The Good, the Bad, and the Discounts: Deals I like and don't like from 2023 WNBA free agency
Taking a look at the positives and negatives of various WNBA contracts signed so far in the 2023 offseason
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It's been barely three weeks since WNBA free agents were allowed to sign contracts, and most of the work is done. The big names have picked their destinations and signed their deals, most of the next tier have been hoovered up as well, and anyone left is probably going to have to take a training camp contract and fight for their spot. So it's time to take a look at it all. Which teams got good value, which overpaid, and which made mystifying decisions that make sense only within their own four walls. One small note - we'll get to the players that took obvious discounts to help their teams out later on. Obviously, if you get a superstar for a cheap contract, that's a good thing. But it's not particularly interesting. So you have to wait for us to get to them. Let's dig in.
The Good
Ezi Magbegor, Seattle Storm
From one angle, this doesn't look like a great deal for the Storm. Magbegor was reserved, which means she could only negotiate with the Storm, and they weren't required to offer her anything more than the veteran minimum of $74,305. They could've told Magbegor to show up and play for that this year, then dealt with her next big deal when she became a restricted free agent in a year's time. However, once Breanna Stewart flew the coop, and Courtney Vandersloot chose to join her in New York, Seattle knew they were going to have acres of cap space left to throw around this year and build a roster. The rebuild was beginning whether they liked it or not. So why not overpay a little now to save a little later?
Magbegor's both good and young. She may not have reached star levels yet with averages of 9.5 points and 5.6 rebounds per game last year, but there have been flashes of potential that show she could become much more in future. And at 23, she's barely older than some of the players who'll be drafted in a couple of months. If the Storm had allowed her to become a restricted free agent next year, it's likely that either someone else would've offered her big money to try to steal her away, or the Storm would've had to do it themselves before they got the chance. Instead, they essentially took this year's minimum and next year's supermax, added them together, then split them more evenly across the two years. They even used a descending deal so that they have a little extra space next year, when maybe they could be luckier in free agency than this season.
Seattle have been either unsuccessful or questionable in most of the other moves they made this offseason, but this one was a positive.
Crystal Dangerfield, Dallas Wings, two years, $80,000/$80,000, unprotected
This wouldn't normally be noteworthy enough to be mentioned so early, but it fits next to Magbegor. Dangerfield’s rights were acquired by Dallas in the Jonquel Jones trade before free agency opened, and she was also reserved. She also signed a two-year deal for more than the minimum that the team could've held firm as being all they would offer. However, Dangerfield taking this deal makes very little sense.
You see, Magbegor signed for about as much money as she could possibly make in the WNBA over the next two years (unless Seattle were generous for no particular reason). She gets the equivalent of the minimum this year and the supermax next, only she gets a big chunk of it early and the whole thing is protected. There's very little downside for her. Dangerfield, on the other hand, took a tiny bit more than her minimum ($80,000 vs. $74,305), while giving up her right to become a restricted free agent at the end of the year. The second year doesn't even increase (so is even closer to next year's minimum of $76,535), and the whole thing is unprotected.
With Marina Mabrey leaving town - something that looked fairly likely even back when Dangerfield was signing this deal - there's a reasonable chance that Dangerfield ends up as Dallas's starting point guard. She could have a big year that would've led to big offers in restricted free agency. On the other hand, if she’s poor, her deal's non-guaranteed and Dallas can just cut her anyway. This was a baffling choice from her and her agent.
Bridget Carleton, Minnesota Lynx, one year, $91,000, protected
This one's not complicated - that's just very cheap for a very useful role player. Whomever else Cheryl Reeve has at her disposal on the wing, she always seems to end up finding minutes for Carleton and her combination of energy, defense, and occasional outside shooting. It's a surprise that there wasn't a better offer available for Carleton elsewhere, but maybe she didn't want to leave.
The Lynx did some maths and gave her everything they could while leaving room for the No. 2 pick in the draft and two veteran minimum salaries to fill out their roster. Carleton got her first ever protected salary, even if it's not particularly high, and will become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year. And then probably once again she will go for much more in our Mock Offseason podcast than in reality.
