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Credit: Chris Poss

This is the first WNBA offseason where front offices had to balance free agency and the draft at the same time. Throw in the expansion draft, and the condensed offseason has been a lot for general managers.

Some of that manifested in the Golden State Valkyries’ post-draft press conference, where GM Ohemaa Nyanin said she was tired following the controversial trade that sent Flau’jae Johnson to Seattle in exchange for Marta Suarez and a 2028 second-round pick.

“I don’t have a lot of details to share,” she said after the trade. “One, because I’m exhausted. Two, because I want to be very thoughtful when I’m talking about other humans and their basketball abilities and how they would or would not show up for our squad.”

She was far from the only one to talk about the challenges of the past week. Los Angeles Sparks general manager Raegan Pebley also hit on the struggle of the compressed schedule.

”It’s been just a wild last few weeks, definitely with the new CBA and the expansion drafts, and I know you guys are all definitely tracking with it all as well,” Pebley said. “… Just the unknown of this offseason, of like when a CBA was going to get done, and obviously everyone wanted it done right and not rushed, so that there weren’t mistakes made along the way. But you know, you would just kind of sit around and wonder, like ‘is today the day we’re going to hear that a handshake deal was done?’, and you know what our job and task was just to continue to be prepared at any given point.”

“It’s been chaos, we hope it never happens again,” added Sparks head coach Lynne Roberts.

Nyanin went on to explain to ESPN that the trade was agreed to before the picks were made, and I reported earlier in the week that teams could not trade picks after 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, meaning they had to make the pick before trading the rights to it to Seattle, and vice versa.

But in the exhaustion of the past few weeks, getting an explanation was far more difficult than usual.

This has been a bizarre offseason. The collective bargaining agreement wasn’t in place until March 24, and no one could begin making transactions until April 6. Since then, it’s been fast and furious.

“GM groups around the league are very close,” said Dallas Wings general manager Curt Miller. “As much as we are competitive, we’re very close. And what we just went through, all of us, is insane. I think I’m up to nine or 10 pounds that I’ve lost. We haven’t slept much here, probably averaging 80 to 100 phone calls a day…This process has been something that none of us around the league have ever been through, and what was asked of us, for all of us around the league, to get through it, is truly remarkable.”

Add in training camp beginning this upcoming weekend, and no one is exactly getting a break anytime soon.

“I think the rest of my colleagues in the WNBA feel exactly the way that I feel as well,” Nyanin said. “So I’m not going to complain. I think all of us had our different strategies and kind of coping to be able to get through today more specifically, and then there’s, you know, training camp that starts on Sunday, so there’s going to be a lot of movement, I would suspect, between now and opening night, which is on May 8.

“I think my energy levels, you know, generally, I’m smiling and, like, super excited about everything. And for those who’ve seen me in person or have been around, just to know that, like, it’s taken a toll. So I’m very careful to say kind of like anything about, one, personally, how I’m doing, and two, about any of the athletes that have joined our team.”

Of course, the Sparks did address their picks and trades, including sending Rickea Jackson to Chicago with a level of candidness, but they also didn’t have the overwhelming pushback Golden State had after trading Johnson.

But this is an offseason like no other in league history and might never happen again. And those making all the moves we’re seeing now are quite glad.

“I was home when the CBA dropped, and was really happy to get rolling, especially as the date was going on and on,” Pebley said. “And we knew training camp was getting ready to start, and that calendar was getting more and more compressed, but really happy for the league and for the players on how everything landed. But yeah, I mean, it was just an off-season of constant work and continuing to crunch numbers and play with different rosters and just come up with all different types of scenario planning.

“It was just, you wish there were more hours in the day to be able to get it all done and make conversations sometimes a little bit longer.”

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