Question of the Day - 02 August 2025

The Las Vegas Aces are a professional basketball team in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). They have a rich history marked by several relocations, name changes, and an ascent to becoming a dominant force in the league. In fact, the Las Vegas Aces transformed from a struggling franchise into a WNBA powerhouse since their 2018 relocation to Las Vegas. Let’s take a look. 

The original team was called the Utah Starzz, one of the WNBA’s eight inaugural franchises when the league began play in 1997. They were based in Salt Lake City. That year, they posted the league’s worst record and didn’t do much better for the next two. Even after drafting Margo Dydek, the tallest player in WNBA history at 7’2”, in 1998, the Starzz still struggled and didn’t have a winning record until 2000. 

In 2003, the team relocated to San Antonio and was renamed the Silver Stars. In 2014, it was shortened to the Stars. In 15 seasons in San Antonio, the team reached the finals only once, in 2008, and won a mere eight games each in 2015, 2016, and 2017. That last year,  the Stars were sold to MGM Resorts at an undisclosed by certainly modest price; they relocated to the arena at Mandalay Bay and were renamed the Las Vegas Aces.  

The Aces were a huge improvement over the Stars, posting a 14-20 record in 2018 behind the strong play of Rookie of the Year A’ja Wilson. In 2019, they were 21-13 and made it to the playoffs as the fourth seed. They won the second round against the Chicago Sky, but lost to the Washington Mystics in the semifinals. 

The next year, the Aces played in the pandemic bubble and went 18-4 in the shortened season, making it all the way to the WNBA Finals, but were swept by the Seattle Storm in three games. 

In January 2021, Mark Davis, owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, and his mother, Carol Davis, purchased the Aces from MGM for the princely sum of $2 million, which also suggests that MRI bought it for a song. Davis proceeded to invest upwards of $50 million in building the team and it started to pay off; that season, the team posted a 24-8 record, best in the Western Conference. But the playoff bug continued to bite and the Aces lost again in the semifinals to the Phoenix Mercury.

In 2022, Davis hired Becky Hammon, a superstar player (she played half her career, 2007-2014, for the San Antonio Stars), which marked the major turning point. The Aces tied the Chicago Sky for the league’s best record at 26-10. A’ja Wilson won her second MVP award and her first Defensive Player of the Year award and was the first WNBA player to record at least 700 points, 300 rebounds, and 70 blocks in a single season. The Aces went on to defeat the Connecticut Sun in four games to win their first WNBA championship. The team that year was estimated to be worth $140 million, launching Mark Davis’s investment into the ionosphere (a 6900% return in three years).

In 2023, the Aces dominated the season, finishing 34-6, the best regular-season record in WNBA history. Then they defeated the New York Liberty 3-1 to become the first WNBA team to win back-to-back titles since the Los Angeles Sparks in 2001–2002.

But nothing lasts forever. In the 2024 season, they finished in fourth place in the league with a record of 27-13. They beat the Seattle Storm in the first round of the playoffs, but lost in four games to the New York Liberty. 

This year so far, they’re struggling a bit, with a record of 14-13 as of this morning, fourth in the Western Conference standings, right in the middle of the pack and on a two-game win streak. But despite these recent challenges, the Aces remain a flagship WNBA franchise and continue to make Las Vegas proud.