{"id":5362,"date":"2025-07-12T23:24:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T23:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/5362\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T23:24:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T23:24:03","slug":"minnesota-lynx-waive-alissa-pili-2024-first-round-draft-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/5362\/","title":{"rendered":"Minnesota Lynx waive Alissa Pili, 2024 first-round draft pick"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"rt-Text\">CHICAGO &#8211; The Lynx waived forward Alissa Pili on Saturday, just ahead of the WNBA\u2019s July 13 cutdown deadline \u2014 the date when nonguaranteed contracts become fully guaranteed for the season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rt-Text\">Pili, the No. 8 overall pick in the 2024 draft out of Utah, signed a three-year deal with the Lynx in April that year. In 15 games this season, she averaged 1.9 points and 1.2 rebounds in 5.9 minutes. <\/p>\n<p class=\"rt-Text\">The timing of Pili\u2019s release is significant. After Sunday, teams can no longer waive players on unprotected contracts without absorbing their full salary. That includes rookie contracts, which don\u2019t become fully guaranteed in the WNBA until a player\u2019s fourth season. <\/p>\n<p class=\"rt-Text\">Meesseman, widely considered the best player in the world not on a WNBA roster, led Belgium to the EuroBasket championship June 29 and was named tournament MVP. She has ties to the Lynx \u2014 including playing with Napheesa Collier and Kayla McBride overseas for powerhouse Fenerbah\u00e7e \u2014 and was coached by Eric Thibault, now an associate head coach in Minnesota.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rt-Text\">The 6-4 Meesseman, a two-time WNBA All-Star and 2019 Finals MVP with Washington, last played in the league in 2022 with the Chicago Sky. Her addition would further strengthen a Lynx team that already leads the WNBA standings heading into the All-Star break.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rt-Text\">\u201cIt would give us an even better chance of winning,\u201d Collier said. \u201cI love playing with Emma. She\u2019s such an elite player. Not only a great player but also a great person.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO &#8211; The Lynx waived forward Alissa Pili on Saturday, just ahead of the WNBA\u2019s July 13 cutdown&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-5362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5362","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=5362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}