The Las Vegas Aces are an American professional basketball team based in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. The Aces compete in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) as a member of the Western Conference. The team plays its home games at Michelob Ultra Arena in the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, and is headquartered in Henderson, Nevada. The Aces won the 2022 WNBA Commissioner’s Cup and WNBA Championship. The Aces also won the 2023 WNBA Championship, becoming the first team to win back-to-back championships since 2001-2002, when the Los Angeles Sparks completed that feat.
The team was founded in Salt Lake City, Utah, as the Utah Starzz before the league’s inaugural 1997 season. It then moved to San Antonio, Texas, before the 2003 season and became the San Antonio Silver Stars, later shortened to the San Antonio Stars in 2014. The team relocated to Las Vegas before the 2018 season. The Aces, who are owned by Mark and Carol Davis (the owners of the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders) and Tom Brady, are one of three WNBA franchises who compete in a market that lacks an NBA team; the other two teams are the Connecticut Sun and the Seattle Storm.
As the Stars, the team qualified for the WNBA playoffs in seven of their fifteen years in San Antonio. The franchise has been home to many high-quality players such as all-star point guard Becky Hammon, solid power-forward Sophia Young, former first-overall draft pick Ann Wauters, seven-foot-two-inch center Margo Dydek, two-time Sixth Woman of the Year Dearica Hamby, and three-time league MVP A’ja Wilson. The franchise has gone to the WNBA Finals four times: first in 2008, losing to Detroit, in 2020 losing to Seattle, and in 2022 winning against Connecticut, and in 2023 winning against New York.
One of the eight original WNBA teams, the Utah Starzz (partially named after the old ABA team, the Utah Stars, but with the zz at the end like the Utah Jazz) never met the same success as their (former) counterpart in the NBA, the Utah Jazz. They held the distinction of having the worst record in the WNBA in 1997 and were the first team to select in the 1998 WNBA draft. With their selection, they picked 7 ft. 2 in. center Margo Dydek, who easily became the tallest player in WNBA history. Unfortunately, the pickup of Dydek did little to help their cause and they again finished near the bottom of the league in the 1998 & 1999 seasons. The Starzz finally posted a winning record in 2000, but did not make the playoffs. In 2001, the Utah Starzz made it to the playoffs for the first time, but they were quickly swept in the first round by the Sacramento Monarchs. In 2002, the Starzz made it to the playoffs again, and this time beat the Houston Comets in the Western Conference Semifinals 2 games to 1. Their playoff run ended in the Western Finals, however, as they were swept aside by the eventual champs, the Los Angeles Sparks.
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