Sandy Brondello… When I catch your ass!!!!!!!!

This is the second expansion draft in a row where a former Liberty assistant GM and now former head coach gets to pick players from our team. Sandy did not just SNATCH Nyara from us, she picked from us TWICE. She also took Adja Kone, our 2025 draft pick. She basically said she’s leaving here with something. At this point, Sandy is deadass holding Nyara hostage.

All jokes aside….. will we finally see Nyara reach her potential, especially in an expanded role? A lot more room for her to make mistakes on this roster and in this situation.

Overall, the roster isn’t bad. Great big rotation with Nyara, Maria Kliundikova aka Big Russia from the Lynx, and Maria Conde, a Spanish player. Marina can work really well with bigs.

People were surprised Marina was left unprotected, but honestly, she told Connecticut every which way that she wanted to be traded. It’s not surprising that CT would choose to protect one of their guaranteed assets rather than gamble on Marina. Plus, Toronto can pay her a lot more. They do need to give her some offensive support, though—I’d hate to see her in a situation where she has to carry the entire offense again and still lose.

The Aces got some slack for letting Aaliyah Nye go. Which makes me wonder… who did they protect? Jewell? Kiah? Dana? Meg? Normally, I’d criticize them for letting another promising rookie get taken in an expansion draft, but how can you really argue with three championships in four years? Their strategy seems to be working. But the age and expensive contracts will catch up to them.

I’m interested to see what their free agency moves will be because they have a pretty solid roster, especially with Julie Allemand at point guard. Personally, I think every expansion team should tank for the 2027 and 2028 drafts, but Sandy? She’s too used to winning…

In a hilarious turn of events, with the first pick, Portland stole hometown kid Bridget Carlton and snatched a Toronto homecoming right out from under her.

Their expansion draft roster is actually pretty solid, especially when it comes to young talent. I am extremely surprised that Carla Leite was left unprotected by the Valkyries. Maybe they were saving Kaitlyn Chen or Zandaelnsi.

Dallas’s willingness to let go of Luisa Geiselsoder signals to me that they are either drafting Awa Fam or bringing Awak Kuier back. Although Awak just broke her jaw playing overseas, so that might complicate things.

The Seattle Storm announced this week that Nika Mühl will miss another season due to another ACL tear. Surprisingly, Portland still picked her up. Their Slovenian GM said, “Nika was a personal pick for us. Both Ashlee and I know her since she was very young. I have watched her grow on court since she was 14. That is why we are so convinced we can bring her back to life and play professionally because she deserves it.”

Cute to see the humanity here.

This team is going to suck. But that’s ok! Tank for Juju!

Free Agency Starts Today!!

As of this writing, the CBA hasn’t been signed yet, but “the league and union have made enough progress that they feel comfortable opening the free agency period.”

Let the chaos begin.

Qualifying offers are, simply put, one-year contracts that a team must extend to a player in order to retain certain rights over her free agency, specifically the exclusive right to negotiate.

Cores are a fully guaranteed, one-year contract with a base salary equal to the supermax.

Coring has traditionally been used by teams to retain top players who are set to become free agents. It effectively forces other teams to acquire that player through a trade rather than free agency.

A major difference this year is that you cannot sign and trade a supermax contract

FOR EXAMPLE: Jewell Loyd, Alyssa Thomas, and Kelsey Plum were cored by their teams and traded and paid the supermax by the team they were traded to. Teams can no longer do this. So a team that cores will most likely be paying the player a supermax unless negotiated lower.

Under the new CBA, coring will be limited to players with six years or fewer of WNBA service starting in the 2027 season. This is a significant win for players, as it allows them to take control of their careers and movement earlier.

Core Predictions

During this period, free agents can meet with teams and begin formal negotiations, but they cannot sign a contract.

There are currently over 100 free agents in the league, with most teams having very few players signed lol.

I think we will be seeing a mix of players taking short-term deals with the teams they played with last season (or new teams) due to the compressed timeline. The more complex long-term deals are better handled over a longer off-season.

On the other hand, there is a lot of money to go around, so we will still definitely see some movement. We may even see some big names move for that bag.

My lukewarm to hot free agency predictions:

Angel Reese to the Dream: Shout out to Taylor Rooks for breaking the news!

The Chicago Sky is the worst-run organization in the entire UNIVERSE. They traded ANGEL REESE for two first-round draft picks that won’t mean shit because THE DREAM ARE FUCKING GOOD. WOW

The Sky are even hosting the damn All-Star Game this way LOLOLOL. Why did they torpedo their own bottom line like this? They are laundering money 100%. They just torched their own ticket sales and for what? And who is going to want to go to Chicago as a free agent?

For Atlanta, I think this is a big sign that they will be moving on from Bri Jones and/or BG. It’s not hard to fleece the Sky, however, it is impressive that they kept Rhyne Howard, their young talent, and only gave up 2 first-round picks. That is less than what the Sky got for Ariel Atkins. Again, WOW. HOW DON’T YOU GET NAZ OR PAOPAO???

Some Stars like A’ja, Stewie, Sabrina, JJ, and Aliyah Boston have confirmed they will be returning to their teams.

This is when teams can begin signing players. There are important updates in the new CBA that GMs need to consider as they start contacting players.

CBA updates that will make it harder to navigate FA:

Things that will make it Easier

Expect to see big players leave stacked teams, players walk from teams with rookies about to hit a big payday, and solid mid-tier players refuse to take discounts just because their team signed a supermax or max player.

If you want to follow along on player movements, you can use Across The Timeline. They report all the transactions as they happen.

Also, the WNBA Transaction site

💰 Team Cap Sheets – HerHoopStats
The Team Cap Sheets on HerHoopStats are fun to look through. They’ve updated the salaries, so you can see exactly what wiggle room teams have to work with.

Random Highlights:

🗓 Monday, April 13
⏰ 7:00 PM ET
📺 ESPN

The Dallas Wings hold the #1 pick, followed by the Minnesota Lynx and Seattle Storm.

Toronto chose to be the 6th pick, so Portland will be the 7th.

I think the top three picks will come from Azzi Fudd, Lauren Betts, and Awa Fam (in no particular order)

Please, please do NOT let the Lynx get Lauren Betts. The missing piece to Phee’s championship run has always been a solid big, and that would be a problem for the rest of the league.

Awa Fam is a young Spanish hooper generating serious buzz right now.

Azzi Fudd is an automatic shooter who could grow into a legit number two option, especially if she’s paired with Paige in Dallas.

A potential sleeper top three pick is Olivia Miles. Seattle needs a point guard, and if they can get Skylar to stay and mentor her, I’m taking that in a second, especially next to Dominique Malonga.

I’ll attach some mock drafts because I don’t watch enough college ball to give a fully accurate assessment.

Check out some of the cool podcasts, videos, reads, and fashion I saw this week.