The Bad
Tiffany Mitchell, Minnesota Lynx, two years, $135,000/$139,050, protected
This might not be my absolute least favourite contract of 2023 so far, but it fits here as a pair with the Carleton deal discussed above. Two years in this sort of monetary range for Mitchell isn't necessarily a terrible deal in a vacuum. She's been a serviceable rotation wing in Indiana for several years, albeit without scoring particularly efficiently. At 28, you might well be getting two of her peak years before her production tapers off. But why, Minnesota?
The Lynx already have max salaries going to Kayla McBride and Aerial Powers. They have Carleton as a reliable wing option behind them. They have star Napheesa Collier likely playing some minutes at the three in big lineups. And they even have the No. 2 pick in the draft, who's highly likely to be a wing of some description if you look at the draft projections of virtually everyone offering a 2023 mock draft. When you already have all those players looking to fill 80 minutes of wing play per game, why are you giving Tiffany Mitchell over a quarter of a million dollars, guaranteed, over the next two years? Baffling.
Victoria Vivians, Indiana Fever, two years, $135,000/137,000, protected
Alanna Smith, Chicago Sky, one year, $100,000, unprotected
Cayla George, Las Vegas Aces, one year, $74,305, protected
Speaking of baffling, let's talk about all of these. Who were you bidding against? Vivians is basically yet to have a good WNBA season. Her best was her rookie year in 2018 before a serious knee injury cost her 2019. There were a few signs of improvement last year, but shooting below 34% from the field and 28% from three wasn't exciting anyone. That's the kind of player you happily bring back to training camp to see if the trajectory is trending upward, but that's about it. Even in Indiana, where they've clearly struggled to attract meaningful free agents, you don't give that player two years of protected money in the $135,000 range. If Aliyah Boston manages to drag the Fever to a positive 2023 season, there could be some free agents actually interested in joining next year. Don't occupy a chunk of cap room and a protected salary spot (each team can only have a maximum of six protected veterans) with a hopeful gamble like Vivians.
Chicago was thrown into an unwanted semi-rebuild when Candace Parker, Courtney Vandersloot, Allie Quigley and (presumably) Emma Meesseman all chose not to return for 2023. The $100,000 they gave Rebekah Gardner made sense to reward a player who was a really positive piece for them last year. Matching that contract for Alanna Smith was bizarre. She's putting up numbers in Europe, so maybe there was competition for her WNBA signature, but Smith's pretty much the definition of the kind of player you might give a second chance to on a training camp contract. There were three years in Phoenix where Sandy Brondello never had any faith in her, before a brief stint in Indiana last year where she was waived after less than a month by the worst team in the league. Why are you giving her $25,000 above the minimum? It won't be a huge surprise if she doesn't make it through camp.
On the other hand, in Las Vegas, Smith's fellow Aussie Cayla George presumably will survive training camp - because the Aces guaranteed her salary (that’s what “protected” means). As a fairly obvious rule of thumb, if someone's only worth the minimum, they probably shouldn't be getting a protected contract. George is fine. A training camp contract would've made sense for a team looking for post depth. She's been in the WNBA before, with three thoroughly forgettable seasons in Phoenix and Dallas. She'll also turn 34 before the 2023 WNBA season begins. Getting Candace Parker to take an unprotected contract so that you could guarantee money for George was bananas. Although, of course, it's hardly the biggest issue that the Aces have been dealing with this offseason.
Marina Mabrey, Chicago Sky, three years, $202,000/$208,000/$210,000, protected
The issue here isn't really the contract. It's more than you'd like to be paying Mabrey, who's been good but not a star in Dallas for the last couple of years - you're paying for the potential that she's still improving and could break out further in a new environment. But that's a reasonable gamble, especially considering she was a restricted free agent, a class of player you typically have to overpay to take them away from their previous team. The issue is how much else the Sky had to cough up.
It was a complicated sign-and-trade deal that broke down at least once, but in the end looked something like this:
The Sky basically signed away every meaningful draft pick for the next three years, including this year's No. 5, next year's first-rounder, and swap rights to their first-round pick in 2025 - all to Dallas. Virtually everyone who criticised this deal, and there were people lining up, said "I like Mabrey, but..." It's all about the cost. The three first-round picks valuation may well have come from a few years ago when both DeWanna Bonner and Skylar Diggins-Smith moved for a price in that range in the same offseason. But Mabrey isn't as proven as either of those players were at the time, and the teams involved had managed to acquire extra picks to enable the trades.
