There are more roster spots in the WNBA than ever before \u2014 more than 200, to be exact.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s in large part due to league expansion; with the addition of the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo this season, the league has a record 15 teams. And, alongside 12 standard roster spots, each team has two developmental player slots, as agreed upon in the latest CBA.<\/p>\n
Still, with an influx of overseas talent coming to the WNBA in addition to droves of elite college players, holding on to a roster spot remains difficult for those who are on the fringe. As such, even two weeks into the season, good players are getting waived every day.<\/p>\n
Since Monday, three players have been waived: Grace Vanslooten by the Seattle Storm, Ashten Prechtel by the Golden State Valkyries, and Aubrey Griffin by the New York Liberty. Vanslooter was a 2026 third-round pick after a standout career at Notre Dame. Prechtel was a 2023 third-round pick who won an NCAA championship with Stanford. And, Griffin was selected in the third round of the 2025 draft out of UConn.<\/p>\n
Before those three cuts, the Phoenix Mercury waived Anneli Maley and Peyton Williams, the Connecticut Sun waived Shey Peddy, and the Portland Fire waived Jordan Harrison.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, these cuts are expected: players signed hardship contracts in the wake of injuries and knew that their tenures would likely be temporary. Other times, cuts seemingly come out of left field; Kate Martin, who was waived by the Valkyries after training camp (and after being a rotation player for the team last season) is an example.<\/p>\n
And, getting cut isn\u2019t always a death sentence. There\u2019s a long list of players who were waived by a WNBA team, only to eventually blossom elsewhere. That list includes Veronica Burton, who was waived by the Dallas Wings two years ago before becoming an elite two-way point guard for the Valkyries last season. It also includes veteran players like Erica Wheeler and Alysha Clark, who were cut early in their careers. That didn\u2019t stop either: Wheeler has played 11 seasons, and Clark has played 14. Both are some of the league\u2019s most established vets.<\/p>\n
Players who get cut might look to go overseas in the meantime, or they might try to find a home elsewhere (Hailey Van Lith was recently cut by the Chicago Sky, and immediately joined the Connecticut Sun).<\/p>\n
For some, it\u2019s the end of the road. For others, it\u2019s just the beginning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are more roster spots in the WNBA than ever before \u2014 more than 200, to be exact.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-657015","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\/657015","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=657015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}