{"id":421496,"date":"2026-08-02T06:56:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T06:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/421496\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T06:56:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T06:56:39","slug":"sources-sparks-deal-all-star-guard-plum-to-mercury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/421496\/","title":{"rendered":"Sources: Sparks deal All-Star guard Plum to Mercury"},"content":{"rendered":"

ByShams Charania and Kendra Andrews \"ESPN<\/p>\n

Sunday, August 2, 2026 6:37AM<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Sparks<\/a> are trading five-time All-Star Kelsey Plum<\/a> to the Phoenix Mercury<\/a> for Monique Akoa Makani<\/a>, a 2027 first-round pick and a 2028 second-rounder, sources told ESPN.<\/p>\n

The sides completed a major deal late Saturday night for the WNBA’s top trade target ahead of Sunday afternoon’s deadline.<\/p>\n

Plum, a two-time WNBA champion, has been out since June 21 because of a lower left leg injury. She told reporters Thursday that she intended to play in the Sparks’ next game on the road against the Portland Fire.<\/p>\n

The Sparks (10-17) are mired in a six-game losing streak and have gone 2-9 in this stretch without Plum, who also missed time earlier in the season because of an ankle injury.<\/p>\n

Plum, who led the league in scoring earlier this season, is averaging 23.9 points and 6.4 assists per game — both career-highs — in 12 appearances.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ByShams Charania and Kendra Andrews Sunday, August 2, 2026 6:37AM The Los Angeles Sparks are trading five-time All-Star…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[168346,750,48,52,51,47,50,49,115424,100,127830,135669,53199],"class_list":["post-421496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-168346","tag-espn","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-sparks","tag-news","tag-phoenix-mercury","tag-plum-kelsey","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}