WNBA: GMs in Trouble Due to CBA, Draft, and Free Agency at the Limit

The WNBA Prepares for a Historic Season Amid Uncertainty

As the WNBA and the Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) continue their negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, the league is preparing for a historic offseason. This promises to bring the first million-dollar salaries, among other significant changes. However, this period has also generated great uncertainty for everyone involved, from team owners to players.

General managers, in particular, find themselves in a state of limbo as they prepare for a two-team expansion draft, free agency, and the college draft, all before the start of the season on May 8. They are evaluating college and international talent, thinking about the 2026 rosters, and making the necessary infrastructure moves for their franchises. In a normal year, WNBA general managers would have already finalized free agency and would be planning draft scenarios with a clear idea of what their teams would look like for the upcoming season. However, everything related to personnel is now more theoretical than real. General managers hope that an agreement will be reached soon and know that, once this happens, they will need to be prepared to make decisions immediately.

This applies to everything. You do everything you can, you create as many different scenarios as possible. So, when we’re ready to start, you’ll be in a good position to move very fast.

A WNBA general manager

Last month, the WNBA informed the WNBPA that a new collective bargaining agreement should be agreed upon before March 10 to avoid any delays in the 2026 schedule.

I wasn’t surprised they set a date. I will say I was surprised [that] it was the first time they used the deadline as a negotiating tactic. What? They’re doing this at the end of February? We’ve been reverse-engineering internally and we thought [the date] would be much earlier. Like 10 days to a week earlier, around the NBA All-Star. We thought there’s no way we could fit everything into this deadline.

A WNBA general manager

The university draft is scheduled for April 13, and training camp should begin on April 19, 19 days before the season is due to start. The expansion draft has not yet been scheduled and is expected to present different rules than the Golden State expansion draft of last year, when each team could protect six players.

Whatever we have to do to get to a season, I’ll say, ‘Hey, let’s do it.’ Even if nobody sleeps for a month.

A WNBA general manager

The pressure will fall on the general managers to act fast when the time comes. This is how they have been preparing.

Preparations for the Expansion Draft

How have they prepared for the Portland and Toronto expansion draft?General Manager: “Actually, that’s one of the few things where you can get to 80% or 90% [completed] and then you just have to close the circle once we get the final rules. We have all the information about all our own players, who is healthy, who may have had a good year, things like that. It’s just that, once we get the rules, we have to make a final decision.”

Whatever we have to do to get to a season, I’ll say, ‘Hey, let’s do it.’ Even if nobody sleeps for a month.

A WNBA general manager

General Manager: “We have understood that we will not be able to protect six. Most likely the rule will be five. You simply run a series of scenarios to try to be as prepared as possible… trying to project to other teams and what their situation will be, who will be available or who will not. So a lot of this is preparing even more, because we can’t say: ‘OK, these are our parameters. We only need to worry about this’. It’s like, ‘More or less we know, maybe’. It’s unlimited, the amount of possibilities you can execute. And then you also think, as best you can, while you’re estimating, what the free agent rule will be, because I think that will be a really important indicator of how the expansion draft will go.”General Manager: “We’ve moved away from [thinking about] the expansion draft… it doesn’t make sense for anyone to go through more draft simulations if everything is a question mark.”

The Impact of the Salary Cap

The salary cap has not been set; how has it complicated free agency planning?General Manager: “A lot is still the same. We all know which players are in for a contract, which players are not. The two most important nuances are that we still don’t know the exact rules around central designation and, obviously, we don’t know the exact rules about all the players’ contracts and all the salary cap regulations. What is the team’s overall salary cap? What is the maximum salary, what is the minimum? With the players’ preference, stylistically, of who you are looking for, you can get a good idea. But we still need those final details to feel really confident in this role.

So you can say: ‘I know all the numbers, I know all the rules, these are the different scenarios we are going to go with.’ At the end of the day, the CBO is what makes all this move. Those are the rules of the game. We can all do what we want, but without the rules, it’s difficult to overcome a certain level”.

