After the signature Nike A'One shoe designed by Las Vegas Aces center A'ja Wilson flew off the shelves in May, sneaker site Sole Retriever reported Monday that the sportswear giant plans to drop a second edition with the WNBA star next year.
Dubbed the A'Two, Nike expects to release the next Wilson signature shoe in the summer of 2026.
While the updated design is still under wraps, the retail price will reportedly rise from $115 to $145 to accommodate an overhaul in the sneaker's technology.
The three-time WNBA MVP followed up her original "Pink A'ura" A'One design with 11 additional colorways, including the white "OG Pearl," the blue-hued "Indigo Girl," and a black, gold, red, and orange "All-Star" version that dropped just in time for the 2025 All-Star Weekend.
The initial A'One drop sold out in less than five minutes, underlining the growing market demand for signature apparel in women's sports.
Wilson's signature sneakers have proved popular among fans as well as WNBA players, with the shoes logging the the fifth-most minutes on the league's courts so far this season.
Though the A'Two drop is almost a full year away, Nike will continue releasing additional A'One colorways in the interim.
How to buy the A'ja Wilson signature Nike A'One sneakers
All currently available colorways of the A'One signature shoes can be purchase at Nike.com.
The roller-coaster sale of the Connecticut Sun has taken another turn, with Front Office Sports reporting Wednesday that three different buyers are currently in play to take over the WNBA team.
Alongside former Celtics owner Steve Pagliuca's previous $325 million bid to take the team to Boston, ex-Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry recently offered a matching bid to keep the squad closer to their Uncasville home with a move to nearby Hartford.
The NBA's Houston Rockets ownership has also entered the mix, with reports indicating that WNBA leadership would prefer the franchise relocate from New England to the Texas city.
Topping the sale price with an additional relocation fee could be the best way for a potential owner to separate themselves from the pack, as the relocation fee directly benefits the WNBA's front office.
Should the Rockets' ownership at least match the Boston and Hartford bids — plus ante up a relocation fee — a move to Houston could be a lock, particularly considering WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert dubbed the Texas hub as "up next" in the league's ongoing expansion process.
Ultimately, all signs point to the WNBA looking to align the sale of the Connecticut Sun with the league's overarching goals, leaving multiple fanbases — both existing and potential — stuck in limbo.
The No. 12 Chicago Sky are facing another failure to launch, as the 2021 WNBA champions struggle to navigate the second half of 2025 without injured star forward Angel Reese.
Reese has missed eight of the last nine Sky games due to a lingering back injury — and the WNBA sophomore will be out for the foreseeable future, with the Chicago Tribune reporting Wednesday that doctors have yet to clear her for basketball activities.
"For Angel, if she's healthy, she wants to play," said Chicago head coach Tyler Marsh. "We just don't want to put her in harm's way to further any existing injury."
Prior to injury, Reese was a bright spot on the Chicago lineup, averaging 14.2 points and 12.7 rebounds per game while notching her first career triple-double in June.
With veteran guard Courtney Vandersloot out with a season-ending ACL tear and Reese unavailable in the home stretch for the second season in a row, Chicago suffered their ninth loss in 10 games on Wednesday, falling 71-62 to the last-place Connecticut Sun in a heated matchup that saw three players ejected.
Now riding an 8-24 record into the last month of regular-season play, the Sky are shifting to focus on the future with their 2025 campaign all but over.
The Sky swapped 2026 first-round draft picks with the Sun back in July 2024, giving them likely lottery positioning entering next season's WNBA draft.
However, Chicago then traded away their natural 2026 first-round pick to the No. 1 Minnesota Lynx in order to secure TCU alum Hailey Van Lith in the 2025 WNBA Draft, creating a non-zero chance that the league's top team will tip off next season with that year's No. 1 draft pick.
A simmering rivalry turned a new page on Wednesday, as the No. 5 Las Vegas Aces punctuated their current rise by defeating a short-staffed New York Liberty 83-77, knocking the reigning champs down to No. 3 in the WNBA standings.
"You can't rush a cake to be baked," Las Vegas head coach Becky Hammon said about her team following their fifth straight win.
"We're just steady and poised in the locker room," added Aces guard Chelsea Gray. "In the uncomfortable situations, you figure out who you are as a team."
Las Vegas made key midseason changes after finding themselves teetering on the postseason bubble, moving 2025 addition Jewell Loyd to the bench while shifting to a small-ball starting lineup centered around 2024 MVP A'ja Wilson and recent pick-up NaLyssa Smith.
