Sometimes the WNBA regular season felt like an extended opening act for a finale intended between the The Aces of Las Vegas and the Freedom of New York. Fans – and the league itself – have been eagerly awaiting this series. Ace Guard Kelsey Plum went so far as to call the meeting “inevitable.”
Pairing two major markets in the Finals with so many bankable stars on the court is a huge win for the WNBA, as the Aces lead the series 2-1 heading into Wednesday’s Game 4 in New York. The Aces helped transform Las Vegas into a sports town, drawing huge crowds at home and on the road. THE Freedom also turned their home games into Brooklyn-bound events, revitalizing what was a moribund franchise.
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The buzz around this matchup, while seemingly predetermined, is good for business in 2023, and the birth of the rivalry should be positive in the immediate term. But the consolidation of talent from the Aces and Liberty to this degree poses questions about what player movement in the WNBA might look like in the future, as other teams and players observe the success of the Liberty and Aces .
The easing of restrictions on freedom of agency in the current collective bargaining agreement allows players to choose their destinations. Although four of the starters in that series were drafted by their respective teams, each of them signed subsequent extensions to stay there. Five of the starters (more Candace Parker, Alysha Clark And Stephanie Dolson on the benches) chose to go to Las Vegas and New York as free agents.
It’s clear what attracted players to these locations. Yes, the Aces and Liberty play in big markets, but they also have ownership groups with deep pockets committed to investing in their organizations. Mark Davis built a training center dedicated to Acesand Joe and Clara Wu Tsai assembled the league’s greatest performance teamamong many other amenities that the owners have planned for their teams.
In previous generations, players changed locations to look for winning situations; Sylvia Fowles left Chicago to play with the Dynasty Minnesota Lynxand Tina Charles demanded an exchange with the Mystics when the Liberty were in trouble. Other players asked to move closer to home, like Elena Delle Given leave Chicago for Washington. But now it seems the majority are looking for the highest quality gaming experience.
“I think eventually things will work out in a way that if you’re not on par with New York and Vegas in the way you treat your players, you just won’t have agents free,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said.
Phoenix announced the construction of a specific training center in Mercury last week. Seattle broke ground on the construction of its own facilities earlier this year, while the Sky I was looking for a new place to practice. THE Fever already have their own space and the Lynx, Mystics and Liberty have quality shared facilities, all benefiting from partnerships with NBA teams in their cities.
The player experience arms race extends to the league expansion process. The Bay Area team will be owned by Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, the governors of the Golden State Warriors. They are billionaires who have revolutionized their NBA franchise’s operations, and their WNBA team is already guaranteed a world-class arena and practice facilities. Assuming the league continues to choose ownership groups in a similar tax bracket for expansion teams, players will have more options that fit their preferences in free agency.
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Liberty Guard Courtney Vandersloot explained how new teams’ clean slates could prove attractive to players, similar to the changing of the guard in Las Vegas (Davis bought the team in 2021) and New York (the Tsais bought the Liberty in 2019) has had an impact on these franchises in recent years. years.
“It’s like looking at our shiny new things that we have,” Vandersloot said. “They say the right things, how they want to grow the game and they will commit to spending honestly. This is a great opportunity for them to build from the ground up. We can start right away.
This attitude should scare off teams that aren’t ready to compete. Players have never shied away from exercising their individual agency within the WNBA. They sat down – think about Diana Taurasi taking a full season off at her peak, a year after winning a league title, because her former off-season team in Russia, UMMC Ekaterinburg, paid her to – and drew up trade demands before the free agency is a real option. Player empowerment may be a recent topic in the NBA, but women have been on this path for a long time; the way they’ve used that power recently suggests that parity will be harder than ever to maintain in the WNBA.
Based on the offseasons the Aces and Liberty just had, the league will likely need to expand into larger markets and have more committed owners in those markets, in order to counter talent consolidation. The competitive balance measures put in place by the league had no effect on the constitution of these two super-teams. Players received discounts for signing or extending contracts in Las Vegas or New York, knowing that post-season bonuses (or the Commissioner’s Cup payout) as well as more endorsements would supplement that income. Jonquel Jones said she made more money off the field in one season with the Liberty than in seven years at Connecticut.
Maybe players made these sacrifices to accommodate generational talents like A’ja Wilson And Breanna Stewartbut keep an eye on Indiana and Atlanta in the coming offseasons to see if Aliyah Boston and Rhyne Howard are enough to attract free agents to non-glamorous markets.
Salary changes in the 2020 collective bargaining agreement are expected to make maintaining a superteam difficult. For example, the 2010s Lynx could pay each of their Hall of Fame starters a maximum contract, but that is impossible under the current CBA. However, watching members of the Aces’ core four repeatedly sign below-market extensions reveals that the highest possible salary alone is not what players want.
Betnijah Laney reportedly commanded a salary cap in free agency, but returned to New York. Kayla Thornton would have been heavily recruited and played a bigger role on a different team, but she instead stayed with the Liberty. Time and time again, when big players show up in Las Vegas and New York, they choose to stay.
Perhaps the 2023 offseason is an inflection point for the WNBA, a signal to the rest of the league that it needs to step up to meet the challenge posed by these two marquee franchises. Or it could be an incident like the 2019 NBA offseason, when players flocked to big markets (like Paul George and Kawhi Leonard to Los Angeles and Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving to New York) and discovered that playing in a big city didn’t address all of their concerns.
Regardless of how the rest of the WNBA interprets this moment, this likely isn’t the last time the Aces and Liberty meet on the game’s biggest stage. The league has yet to figure out how to deter the superteams, unless they spread the talent pool through expansion, meaning other WNBA teams will have to evaluate their practices — or even sell — to reverse this trend.
“You want to have ownership groups that want to be here and invest and help this league grow and be better than it’s ever been,” Alysha Clark said. “And those who don’t want to do that, I hope this helps weed them out.”
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(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / Athleticism; Photos of Jonquel Jones, left, and Breanna Stewart: Mike Lawrence/NBAE via Getty Images)