Chicago head coach and GM James Wade made it very clear in a recent interview that the Sky aren’t planning on losing, and if they're good for the next couple of years then giving up those picks won't be particularly painful. But they've lost a lot of talent this offseason, and now there's no safety net. And there are a whole lot of good players coming out of college over the next couple of years that the Sky have taken themselves out of contention to draft. Was Marina Mabrey worth all that?
The Discounts
Breanna Stewart, New York Liberty, one year, $175,000, protected
Courtney Vandersloot, New York Liberty, two years, $189,000/$194,670, protected
Candace Parker, Las Vegas Aces, one year, $100,000, unprotected
Alysha Clark, Las Vegas Aces, two years, $110,000/$110,000, protected
Brittney Griner, Phoenix Mercury, one year, $165,100, protected
Okay, let's talk about these. After last year saw the likes of Sue Bird and Tina Charles take less money to play where they wanted to play and help those teams put additional talent around them, this year saw that trend continue. While Clark may only have been a little underpaid (she'd surely at least have been in the Mitchell/Vivians $135,000 range if she was willing to play anywhere, likely significantly higher), the other four all could've commanded max salaries if that was their priority. If Stewart, Vandersloot or Griner had demanded a four-year supermax contract from their existing teams, it's likely the deal would've been in front of them within minutes and a pen pressed into their hands. All of them took less.
As long as everything's above board and within the rules, I have no problem with this. Especially in a sport where some star players make the bulk of their income elsewhere, their top priority isn't always going to be making as much money as possible from their WNBA contract. If other things are more important to them, then that's entirely reasonable. If you want to play with more talent around you, or in a certain city with a team that has limited cap room, and those wishes are more important to you than cash, then go for it. This is part of the point of true free agency, which the players have fought to expand across multiple Collective Bargaining Agreements. It's not just about being able to go where you want, it's also about being able to do what you want.
Of course, it's a little dubious that players may well have been attracted to New York by Joe Tsai's willingness to break the rules a couple of years ago and charter flights for the team. It's incredibly dubious and damaging if any of the allegations against Las Vegas that are currently being investigated are ultimately proven. If the rules aren't worth the paper they're written on then you may as well tear up the CBA and just make everything a free market (which is basically how many other leagues are run around the world, by the way). But the basic idea of taking less money to play where you want to play and try to win? Nothing wrong with that.
Diving into the details a little, I've seen people wonder why Stewart would only take a one-year deal. It could be due to the Prioritization rules again, which become more severe next year. Perhaps more likely is that when you're giving a team a discount, maybe you don't want that discount to extend. WNBA contracts can only increase year-to-year by 3% of the first season of the deal, so taking $175,000 in the first year would've limited the second to $180,250, and the third to $185,500. With the vast majority of New York's roster out of contract at the end of the year, maybe she's expecting to be paid closer to what she's worth from next year onwards. Also, she could make New York core her, then sign a deal that would use up her cored seasons and prevent that tactic from being used on her again in future years. One little quirk to look out for - she would need to be cored in order to receive the supermax from New York. If she simply becomes an unrestricted free agent again, she would only be eligible for the regular max due to the tricky eligibility rules. So for multiple reasons, she may be the very rare player that would actually want to be cored heading into 2024.
Griner took a very precise amount for what appears to be a specific reason, as I mentioned here. It leaves Phoenix enough room to round out their roster with two veteran minimum salaries and two base minimums (and leave $27, for some reason). Perhaps the most interesting element of that is that the maths is so precise, they appear to be expecting this to be the make-up of their core roster heading into the 2023 season - including Skylar Diggins-Smith. Many people have been expecting Diggins-Smith to be traded, which would open up significant extra cap space for Phoenix, but it's beginning to look like they haven't been able to make a deal (or haven't found one they like). Assuming she's out to start the season they will be able to make use of the new rule which allows a replacement for pregnant players, but that will only be another minimum-salaried backup. It's nothing like the kind of haul they might have hoped for in a trade.
