Current Events > WNBA under fire as top draft picks and 2020 ROTY are cut before season starts

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https://www.startribune.com/wnba-players-and-coaches-voice-issues-with-hard-salary-cap-expansion-as-talented-players-across-lea/600170572/

The past few days have been filled with talented players highly drafted rookies and veterans alike getting cut from rosters across the WNBA, sparking debate about team salary caps, expansion and more opportunities for development. The Minnesota Lynx sent shockwaves through the league on Tuesday when they waived six players, including 2020 Rookie of the Year and former UConn womens basketball star Crystal Dangerfield, veteran guard Layshia Clarendon and both of their recent draft picks, Kayla Jones (22nd overall) and Hannah Sjerven (28th overall). Former UConn Star Evina Westbrook (21st overall) was waived by the Seattle Storm on Wednesday, and the team waived their top draft pick Elissa Cunane (17th overall) earlier in the week. The Las Vegas Aces cut draft picks Mya Hollingshed (eighth overall) and Khayla Pointer (13th overall) as well. The Connecticut Sun parted ways with Kaila Charles, who had been a solid rotation player for the franchise over the last two seasons. TeA Cooper being cut by the Sparks was another surprising move, as she averaged 9.1 points per game in 2021. And those are just a few examples. This was always a difficult league to make, with just 144 women across 12 teams. Now it is even more of an uphill climb to make a roster, with the number of total players in the 130-range as many teams elect to carry less than 12 players to fit under the team salary cap, which is a hard cap that franchises cant go over, unlike many other sports leagues. The WNBA increased player salaries in accordance with the most recent collective bargaining agreement (CBA), signed in 2020 and set to last eight years, bringing the supermax individual salary from $117,500 in 2019 to $215,000 in 2020, and the minimum for rookies up from $41,965 to $57,000. The team salary cap went from $996,100 in 2019 to $1.3 million in 2020. Fast forward to 2022 and the highest-paid players in the league Breanna Stewart, Diana Taurasi and Jewell Lloyd make $228,094, the minimum is up to $60,471 and many teams have multiple players with salaries in six figures. The maximum salary increased by 94.1% from 2019 to 2022, but the hard cap has only increased by 38.5% to $1,379,200 during that span, which has been creating issues for teams as they construct their rosters for this season.

Connecticut Sun general manager and head coach Curt Miller told The Hartford Courant on Tuesday that the hard cap had a direct impact on his decision to waive Charles, who would have made a salary of $67,042. Miller has six players Jonquel Jones, Brionna Jones, Alyssa Thomas, DeWanna Bonner, Jasmine Thomas and Courtney Williams on guaranteed contracts totaling $1,051,900. He only planned to keep 11 players on the Sun roster, so that left him with just $327,300 to spend on five players. The underrated part is the hard salary cap, Miller said. And after your six guaranteed contracts, theres a ton of different combinations of how those other five fit the puzzle pieces of your salary cap. And there were combinations that didnt allow you to keep everybody, there were combinations that included Kaila [Charles] that then would prohibit you from keeping other people. And so you had to play into fact all those combinations that either work together or didnt work together. And so what the general public forgets at times, its not always about the best 11 players, its the best 11 players that fit under your salary cap. And that is two different statements. The best 11 players arent always the best 11 that fit under the salary cap. So you have to make tough decisions to fit under a league that has a hard salary cap. Chiney Ogwumike, who serves as vice president of the Womens National Basketball Players Association, also took notice of all of the talented players being cut and had a suggestion on how to fix the issue. [The WNBA] could benefit from like a G League, right, like a developmental league, Ogwumike said. I was just looking at some of the names that have been cut like high draft picks. In no circumstance should we have a league where top draft picks arent on a roster.

It sucks, but the WNBA doesnt generate enough money to be successful.

ViewtifulGrave posted...

It sucks, but the WNBA doesnt generate enough money to be successful.

Problem doesn't seem to be the league not generating enough money, since it gets subsidized by the NBA, the problem seems to be the hard salary cap hasn't adjusted to the players rising salaries.

Max salaries increased 94% in 3 seasons, but the cap was only raised 38.5% in the same amount of time.

Holy walls of text Batman.

oooo! Two WNBA threads at once.
Maybe it really is finally getting attention.

bigblu89 posted...

Max salaries increased 94% in 3 seasons, but the cap was only raised 38.5% in the same amount of time.

The NBA can only be expected to subsidize WNBA so much, before deciding it's just not worth it.
The better idea is to reduce the league to the six most solvent teams, and keep things sustainable as possible like hockey did for twenty-some years.

Yeah I don't know how you fuck up the connection between max salary and a hard salary cap that much.

Not even the NHL could pull that off.

ViewtifulGrave posted...

It sucks, but the WNBA doesnt generate enough money to be successful.

The WNBA exists to get women into basketball and thus the NBA and allow the NBA to break into ~50% of the population. On that front, I believe it is successful considering the NBA keeps it around. It's a very long investment, as people who play sports as kids tend to gravitate towards them as adult fans.

Problem doesn't seem to be the league not generating enough money, since it gets subsidized by the NBA, the problem seems to be the hard salary cap hasn't adjusted to the players rising salaries.

Max salaries increased 94% in 3 seasons, but the cap was only raised 38.5% in the same amount of time.

Basically this. Either the salaries shouldn't be rising, or the cap needs to rise.

It is only going to get worse with the prioritization next year. The WNBA is going to start suspending players if they try playing overseas and are late to training camp. All their stars could just say fuck it and stay overseas where they are getting paid way more anyway.