The WNBA’s new CBA has been settled, now where do the Tempo go from here?
The world of women’s basketball just held its collective breath for eight days of intense negotiations between the WNBA and players union. And really the tension has held for five months after the league’s previous collective bargaining agreement was first set to expire.
Finally, it can exhale, as a verbal agreement was reached Wednesday according to multiple reports.
It wasn’t easy. Negotiations between the league and its players often became contentious as the two sides failed to see eye-to-eye on important issues such as charter travel, housing, roster sizes, draft age limit and of course revenue sharing and compensation.
But now the 50-day sprint to the start of the regular season is on. There’s loads of ground to cover and time to make up for, particularly in the case of the two new expansion teams: The Portland Fire and the Toronto Tempo.
Here is a comprehensive review of the Tempo’s next steps as they prepare to tip off the inaugural season of WNBA basketball in Canada on May 8.
Expansion draft
An official date for the expansion draft is yet to be announced, but a February report from ESPN provided April 1-6 as a tentative range of dates when the Tempo’s first attempt at roster building could go down. Toronto and Portland will flip a coin to see who drafts first in the process (what’s the most you’ve ever lost on a coin toss?). The existing teams will also have to choose which players on their rosters to protect.
The exact rules for the expansion draft are also still undecided. All we know is that the 13 non-expansion teams will choose a certain number of players on their roster that will be ineligible for selection by the Tempo and Fire. Then the two new kids on the block will get their alternating picks of the remaining pool of talent. When the W’s last expansion team, the Golden State Valkyries, held their expansion draft in 2024, teams were allowed to protect six players and each had one player selected by the Valkyries.
Free agency period
The expansion draft may be the main source of roster building for the Tempo, but the upcoming free agent market is easily the most exciting. More then 80 percent of the WNBA are free agents, with many players timing their contracts in conjunction with the new labour deal. Only two players currently signed to teams are on non-rookie deals.
Also 21 of the 24 All Stars from last season are going to be free agents. Normally expansion teams in professional sports are left working with other teams’ scraps and struggle to establish a competitive foothold. But the Valkyries bucked that trend by posting a winning record (23-21) in their first season. The Tempo and Fire now have a unique opportunity to start strong considering the bevy of talent available. They just have sell prospective stars on playing north of the border.
“I had commenced my head coaching search in mid-July and had cast a really wide net and really was focused on having a head coach that, number one, would attract free agents,” said general manager Monica Wright Rogers at the press conference introducing two-time WNBA champion Tempo head coach Sandy Brondello in November.
The signing window takes place over the course of one-to-two months in January and February under normal circumstances, but will be shrunk down to a 12-day span due to the truncated schedule. No official dates have been announced, but ESPN reporting from February stated that free agent designations could be handed down April 7 and 8, negotiations could take place from April 9-11 and the signing period would be set for April 12-18.
The draft
The college draft is scheduled for April 13 in New York City. While the league has been locked in labour negotiations, teams have still undoubtedly been doing some due diligence scouting amateur players in anticipation of a deal being reached. Now that it has they’ll have even more bandwidth dedicated to finding the next potential stars among the upcoming class.
As expansions franchises, the Tempo and Fire will pick sixth and seventh, after the four lottery teams who missed the playoffs last season and Golden State, last year’s expansion team, who will pick fifth. The order of Nos. 6 and 7 will also be decided by a coin flip. (Insert another Anton Chigurh or two-face reference here.)
This time around there’s no Paige Bueckers or Caitlin Clark that stands out as a consensus No. 1 like in previous seasons. The top prospects on most big boards include UCLA’s Lauren Betts, UConn’s Azzi Fudd, LSU’s Flau’jae Johnson and TCU’s Olivia Miles and Awa Fam of Spain’s Liga Femenina de Baloncesto.
Training camp
Training camp is then set to open April 19. The process is set to be a whirlwind, commencing only six days after the draft and directly after the free agent signing window closes. Team will have only just been put together and will have to immediately hit the court to find chemistry and get organized. They’ll be little to no time to process how everything came together, and for a new organization like the Tempo that is only just establishing their processes and culture, it will be an abrupt and challenging test. The training wheels are coming off, they’re going right into the deep end.
The games
Finally, all the preparation and long hours between labour negotiations, team building and galvanizing a new group of hoopers will culminate in basketball games. The first taste of Tempo basketball will come in the form of a preseason game on April 29. Then the real deal, the first regular-season home WNBA game in Toronto will tip off May 8.
Again, the process will undoubtedly be a whirlwind. The players have already fought tooth and nail for a fair share of league revenue, now they’ll be tested again as they rush to get the season underway. But if the women of the WNBA have shown anything through the trying negotiations, it’s that they have the resolve and fortitude to overcome challenges.
The Tempo have a distinct opportunity to hit the ground running as an expansion team. If they play their cards right over the next few months, they could be positioned to not just make history as Canada’s first WNBA franchise, but to do it in winning fashion.
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