The Las Vegas Aces have not lived up to their high expectations early in the 2025 WNBA season. With a mere 4-3 start three weeks into the year, Aces head coach Becky Hammon believes her team is still a work in progress.
Hammon still sees her team working itself out on the court, she told reporter Callie Fin after practice. Considering Las Vegas’s offseason changes, the fourth-year head coach wants her players to focus internally on “forming habits and identities” within each other.
“We’re worried about ourselves right now,” Hammon said, via Las Vegas writer Willie Ramirez. “We’re still forming habits, forming identities, so we want to just make sure we’re playing Aces basketball at the standard that is expected of us.”
The Aces were at the center of a seismic, three-team trade in the 2024-2025 offseason. Las Vegas sent longtime guard Kelsey Plum to the Los Angeles Sparks and received Jewell Loyd from the Seattle Storm. They also received the No. 13 pick of the 2025 WNBA Draft courtesy of Los Angeles, which swapped first-rounders with Seattle.
While Plum and Loyd are both ball-dominant scorers, the move undeniably shook up Las Vegas’ roster and offensive rhythm. Plum, whom the team drafted No. 1 overall in 2017, was a key part of their consecutive WNBA titles in 2022 and 2023. The team additionally lost key rotational players Tiffany Hayes and Alysha Clark in free agency.
Becky Hammon, Aces’ rough 2025 drags on with Valkyries loss
If Hammon thought her team was at rock bottom before, it reached a new low on Saturday afternoon. Three days after Hammon’s comments, the Aces suffered their worst loss of the young season, a shocking 95-68 defeat to the Golden State Valkyries.
Las Vegas entered the game as moderately-sized favorites but were embarrassed on national television. The former two-time champions shot just 35.5 percent from the field and committed 13 turnovers en route to a wild 27-point loss. To rub salt in the wound, Hammon suffered her first head-to-head loss to former understudy Natalie Nakase, who left the Aces’ staff to accept her current position at the end of the 2024 season.
The Aces entered the game with a 4-2 record, with the Valkyries at a meager 2-5. Yet, the sold-out Chase Center created a playoff-like atmosphere that helped Golden State get out to an early lead and never look back.
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