"She likes it, I guess," Hammon said of Loyd's new role after the guard posted a team-leading 21-point performance on Wednesday. "Anytime you have the threat of 20-plus coming in off the bench, that's a huge advantage."
"That's the beauty of this team," echoed Loyd. "We're very unselfish in that way — we want to see people get going and I just got hot."
While the Las Vegas Aces are gaining momentum, the Liberty are now scrambling, losing their second-place grip on the WNBA table with injured star Breanna Stewart still watching from the sideline.
How to watch the Las Vegas Aces in the WNBA this week
The No. 5 Aces are in for another tough assignment on Friday, when they travel to Phoenix to take on the No. 4 Mercury at 10 PM ET.
Live coverage of the clash will air on ION.
The No. 3 Atlanta Dream still have something to say, entering Wednesday's matchup with the No. 8 Seattle Storm on a five-game winning streak — and, notably, just a half-game behind the No. 2 New York Liberty in the WNBA standings.
"We know it doesn't get any easier," Dream head coach Karl Smesko said of his team's remaining regular-season slate. "This is a trip where we're playing a lot of really good teams."
With stars Rhyne Howard and Brittney Griner back in the lineup, Atlanta is returning to the height of their power at exactly the right time: "I thought BG was great," Smesko said of his once-injured center. "She was moving great. She looked really good out there."
As for Seattle, however, the Storm finds themselves on the opposite trajectory, riding a five-game losing streak into Wednesday's clash.
Adding insult to injury, former Storm guard Alysha Clark confirmed this week that she requested her midseason trade to the No. 10 Washington Mystics.
"Asked Alysha Clark if she had conversations with Seattle before the trade and she said she requested to be moved," tweeted Washington Post journalist Kareem Copeland on Tuesday. "Things hadn't worked out as they envisioned and she told herself at 38 years old she was going to stay in control of her career."
Clark's admission follows 2024 reports that volatile locker room dynamics and front office disputes prompted former Seattle star Jewell Loyd to request a trade last season.
How to watch the Atlanta Dream vs. Seattle Storm on Wednesday
The Dream will put their winning streak to the test while trying to take advantage of the Storm's skid at 10 PM ET on Wednesday.
Live coverage of the game will air on ESPN3.
One of the WNBA's newest signings re-introduced herself to the league on Tuesday night, as forward Emma Meesseman led the No. 2 New York Liberty to a splashy 105-97 road win over the No. 9 LA Sparks.
Meesseman made up for injured Liberty star Breanna Stewart's ongoing absence by scoring a season-high, team-leading 24 points. Fellow big Jonquel Jones also put up a 21-point, 11-rebound double-double and forward Leonie Fiebich added 20 points in a game that saw every New York starter contribute double-digit points.
"She's one of the best players in the world," Sparks head coach Lynne Roberts said of the 32-year-old Belgian international following Tuesday's game. "There's a lot of problems one of the best players in the world can bring you."
Meesseman — the 2019 WNBA Finals MVP — made her New York Liberty debut on August 3rd, entering a squad struggling with availability and chemistry.
"It's fundamentals, really," she said of her team's recent on-court issues. "No matter who we have on the court, no matter what level, players [or] what league, it's all about hustle. I don't think you can practice that. So we just have to go out there and fight."
Despite their problems, the reigning champion Liberty are continuing to cruise toward a playoff berth at the top of the WNBA standings, while the Sparks are still searching for a boost above the postseason cutoff line.
How to watch the New York Liberty in Wednesday's WNBA action
New York will try to score back-to-back road wins by visiting the No. 5 Las Vegas Aces at 9:30 PM ET on Wednesday, airing live on ESPN.
Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark is feeling the pressure, joining retired WNBA legend Sue Bird on last Friday's podcast to discuss the impact of her recent spat of injuries on league attendance and viewership.
"That's definitely been hard," Clark told Bird about having to ride the bench. "I'm going to go to every road game no matter what, whether I'm playing or not. It's hard because obviously I do feel this responsibility of being out there and playing."
"I sign autographs for way longer when I'm hurt than when I'm active," Clark told Bird, referencing her outsized popularity. "That's never something I wish for, but I still want to make as much time as I can for people."
In total, Clark has missed 19 of the No. 5 Fever's 32 regular-season games — plus this year's Indianapolis-based All-Star Game — as she manages three separate muscle injuries.
Before her injuries, Indiana's 2025 season opener pit Clark against fellow WNBA sophomore Angel Reese and the Chicago Sky earned what is still this year's highest viewership, with 2.7 million people tuning in on May 17th.
