Breaking Down the Deals: Dearica Hamby to LA, Allisha Gray to Atlanta
We examine the two latest big trades in the WNBA, and what they mean for all the teams and players involved
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Las Vegas/Los Angeles
Aces send Dearica Hamby and their 2024 first-round pick to the Sparks for the rights to Amanda Zahui B and their 2024 second-round pick
On a base level, this is relatively simple. Las Vegas had no cap space and Hamby is pregnant, presenting some uncertainty as to what she'll offer in 2023 (although she has said she'll be ready for the start of the season). With virtually no post rotation beyond MVP A'ja Wilson, something had to give in Las Vegas if they were going to add any depth, as I talked about in my Wild What Ifs article last month. However, go a little deeper and this one gets awkward, complicated, and a little controversial.
Four key players signed contract extensions in Las Vegas last year. Jackie Young's ($165,000/$169,950 in 2023/24) now looks like an absolute bargain, but even Chelsea Gray and Kelsey Plum signed for less than the maximum salary that they would've commanded with ease on the open market this offseason. Hamby also extended her deal, for $169,000/$169,000 in 2023 and 2024. The maximum value you can start an extension at is 120% of the final year of the previous deal. Since she was on $142,800 last year, her extension could've started at anything up to $171,360. If she'd waited to become a free agent, she might well have drawn max offers from other teams (although the pregnancy could've complicated matters). So she took less money than she could have looked for, but as she said herself:
Hamby clearly felt she was committing to the Las Vegas Aces and they were committing to her, hence some disgruntled messages from that same Twitter account in recent days when it became clear the Aces were trying to trade her:
After the trade was completed, Hamby expressed how upset she was with the Aces even more explicitly in an Instagram post, saying she was “lied to, bullied, manipulated and discriminated against”, and the Players Association released a statement saying they would seek a comprehensive investigation to ensure her rights were not violated. The Aces are yet to respond.
From the Aces' perspective, maybe they felt let down by Hamby getting pregnant again when they'd just handed her guaranteed money for the next two years. Without being in the room when that extension was negotiated, we can't know for certain what kind of assurances were given on either side. Maybe the Aces simply felt that their roster situation meant they had to make a move and that this was a business decision. The problem with that is that reputation means a lot in this league. It's a very small community where everyone talks to everyone, and secrets don't stay secret for very long. If you treat players well, or treat them poorly, that information travels through the player base (and their agents) like wildfire. Up to now, Vegas had a pretty stellar reputation, as far as we can tell from the outside. Owner Mark Davis is very willing to spend money, highlighted in particular by bringing in Becky Hammon as head coach on a reported seven-figure salary. They've celebrated the franchise's history throughout the last couple of years, showing an awareness many other teams never exhibit. All those below-max extensions showed that their star players wanted to stick around - something which requires more than just winning. But now they've traded someone away who's well-liked around the league and clearly didn't appreciate being moved, or her treatment around that move. That could make it significantly more difficult to get players and agents to trust them in the future.
To return to the actual deal, with all due respect to Amanda Zahui B, Los Angeles got the better player. While the pregnancy may mean they have to wait a little while for her to be back up to full strength, Hamby offers speed and aggression as a combo-forward, grabbing key rebounds and providing sparkplug scoring for the Aces over several recent seasons. Zahui B is bigger, and the slightly better outside shooter over her career, but that's about it. She's never been a particularly reliable WNBA-level big, even if there have been a few of those tantalising moments where you wonder if she's 'clicked'.
So why are LA the ones gaining draft capital along with the player swap? Because Vegas were the more desperate. As always, contract and trade negotiations are about leverage at least as much as they're about actual talent. The Aces had decided Hamby was the player they needed to move, and she likely had a very short list of places she was willing to go (historically, teams are distinctly unwilling to call players' bluffs if they threaten not to show up unless sent to specific destinations). So Vegas had to throw in the first-rounder to get the deal done. They'll be expecting to be good this season, of course, so it could easily be a fairly small drop in draft position - LA's second-rounder may not be many picks below Las Vegas's first - but it's still something meaningful to give up. It's a piece that could've been used in another deal, even if they weren't worried about the player it might ultimately become.