General Manager: “Right now, it’s all about ideal scenarios and worst-case scenarios and, hopefully, we’ll meet somewhere in the middle. The numbers being thrown around for the salary cap, we can play with them and project where the players will fall. But nothing is written in stone, so we just have to be agile.”General Manager: “Ultimately, a cap is a cap, no matter what the number is. So what you do is think in terms of percentages: ‘We can probably give this percentage to this player.’ Then you feel like you’re prepared to have conversations when you’re finally allowed to do so.”General Manager: “Especially with so many free agents, and if the unrestricted free agent rule remains the same, or if it changes, that could dictate who you could potentially lose on your roster. You have to at least take a look to try to get what your odds are… about which [players] might be of interest to an expansion team. That’s a big part of this. It’s hard to know what your situation is, because it doesn’t just totally depend on you. It depends on who else those expansion teams might select.” Obviously, we are super familiar with the players who are in our league, but also in other leagues abroad, and the type of free agents you want, the type of players. So a lot of this is just trying to feel and watch a lot of film. That’s where we really spend a lot of time, like in the scouting space, because that’s all we can really do. We’ve had a longer runway to be able to see. You know you’re going to be able to sign people. We more or less put them in tiers. Here’s Tier 1 that we want to sign, and if not, here’s Tier 2, here’s Tier 3.” Almost every team has some kind of analytics department that has different ways of approaching it or different formats they use to evaluate players. So, obviously, you use that when you’re trying to be a little more specific.”

Do you think there will be less potential free agency movement due to the lateness of this free agency period, whenever it happens?General Manager: “The agents are pointing in that direction. The players could be looking for a safer one-year contract with a team they know. I think if the maximum goes up to $1 million, there will be movement. Who will turn down a maximum salary?”General Manager: “Right now, I’m just talking to the agents and sharing our vision… just asking them to give us a seat at the table.”

We have a countdown in our office, which is getting more and more terrifying to see. It’s the countdown to training camp, to the first preseason game, and the first regular season game. It’s getting closer and it’s getting very real.

A WNBA general manager

General Manager: “If this wasn’t a CBO year, if this was a normal free agency cadence that we did in January and February, I think you’d see more player movement than we’re going to see given the delay and a shorter timeframe. Similarly, if there wasn’t a new CBO for 2026, then I don’t think as many players would be free agents now. Their contracts wouldn’t have been structured to end in 2025. So in a way, they go together. But I think that, all things considered, we’ll probably see less player movement than everyone expected 18 months ago.”General Manager: “When we get to free agency, most of the players won’t be playing anymore, right? Unrivaled will be over. [Athletes Unlimited] will be over. There will be some players playing overseas, but most won’t be there anymore. Are we going to do, like, college home visits? What will that look like in free agency? I think it could generate less movement, and I’m interested in seeing how that affects the length of the contract and what people want to do. Because I feel like they’ll probably want longer contracts than we’ve seen in quite a while, with the least amount of time to make a decision.”How much has your workflow changed compared to what it would normally have been?General Manager: “We’re trying to do things in reverse order. Usually, we get to free agency first, then we really dig into finalizing any personnel additions, and then we really focus on the draft. This offseason, we’re first trying to finalize anything organizational, whether it’s personnel, infrastructure, or things like that, as well as preparing for the draft. Hopefully, we’ll do all that so that when free agency arrives, we can focus solely on that.”General Manager: “It’s not that different, apart from the fact that, obviously, we would be in contact with the players and signing contracts by now. It’s just been more time to watch films, look at analysis, and have discussions about the squad compositions.”General Manager: “Many meetings with coaches… let’s just say we’re making the most of the time we have on our hands right now without players. We have a countdown in our office, which is becoming increasingly terrifying to see. It’s the countdown to training camp, to the first preseason game, and the first regular season game. It’s getting closer and it’s becoming very real.”