Paige Bueckers, a household name in women’s hoops and the top pick in last year’s WNBA draft, made just under $80,000 playing professional basketball in 2025.
And she was the highest paid rookie on the Dallas Wings roster, according to the Her Hoop Stats WNBA Salary Cap Database.
Fellow 2025 draft picks Aziaha James and JJ Quinerly had earnings of $72,455 and $66,079, respectively. The team’s highest paid player, All-Star Arike Ogunbowale, brought in $249,032. Hardship players made as little as $833.
Dallas didn’t exactly have much to work with under the old salary cap of about $1.5 million — a figure close to the minimum salary alone for a NBA rookie.
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That won’t be the case in 2026, which will mark a new dawn for the WNBA.
After months of negotiations and deadline extensions, the league and its players union came to terms March 18 on a landmark collective bargaining agreement that is expected to increase player salaries and create million dollar athletes for the first time in the WNBA’s 30-year history.
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The salary cap will increase to $7 million in 2026, up from $1.5 million in 2025. The year-one maximum will rise to $1.4 million, and the minimum will increase up to $300,000, with average salaries exceeding $583,000.
A new rookie contract scale has significantly increased salaries for top draft picks. The No. 1 overall pick in 2026, which the Wings will secure, is projected to earn $500,000.
Under the new agreement, players on rookie deals can fast track their way to maximum-level contracts if they earn MVP or All-WNBA First or Second Team honors.
Bueckers, who in 2025 earned $78,831 and signed a four-year rookie contract worth about $348,000, could be one of the league’s young stars to secure a maximum-level deal. She earned WNBA Rookie of the Year honors in 2025 and picked up All-WNBA Second Team honors.
But details of what Bueckers or her Wings teammates will exactly make in 2026 under the new CBA has yet to be determined. More than 100 players are free agents in 2026 — including Dallas’ Ogunbowale, Myisha Hines-Allen and Tyasha Harris — and the WNBA will add two more teams that will build rosters through an expansion draft.
Rules for the 2026 expansion draft, scheduled for April 6, have not been set. For the 2024 expansion draft, each WNBA team could protect six players as long as they had the rights to their contracts.
Wings players under contract include Bueckers, James, Quinerly and forwards Diamond Miller and Maddy Siegrist. The team has reserved the rights to centers Luisa Geiselsöder and Li Yueru, as well as guard Grace Berger and guard-forward Haley Jones.
Dallas also has the rights to forward Awak Kuier, who has sat out of WNBA competition since after the 2023 season, and Lou Lopez Sénéchal, who elected to sit out 2025.
Free agency will begin April 7, when teams can make qualifying offers to restricted, reserved or core-eligible players. The negotiation period starts April 9. Players can sign deals on April 12, the day before the WNBA collegiate draft.
The Wings have the No. 1 pick for the second straight year and will continue to build during a historic season for the league.
WNBA players unanimously approve a new 7-year collective bargaining agreement
The “transformational” agreement ushers in a new era of the WNBA.
WNBA, players union reach agreement in principle on transformational new CBA
The deal is expected to greatly increase player salaries with million dollar players.