league history to win a title without an All-WNBA player on the roster (USA Today) — and the business underneath the basketball suggests the Valkyries are only getting stronger. The franchise became the first professional women's sports team to top $100 million in annual revenue, after a league-leading $78 million in its debut season, according to Sportico figures reported by talkSPORT, which added the total could climb toward $130 million after the title run. The front office moved early and decisively when it mattered, signing Gabby Williams to a multi-year deal after the new collective bargaining agreement was finalized (talkSPORT) — the same Williams who then delivered 30 points and the Finals MVP in Game 7. Champions who keep their closer, sell out every night and print money tend not to stay fourth on anybody's board for long.

Las Vegas: it starts with Jackie Young

For the Aces — this site's home team, and the standard the league measured itself against for four years — the offseason has a first question and everything else is second. Jackie Young, 29, signed a one-year, $1.19 million deal for 2026 and is now an unrestricted free agent (USA Today). She started all 43 games, averaged a career-level 18.9 points, 4.4 rebounds and 6.8 assists, and added a player-of-the-game performance in Team USA's World Cup gold-medal win this fall. After the semifinal sweep ended the Aces' season, coach Becky Hammon did not hide the organization's position: "She had a career year this year. She had some unbelievable performances throughout the season. So obviously it's a big priority that we retain her services, and we'll see what those talks look like, but I know what it looks like from our end. Ultimately, it's gonna come down to her decision" (USA Today). With Wilson and Chelsea Gray as the core, keeping Young preserves the trio that powered the dynasty years; losing her would turn a retool into a rebuild. Bleacher Report's assessment was blunt about the rest of the roster: the Aces need to hit on depth free agents to support Wilson, Gray, Young and Jewell Loyd.

The other dominoes

Minnesota's favorite status comes with an asterisk the size of its franchise player: the Post notes the Lynx's odds could shift if Napheesa Collier bolts in free agency this summer. In Indiana, leading scorer and All-Star Kelsey Mitchell is a free agent, and her decision could reshape the league's top offense. And in New York, questions about the Liberty's head coach that surfaced after their semifinal sweep have, in the Post's words, not exactly been put to bed. Add Atlanta, which at +400 has to decide how to build around a Finals roster that fell five points short, and the next few months project as the most consequential free-agency period the league has had — the first full winter under the new CBA.

Nov. 15, and what the title was worth

The offseason's first formal event arrives in two weeks: on Nov. 15, Houston, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Toronto and Washington will take part in the 26th annual WNBA Draft Lottery (New York Post). Three of those six are the league's newest markets — Portland's Fire open at 90/1 on the futures board and Toronto's Tempo and Houston's Comets at 120/1 — which means the lottery is also the expansion era's first real reshuffle. And the champions, by the way, are being paid like champions now: under the new CBA's revised payouts, each Valkyries player receives a $60,000 championship bonus, with Finals MVP Williams earning an additional $30,000 — a jump from the $5,000 MVP bonus in 2025 — while Dream players receive $20,000 each, according to The Sun's report on the new prize structure. A year ago the season ended and the league exhaled. This year it ends with a second-year champion, a favorite that lost in the first round, a dynasty at a crossroads in Las Vegas and a lottery two weeks out. The offseason is not the break between seasons anymore. It is the second season — and it started this morning.