Since then, all three rematches have seen the regional rivals face off without one or both of their popular 2024 draft picks.
Despite star absences, however, ratings are up across all WNBA teams, with national networks averaging 794,000 viewers per game through July — a 21% increase over 2024's full-season average.
The mysterious large purple egg stashed inside the Bay Area's Chase Center has hatched, revealing the first-ever mascot for the Golden State Valkyries: a bespectacled raven named Violet.
Violet made her official mascot debut during the No. 7 Valkyries' 74-57 Monday win over the No. 13 Connecticut Sun, with the Golden State crowd welcoming her by singing "Happy Birthday."
"Ravens are commonly known as Valkyries' helpful and savvy counterparts in Norse mythology," the 2025 WNBA expansion team wrote in Tuesday's press materials, also noting that "because she is near-sighted, she sports gold glasses helping her achieve the excellent eyesight that ravens are known to have."
Nicknamed "Vi," Violet will bring "crucial knowledge [from her daily flights] back for the leaders of Ballhalla to use in battle."
Violet will now join other mascots in the league's spotlight, with teams seeing significant success from the popularity of WNBA-specific characters — sparked by the 2021 debut of New York Liberty icon Ellie the Elephant.
"The cultural phenomenon that Ellie has become today definitely exceeded our expectations," Liberty chief brand officer Shana Stephenson told Andscape last season. "She's become such an integral part of our game-day experience that the energy and atmosphere within our game I don't think would be the same without Ellie."
Chicago has also undergone a mascot revamp recently, replacing the team's old Sky Guy mascot with Skye the Lioness last year.
How to catch Violet the Raven at Golden State
Fans hoping to meet the Valks' new mascot will have a shot on Sunday, when Golden State returns from this week's road trip to host the No. 3 Atlanta Dream in the Chase Center at 8:30 PM ET, airing live on NBA TV.
Currently on a five-game losing streak, the No. 12 Dallas Wings — and star rookie Paige Bueckers — are trusting the process, hunting an upset as they take on the No. 5 Indiana Fever on Tuesday night.
"I think we have a really good young core, we have great pieces to build around, good complementary pieces," Bueckers told reporters on Sunday. "We're all really excited that the front office has doubled down on who we have here right now. I think that's what we're gonna build around."
"We've talked about it enough," the 2025 No. 1 overall draftee continued. "We need to put action behind our words."
First-year Dallas head coach Chris Koclanes has taken much of the heat for the Wings' skid, exiting the court to fans chanting "We want Nola" — a plea for assistant coach Nola Henry to take over the team.
"Stepping into this leadership role, [I'm] being challenged to step outside of character at times and when to hold people accountable in different ways and when to discipline in different ways, so I'm learning," said Koclanes, whose role with the Wings is also his first-ever stint as a head coach — at any level of the game.
"You know we didn't start the season off well, we're not playing how we should be playing. But we need the fans to support us," Dallas forward Myisha Hines-Allen said, directly addressing upset fans after the Wings' Friday loss to the No. 2 New York Liberty.
"At the end of the day, Chris is still our head coach. We still need him."
How to watch the Dallas Wings vs. Indiana Fever on Tuesday
The No. 12 Wings head to Indiana to take on the No. 5 Fever at 7:30 PM ET on Tuesday, airing live on ESPN.
The LA Sparks are hitting their stride, riding an 8-2 record into a Tuesday night home matchup against the reigning WNBA champion New York Liberty.
Despite falling to the No. 7 Golden State Valkyries over the weekend, LA's recent run has lifted the Sparks to No. 9 in the WNBA standings, with four of their last five wins coming against teams above the playoff line — including a 101-99 victory over No. 2 New York on July 26th.
"That's just learning how to win," Sparks head coach Lynne Roberts said on Sunday. "The worst thing you can do is fear losing."
Bolstered by 2024 No. 2 overall draftee Cameron Brink's return from injury, a Tuesday win could launch the Sparks into postseason positioning — but they'll have to top a motivated Liberty side looking to avenge their Sunday home loss to the No. 1 Minnesota Lynx.
"I think the most important part is when it gets hard for us, tough for us, we don't really stay together, and I think we have to do a better job," New York guard Marine Johannes told reporters.
The Liberty will take the court without veteran star forward Breanna Stewart, who is targeting an end-of-August return from a bone bruise in her right knee.
How to watch the LA Sparks vs. New York Liberty on Tuesday
The No. 9 Sparks will tip off against the visiting No. 2 Liberty at 10 PM ET on Tuesday, with live coverage on NBA TV.