{"id":19246,"date":"2025-07-18T15:32:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T15:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/19246\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T15:32:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T15:32:10","slug":"gabby-williams-weighs-in-on-wnbas-cba-negotiations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/19246\/","title":{"rendered":"Gabby Williams weighs in on WNBA’s CBA negotiations"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the top of the list are the ongoing CBA negotiations<\/a> with the WNBA. Williams didn\u2019t mince words when making her position clear: the W doesn\u2019t want players in Unrivaled, AU Pro Basketball or playing overseas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese leagues pay us more,\u201d Williams told The Next. \u201cThat\u2019s obviously why they don\u2019t want to stay in these leagues.\u201d<\/p>\n

On top of that, she continued, the WNBA is trying to play hard ball. \u201cYou can see that the league is trying to push the season [by adding games] \u2014 I think it\u2019s on purpose to counteract with these other leagues as well as prioritization.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Williams, who is also a member of the French National Team and who is in her first season in the W since 2022, is comfortably an outspoken critic of the WNBA\u2019s prioritization rule<\/a>, which requires players to place the most career emphasis on the WNBA\u2019s schedule. That rule is why Julie Vanloo<\/a> was on a flight so soon after Belgium won this year\u2019s EuroBasket tournament, and it\u2019s also why Williams has opted to play in Turkey the last few years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very clear they want to remove all these other leagues,\u201d Williams also said, specifically referring to Unrivaled, the professional 3\u00d73 league spearheaded by Napheesa Collier<\/a> and Breanna Stewart<\/a>. Unrivaled hosted its inaugural season in Miami this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe not remove them,\u201d Williams clarified, \u201cbut keep us far from them without paying us more than these leagues pay us \u2026 I just think there\u2019s a little bit of delusion in the W.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overseas basketball provides more opportunities than ever before<\/p>\n

Playing overseas has long afforded WNBA athletes the opportunity to expand their own seasons and make money while doing so. The relationship between WNBA athletes and overseas teams is symbiotic, and basketball in France and Australia in particular has grown in recent years \u2014 and to Williams\u2019 point, that\u2019s a reality that might end up keeping more athletes from those countries at home, especially if the WNBA can\u2019t (or won\u2019t) meet salaries they can earn elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just amazing and beautiful to see how [basketball] is growing in France,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI think having the Paris Olympics helped a lot \u2026 it showed us that it could really be a powerhouse [hub] for the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

France has enjoyed enormous success in recent NBA and WNBA drafts. Victor Wembanyama<\/a> electrified the NBA stratosphere when he was selected as the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA\u2019s 2024 Draft, and Dominique Malonga<\/a> did the same for the WNBA when she was chosen as the No. 2 overall pick this year.<\/p>\n

\"Locked<\/a><\/p>\n

Tune in to Locked On Women\u2019s Basketball<\/p>\n

Here at The Next, in addition to the 24\/7\/365 written content our staff provides, we also host the daily Locked On Women\u2019s Basketball<\/a> podcast. Join us Monday through Saturday each week as we discuss all things WNBA, collegiate basketball, basketball history and much more. Listen wherever you find podcasts or watch on YouTube.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the top of the list are the ongoing CBA negotiations with the WNBA. Williams didn\u2019t mince words…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[17782,12548,4389,4676,99,434],"class_list":["post-19246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-2025-all-star-game","tag-cba","tag-gabby-williams","tag-seattle-storm","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}