SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Is one week into the WNBA season too early to be thinking about next year\u2019s free agency period?<\/p>\n
Of course not.<\/p>\n
This past offseason didn\u2019t result in the dramatic reshuffling many had anticipated, despite 80% of the league being free agents. Certainly, some marquee moves happened \u2014 All-Stars Satou Sabally signed with the Liberty and Gabby Williams landed with the Valkyries. But many of the league\u2019s biggest names stayed put, with the Liberty, Aces, and Dream all locking their stars into multi-year deals.<\/p>\n
Still, it\u2019s notable that some of the biggest fish in the sea signed short-term deals. The Lynx\u2019s Napheesa Collier, the Fever\u2019s Kelsey Mitchell, the Sparks\u2019 Kelsey Plum, and the Aces\u2019 Jackie Young will all be back on the market after this season.<\/p>\n
Who wins those superstars in 2027? And will the league see a fundamental shift in how players make those decisions?<\/p>\n
Players have always weighed a range of factors \u2014 personal and professional \u2014 when choosing where to sign. But during the WNBA\u2019s recent era of player empowerment, one pattern emerged: Top players gravitated toward organizations investing in better resources, such as practice facilities, medical and performance staffs, and charter travel.<\/p>\n
The Liberty, Aces, Mercury, Storm, and Lynx raced ahead on many of those fronts. Now, the new collective bargaining agreement could be the great equalizer. By securing minimum resource standards that apply across the entire league, the players union forced the stragglers into action.<\/p>\n
Now, every team must have a dedicated practice facility by 2028 \u2014 and several new ones are underway<\/a>. The Sky<\/a> and Portland Fire are both opening new facilities in 2026, with the Sky maintaining a \u201clate spring\/early summer\u201d timeline and the Fire set to move in \u201cmidway through the season,\u201d according to a source. The Wings, Liberty, Fever, Sparks, and Tempo have also announced new facilities at various stages of planning and development.<\/p>\n Staffing upgrades are also mandatory. Each franchise is now required to employ multiple athletic trainers, a strength and conditioning coach, a physical therapist, a massage therapist, and a director of sports medicine, while providing access to a nutritionist. Under the previous CBA, only an athletic trainer and a team physician were required.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are all things that we\u2019ve needed in order to thrive,\u201d veteran point guard Natasha Cloud told the Sun-Times. \u201cEvery other professional league with male counterparts has had that.\u201d<\/p>\n Players say that health, performance, and equality with men\u2019s leagues all motivated the new policy. Sky center Elizabeth Williams said another core goal was freeing players to consider other factors in free agency.<\/p>\n “[With minimum standards], players feel like they\u2019re not just choosing because this place has a facility or this place has the staff that is adequate for them,\u201d Williams told the Sun-Times. \u201cThey\u2019re choosing because it\u2019s where they feel like they can grow as a player. A system that works for them as opposed to just a place that has what they need.\u201d<\/p>\n Williams has advocated for league-wide change in her role as players union secretary, but also within the Sky organization. Since joining the team in 2023, she has lobbied principal owner Michael Alter for expanded staffing and upgraded infrastructure. Many of those improvements are finally coming to fruition \u2014 upgrades which she believes would have come with or without the new CBA as a mandate.<\/p>\n However, if the Sky wanted their new facility and staff to be a competitive advantage, they should\u2019ve made those investments several years ago.<\/p>\n Players predict their impact in free agency will fade.<\/p>\n \u201cNow that every team\u2019s gonna have one soon, we\u2019re not gonna be like, \u2018I wanna go somewhere that has a facility,\u2019\u201d Rachel Banham told the Sun-Times. \u201cThat\u2019s not going to be a conversation at all. Now it\u2019s: Who\u2019s really good? Who\u2019s gonna win a championship? It\u2019s going to be about basketball rather than other things.\u201d<\/p>\n Cloud also expects the minimum standard to shift players\u2019 mindsets toward more basketball-related issues.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t have to be like, \u2018Do I have resources for my body? Do I have resources for my mind?\u2019\u201d Cloud said. \u201cSo now you get to worry about: How does the team play? Am I going to get along with the personalities? How is this organization as a whole?\u201d<\/p>\n That said, players will always weigh the quality and reputation of team ownership, and the fact the Sky took so long, and required so much pressure to modernize, will likely linger in the league\u2019s collective memory.<\/p>\n But the Sky\u2019s ability to land their free agent targets this past offseason \u2014 including Cloud, who has been a vocal critic of ownership groups less willing to invest \u2014 indicates that the franchise and league-wide changes may indeed be leveling the playing field.<\/p>\n Which brings us back to the superstar free agents on the horizon in 2027. If the quality of hoop is the deciding factor, where might Plum, Mitchell, Young, and Collier find their best fit?<\/p>\n Their current teams remain the strongest contenders to keep them. Young\u2019s Aces and Mitchell\u2019s Fever entered the season looking like frontrunners, as did the Dream and the Liberty. Through the first week of games, Golden State, Dallas, and Minnesota have been playing a brand of basketball that pops.<\/p>\n The Sky still need to prove theirs does, too. The season opener against the Fire showed some promising elements, like a smooth pick-and-roll connection between Skylar Diggins and Kamilla Cardoso, and the kind of dynamic shotmaking from Rickea Jackson that this roster lacked a year ago.<\/p>\n But the Sky are still waiting on half a starting lineup\u2014DiJonai Carrington, Azur\u00e1 Stevens, and Courtney Vandersloot\u2014to return from injury.<\/p>\n