The Aces likely have specific plans for that cap space. Maybe they want to offer Kiah Stokes a fair amount to return, but there are also bigger names available. Having said she intends to play this year, Las Vegas could be the perfect place for Candace Parker to look for another ring to close out her career, for example. They also now have Zahui B's exclusive negotiating rights, which means they're not required to offer her more than her applicable minimum of $74,305, and if she’s willing to show up for that price she'd be reasonable value for depth.
For LA, this makes plenty of sense. They get a good player in Hamby, who could be primed for a revenge season once she's fully back in shape. They move on from Zahui B, who wasn't particularly happy with the Sparks last year when they suspended her (albeit that was a move made by the previous regime). And they have an extra first-round pick to work with. Maybe it's unlikely to be particularly high, but you never know how useful it might be as an extra trade chip.
Dallas/Atlanta
Wings send Allisha Gray to the Dream for the No. 3 pick in the 2023 draft and their first-round pick in 2025
This one's been in the works for quite some time. We first heard around the trade deadline last season that Gray wasn't happy and was looking for a trade, so it was no surprise that the rumours and bidding began again once we hit January. Ultimately what Dallas came away with was a high pick in this year's draft and a gamble that hopefully Atlanta will suck in 2024.
Allisha Gray is a very good player, and a useful addition to Atlanta's core. She plays both ends of the floor, shot 41% from three last season (her fourth straight year shooting over 35% from outside), and doesn't necessarily need the ball in her hands to be effective. She should make a dangerous tandem on the wing with last year's Rookie of the Year Rhyne Howard. However, there are risks. Gray only has one year left on her contract (at $169,600), so there's the potential that they're giving up those picks for a rental. Atlanta are in the process of reshaping the roster around Howard this offseason, so it could take them time to gel, which can lead to a bunch of losses. That wouldn't aid in encouraging Gray to stick around, especially with a player who's apparently expressed a desire to become a free agent. The Dream could core her after this season, but then it becomes a case of whether you want to pay her supermax money (and potentially annoy her if she really wants to experience free agency). Also, while it may feel like 2025 is a long way away, they're betting they'll be pretty good, pretty quickly. By the 2024 season, Gray could be gone, the Dream could still be ordinary, and that 2025 pick could end up high enough for its loss to be painful. Even before you consider that they've given up a top-three choice this year in what's generally considered a draft class with more potential than some recent years.
For Dallas, this is a solid return for a player that wanted out. Gray was a pretty good fit on their roster of ball-hungry players, and won't be easy to replace, but you can easily argue that the Wings got a better return than Connecticut just received for an MVP. While Atlanta looked promising last year under Tanisha Wright and now have a lot of cap space to work with, they finished 2022 at 14-22 and have only had one season above .500 since 2014. It's a decent gamble that the Dream might not be good next year and that 2025 pick could end up being decidedly valuable. As for the pick this year, Dallas have jumped into the range where there are several wings that draftniks like the look of. As I talked about when analyzing the trade where they added Natasha Howard, the Wings may be expecting to use Satou Sabally more as a three this year, which would fill some of Gray's minutes. But if they end up with Maryland's Diamond Miller or Stanford's Haley Jones - the pair many expect to go 2-3 in the draft, in some order - then they'd also be adding another talented wing to help fill the gap. A talented wing who’d be on a cheap contract for the next four years, which is particularly important with the rest of the roster becoming more expensive as their rookie scale deals expire.
The money's important to Dallas even for the next month, never mind the next few years. They took on significant extra salary in the trade for Howard, who's earning close to the max. In this deal, they sent out Gray's $169,600 and brought absolutely nothing back (although you'd ultimately expect the $74,305 for the No. 3 pick to stick on the roster, unless they trade it again). It leaves them with eight players under contract and $498,306 in cap space. Assume the No. 3 makes it and you have $424,001 left for two or even three players to round out the roster. That means - if they had to, and wanted to - they could match max offers to both of their restricted free agents, Marina Mabrey and Teaira McCowan. Of course, they may have other plans. There could be sign-and-trade deals in the works, or free agent targets, but they've left themselves with room to maneuver whatever the plan is. The ideal plan would've been to keep Gray around - and it's concerning how many good players have wanted out of Dallas over the years - but once the move had to be made this is a solid return.
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