Bonus Notes
In the midst of a generally wildly successful offseason, New York have managed to complicate one element slightly. They now have six protected veteran salaries on the books. That means that while they can offer Sabrina Ionescu a contract extension at any time up to the May 15 deadline, they cannot protect that extension (unless they manage to trade away one of the current six). The rule is a maximum of six protected veteran salaries on the books in any current or future year, not necessarily all in the same season. Minnesota ran into the same issue last year, which is why Napheesa Collier's next three seasons are all unprotected.
Also in New York, it's worth paying attention to what happens with Nyara Sabally over the next couple of months. After missing the whole of last year due to injury, the 2022 No. 5 overall pick could technically re-enter the draft in 2023 and become eligible to be selected again. It's a strange quirk in the rules that's been around for a long time and literally never been exercised before, but it remains in play.
Generally speaking, there seems to have been a trend toward two-year deals this offseason. We've seen a few for one year, a very limited number for three, and then a whole swathe of two-year contracts. I'm not sure exactly why. Both the current CBA and the TV deal with ESPN stretch through the 2025 season, so it doesn't seem likely that players are anticipating a huge spike in 2025 salaries. Maybe everyone has simply decided that two years is a good compromise. The players get some security, and the teams aren't locked in for too long if it turns out to be a bad contract. We'll see whether this is a trend that lasts in future years.
A few contracts that didn't make the main sections. Yes, Erica Wheeler was overpaid by Indiana, but I at least get that one. Veteran point guard to lead the kids, nice story to bring her home, lots of cap space to spend anyway. Would've preferred one year, and it was a bit of a backtrack to bad old habits after getting rid of the Danielle Robinson contract, but okay. Tiffany Hayes in Connecticut was a strange one. Her rights cost the Sun the No. 6 pick in the draft, then they got Brionna Jones to take a discount and waived Jasmine Walker to create the room to give Hayes $162,477. They now can't go above the absolute base minimum for their 11th roster spot if they keep the current 10, because they gave Hayes every possible penny. Was she really not going to show up if Connecticut said they could pay her $150,000 instead of the $162,477? They had her exclusive rights. It was show up for what they'd give her or skip the WNBA. The Sun made a lot of accommodations for a player who remains talented but is now 33 years old and struggles to stay healthy. Speaking of which, three guaranteed years for Moriah Jefferson in Phoenix was brave. It could be nice value if the player from last season in Minnesota shows up and plays 100+ games over the next three seasons. Given her health history, would you bet on that happening? As with all these deals, it's a gamble. But some carry significantly more risk than others.
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Hi, Richard. I know that you have written about this over on Rebkell, but could the fact that the Lynx signed Mitchell at what clearly was not a position of need, while not pursuing Moriah Jefferson (who signed for roughly the same amount as Mitchell with Phoenix), be a sign that they intend to draft Haley Jones? Jones is not a point guard, but she can operate as a point forward, rotating up from the baseline to direct the offense. If you planned to have Jones defend the 3, but run the offense on the opposite end of the court, then couldn’t you get away with having two shooting guards in the backcourt, Mitchell and McBride and perhaps sometimes even Powers?
I know that the scuttlebutt is that the Lynx intend to draft Diamond Miller, but I have wondered if maybe that isn’t a smokescreen to entice Dallas to trade up to the 2. Dallas supposedly has no interest in Jones, but would be very interested in Diamond Miller. While I doubt that the Lynx could get the 3 and 5 picks for 2, maybe they could get them for the 2 and the 12 picks. Anyway, I find it a little mystifying that the Lynx would oversign at the wing, while deciding to turn the offense over to Banham and Lindsay Allen. I am not really sure who is the starter and who is the backup with the Banham/Allen duo, but it doesn’t inspire great confidence.
Richard, excellent analysis as always. Thanks for the link to your explanation of the prioritization rule, which I had missed when you first posted it. I’ve been baffled by the rule since I first read about it for the very reason that you gave: even with the increases, WNBA salaries are not competitive with many of the international leagues, meaning that many players would be compelled for financial reasons to forego the W. Most WNBA owners, and certainly Cathy Englebert, are not stupid. Shouldn’t that have been obvious to them?