What everyone will be talking about when the WNBA's 19th season begins

After an offseason of mostly negative WNBA news, thank goodness the league's 19th season is beginning soon. It's time to play ball again.

The WNBA starts with five games Friday, including last year's champion, Phoenix, at home against San Antonio. Can the Mercury become the first team to repeat as champions since Los Angeles in 2001 and 2002? That will be a challenge.

Contenders for the crown

Phoenix will be without Diana Taurasi all season, and it appears Penny Taylor also is not going to play in the WNBA in 2015. Brittney Griner will be on the sideline most of June as she serves a seven-game, league-mandated suspension for her April arrest after a fight with her then-fiance, Glory Johnson of Tulsa. Griner and Johnson were married in May.

Phoenix still has talent and should be a playoff team. But if the Mercury end up in the lottery -- which, for 2016, will be the Breanna Stewart sweepstakes -- and somehow get the top pick, well, there might just be a revolt among fans of the other 11 teams.

But, hey, that's a powder keg that might never go off. The Mercury got Griner with the No. 1 selection of 2013, and once she returns, her formidable inside presence should help Phoenix be in the hunt this year.

However, the balance of power appears to have tilted back to Minnesota, which avoided offseason drama and will be seeking its third WNBA championship. The Lynx return 2014 league MVP Maya Moore, along with fellow U.S. national-team members Seimone Augustus and Lindsay Whalen.

Phoenix beat Minnesota 2-1 the past season in the Western Conference finals, a clash of titans that felt like the de facto championship series. To officially get the trophy, the Mercury then had to beat Chicago, which surged from the No. 4 seed in the East to the franchise's first WNBA Finals appearance. But the Sky just didn't have the firepower to match Phoenix.

The 3-0 Mercury triumph in the WNBA Finals marked the fourth time in the past five years that the league's championship series was a sweep. The exception in that stretch was 2012, when Indiana won the title 3-1 over Minnesota.

Indiana, incidentally, is one of three WNBA franchises that has a new head coach this season. For the Fever, it's Stephanie White, former assistant to Lin Dunn, who retired. Another assistant who has moved up to the top rung is Jenny Boucek, who takes over for Brian Agler in Seattle.

Agler moved to Los Angeles, a team trying to advance to the WNBA Finals for the first time since 2003.

Off-court issues for league

For a while, it appeared that there would be four new coaches this season, but then New York re-hired Bill Laimbeer a couple months after firing him. As weird as that reversal seemed in January, the Liberty trumped it with May's announcement ofIsiah Thomas as the new team president and a part-owner.

Thomas, while still with the NBA's Knicks, was at the center of a 2007 sexual-harassment lawsuit that MSG lost to former employee Anucha Browne Sanders, who is now the NCAA's vice president for women's basketball championships.

Thomas as Liberty president provided easy fodder even for pundits who otherwise largely (or completely) ignore the WNBA. It resulted in commentary that was sardonic, outraged or both. The WNBA Board of Governors still has to approve Thomas' ownership stake, but it appears this season will launch with that issue unresolved, so a cloud remains over the Liberty and the league.

It's safe to say WNBA president Laurel Richie and the league's other owners are not happy about the Liberty-Thomas situation, but whether there is enough muscle (say, with help from NBA commissioner Adam Silver) to prevent it remains to be seen. The WNBA announced Monday that six members of the Board of Governors met as a "vetting" committee in regard to Thomas' ownership request, and they will send a recommendation to the full board.

Richie earned mostly kudos for the league's comprehensive investigation of the April 22 Griner-Johnson incident and her subsequent suspension announcement. Both players could still appeal, but Richie was firm in sending a message about domestic violence.

Griner and Johnson should be back in action by the time the Mercury and Shock first meet this season on July 2 in Phoenix. By then, we might have a sense of whether Tulsa is on its way to its first playoff berth since the Shock relocated to Oklahoma in 2010 or they will be in the lottery again.

The lottery watch, in fact, will be a key subplot this WNBA season. Principally because of UConn's Stewart, who will be going for her fourth NCAA championship next spring, but also because of other impact players who will be available for lottery picks.

It was thought Notre Dame's Jewell Loyd would be part of that 2016 draft, but then she opted to forego her senior season. Loyd, who was eligible for the 2015 draft because she turns 22 this year, went No. 1 to Seattle.

The Storm are in rebuilding mode, which they'll do with both Loyd and No. 3 pick Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis of UConn. For the third year in a row, Seattle center Lauren Jackson -- a three-time league MVP -- is not playing in the WNBA as she recovers from injury.

Players missing time

With Jackson having turned 34 in May, there's reason to wonder if she'll play in the WNBA again. Thats not a concern about Taurasi, who will be 33 in June. She has said she will be back next year after resting this summer.

Two other WNBA stars who have played on the U.S. national team with Taurasi, Los Angeles' Candace Parker and Chicago's Sylvia Fowles, have murkier situations for 2015.

Parker, a two-time WNBA MVP, is taking time off to rest after overseas play and hasn't said when she'll join the Sparks. Fowles wants to move on from Chicago, the team she has been with since she was drafted No. 2 behind Parker in 2008. Fowles has requested a trade to a specific team, and as of yet, the Sky haven't received an acceptable offer. Fowles is expected to sit out until a deal happens.

Without Fowles, all the more weight is on Elena Delle Donne in Chicago. However, she will have a teammate with WNBA championship experience in Cappie Pondexter. A native of the Windy City, Pondexter came from New York in a trade for Epiphanny Prince.

By the way, Prince is one of at least a half-dozen players who will miss time in June while competing in the EuroBasket tournament, the winner of which receives a berth into the 2016 Olympics. Prince (Russia), Indiana's Shavonte Zellous (Croatia), Los Angeles' Kristi Toliver (Slovakia) and Chicago's Allie Quigley (Hungary) are all Americans playing for other countries' national teams.

Bringing in an American ringer has become standard procedure for many nations' women's basketball programs. It's a practice that came to prominence when Becky Hammon played for the Russian national team in the 2008 Olympics.

Certainly, the United States has an abundance of talented players who will never get a realistic chance to compete for the American squad. Does it dilute the meaning of international competition, though, to have players compete for countries for which they have basketball-only citizenry?

That's an ongoing debate, but one thing's for sure: Such absences create another obstacle for WNBA teams and coaches to deal with during the season.

The teams that best handle the various hurdles -- including injuries, of course -- will be the eight that advance to the postseason. Once there, anything can happen, as Chicago proved last year in upsetting higher-seeded Atlanta and Indiana in the playoffs.

That said, don't look for a "surprise" duo in the 2015 WNBA Finals.

Minnesota and Atlanta, who met for the title in 2013, enter this season as the perceived favorites in their respective conferences and might well end up in the WNBA Finals again.