RotoWire this summer is exploring the WNBA's 50+ defining moments across its 30-year history, including spotlights on individual franchises. Below, we take a look at the 
Minnesota Lynx and their rise in the league on the court and across cultural and business milestones.
After experiencing growing pains for over a decade to begin their time in the WNBA, the Minnesota Lynx have established themselves as a gold standard of success under head coach Cheryl Reeve.
The Lynx joined the WNBA as an expansion franchise ahead of the 1999 campaign and finished below .500 in each of their first four seasons before parting ways with head coach Brian Agler. The team made the playoffs in head coach Suzie McConnell-Serio's first two seasons at the helm but ultimately regressed late in the 2000s.
Following Minnesota's two playoff seasons, the team went 14-20 in 2005 and earned the No. 1 pick in the 2006 WNBA Draft, which was used to select Seimone Augustus. While the Lynx had five more losing seasons to begin Augustus' career, she made an immediate impact in the league, including winning Rookie of the Year in 2006 while averaging 21.9 points per game, the second-highest scoring average by a rookie in WNBA history, behind only Cynthia Cooper, who averaged 22.2 points per game during the league's inaugural season.
How Cheryl Reeve Built the Minnesota Lynx Into a WNBA Powerhouse
After a fourth consecutive losing season in 2009, the Lynx brought in former Detroit Shock assistant coach Cheryl Reeve to take over as their head coach while also acquiring Lindsay Whalen via trade. Minnesota had another losing season in 2010 but used the No. 1 overall pick in the 2011 WNBA Draft to select Maya Moore. The Lynx got strong play from Augustus, Whalen, Moore and Rebekkah Brunson and went 27-7 to earn the top seed in the playoffs. The Lynx won their first-round series 2-1 and swept the conference finals and WNBA Finals en route to their first championship.
The team's group of stars helped the team blossom into the league's premier dynasty of the 2010s, and the Lynx appeared in the WNBA Finals in six of seven seasons between 2011 and 2017. While the Lynx didn't win back-to-back titles during that stretch, they kept their core largely intact while also acquiring Sylvia Fowles during the 2015 campaign. By the time they won their fourth title in seven seasons following the 2017 campaign, they had matched the Houston Comets for most championships in WNBA history.
The team's core group began to disband following the 2017 championship run, as Renee Montgomery departed via free agency ahead of the 2018 campaign, followed by Whalen retiring after the season. Before the 2019 season, Moore announced that she was stepping away from basketball to focus on family and ministry dreams, and she remained away from the sport to advocate for criminal justice reform -- notably championing the release of Jonathan Irons, who was wrongly imprisoned for over two decades. Moore and Irons eventually married, and Moore announced her retirement from basketball in 2023.
Minnesota Lynx Legacy of Consistency and Long Term WNBA Success
Minnesota's run during the 2010s created a new standard of excellence that the league hadn't seen and hasn't seen since then. The Comets were the league's first dynasty by winning the first four titles in WNBA history, followed by the Los Angeles Sparks winning back-to-back championships in the following two seasons. However, no team has made as many WNBA Finals appearances in seven years as the Lynx, and the franchise has been the model of consistency since the start of the dynastic run. Minnesota has made the playoffs in 14 of 16 seasons under Reeve, who is the longest continuously tenured coach in WNBA history and set the league's all-time wins record July 8.
The Lynx have returned to the WNBA Finals just once since their last championship in 2017, but they've remained among the league's most successful teams during that time. Napheesa Collier was selected in the first round of the 2019 WNBA Draft and has developed into one of the league's most talented players, helping to sustain the team after Fowles retired following the 2022 campaign. The Lynx narrowly missed out on their fifth championship in franchise history by falling to the New York Liberty in the 2024 WNBA Finals, but the team posted the league's best record in 2025 and remains in clear title contention.
Minnesota worked through early growing pains as a franchise to develop into the league's model of stability that features longevity among players and coaches while remaining in the mix for championships on an annual basis.
