The WNBA's most explosive season returns tonight (2024)

After a one-month break and yet another gold medal for the USA women's basketball team, the WNBA is back.

Six teams, including the league-best Liberty and Angel Reese's Sky, will resume their seasons tonight after play halted in July.

But with just five weeks remaining in the W's regular season, it's worth looking at what happened earlier in the season - and what we can expect in the final stretch.

Before the WNBA's pause, No. 1 overall pick Caitlin Clark was really beginning to find her footing in the league after some early growing pains.

The former Iowa standout is leading the league with 8.2 assists (to go along with 17.1 points), and set several recordsas she helped her Fever climb up the standings.

The fanfare surrounding Clark (and Reese, to a lesser degree), helped the W smash attendance figures, with the leaguerecording its most-attended May(400,000 fans) in 26 years.

In June, games across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and CBS, WNBA games were also averaging 1.32 million viewers - which was nearly triple last season's standard of 462,200 viewers. Those figures surely played a role in the W inking a new media rights package worth about $2.2billion over 11 years.

The Fever have also reported that jersey sales are up a whopping 1,193%.

However, not everyone was apparently thrilled with Clark's presence in the league.

While playing Reese's Sky, Clark was on the end of a cheap-shot body check from Sky guard Chennedy Carter - knocking her to the ground.

The play was even cheered by Clark's on-court rival Reese, who later said the league's popularity was because of more than just one person, in an apparent shot at her fellow rookie.

The pair have been pitted against each other since their college days at Iowa and LSU respectively, when Reese taunted Clark in the 2023 national championship, and things reached a boiling point in their rivalry as former NFL QB Robert Griffin III claimed they werebeing 'used in a race war.'

That comment came after another run-in of theirs, in which Reese caught Clark with a hard flagrant foul in a subsequent game, though the latter downplayed the sequence and said it 'was a basketball play.'

ESPN's Stephen A. Smith also claimed that Clark's WNBA colleagues were 'jealous' of Clark and 'resent' her.

Clark and Reese later teamed up on the WNBA All-Star Game and seemed to squash their beef as Reese joked they'd befriends 'for one day.'

Facing off against (and eventually beating) Team USA, Reese led that game in rebounds and showed a glimpse of the bruising style that's made her an instantly effective player in the pros.

The 'Bayou Barbie' recorded a league-record 15 straight double-doubles and has been a strong presence for the Sky on the defensive end.

But she and Clark are not the only storylines to keep an eye on.

After falling to the Aces in last year's finals, the Liberty have returned with a vengeance, posting a scorching 21-4 record to date behind two-time MVP (and newly-crowned gold medalist) Breanna Stewart.

The defending champion Aces (16-8), led by A'Ja Wilson, have been doing just fine themselves, while the Lynx (17-8), Storm (17-8) and Sun (18-6) will all feel they have something to say in the title hunt too.

Brittney Griner, Diana Taurasi and Kahleah Copper are also fresh off a gold medal with Team USA and will hope to get their team into the postseason, with the Mercury currently sixth of 12 teams (the top eight make the playoffs).

Aside from a tight Rookie of the Year race, in which Clark seems to have pulled ahead, she and Reese have also found themselves competing for playoff positioning.

With 16 games remaining for the Sky and 14 remaining for the Fever, the squads have nearly identical records and both find themselves 10.5 games behind the Liberty.

Clark's Fever, who started the season 2-9 after an extremely congested schedule early on, have now climbed their way to 11-15, while the Sky are 10-14.

As things stand, both teams are in position to make the playoffs, (they each have three games on the Dream), but they'll want to avoid the Liberty in the first round.

Thus, the Fever and Sky's final meeting of the season on August 30 could prove important in the postseason jostling.

After that, the playoffs will begin on September 22, with the finals set to wrap up by October 20 at the latest.

It'd be a surprise to see either Clark or Reese at that point, but then again, plenty about this WNBA season has kept us on our toes.

Regardless of who's crowned champion, it'll surely be a fitting coronation for what has been a booming WNBA season.