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WNBA Free Agency Week 2: Liz Angeles, Big Mama in the Big City, Valley Team Reaching its Peak?

Photo Credit: Lamar Carter

Remember that Liz Cambage tweet?

Yeah – that one she went on February 1 that set the whole of WNBA Twitter ablaze and seemed to indicate that maybe she was entirely finished with the W as a whole?

Apparently – things have a tendency to change from week to week and day to day.

At first, reports seemed to indicate that Cambage was simply in conversations with the Los Angeles Sparks – a team she has always had her eyes on since she began her WNBA career and one that has Fred Williams, who Cambage looks up to like a father figure, as an assistant coach under head coach Derek Fisher.

That was, of course, before ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne dropped this bombshell on Saturday evening.

And with that, Liz Angeles became closer to being a reality than ever before.

Of course, the Cambage news is only that of a verbal agreement – no contract has been signed yet, but she did seem to indicate via a recent Instagram story that she is indeed all in to play at Crypto.com Arena in 2022.

If one thing has been evident over the last few days, it is that Derek Fisher, who is also the Sparks general manager, has no problems going all in to get pieces to the Los Angeles roster that the Sparks front office believe will make them a contender. After all, the Sparks have to make up for the fact that they have zero first round picks in this year’s draft.

Los Angeles after the 2022 season was in an unusual position – outside of the playoff picture despite having the same 12-20 record that the Washington Mystics and the New York Liberty (that did did qualify for the postseason as the eighth seed) did.

A Nneka Ogwumike-Liz Cambage frontcourt is sure to give the rest of the WNBA nightmares. Throw in Chiney Ogwumike, Kristi Toliver and Amanda Zahui B. and that is surely to be a recipe for the Sparks to be back in the win column a lot in 2022 – its first full season at Crypto.com Arena since 2019.

But the Sparks apparently were busy making other moves. One of those moves came in the form of signing Jordin Canada, a Southern California native who played her collegiate basketball at UCLA.

Los Angeles was not done – not by a longshot.

Remember Chennedy Carter? The fourth-overall draft pick by the Atlanta Dream that was supposed to represent the future of that franchise?

Then last season happened where she was absent for roughly half the season and everyone in the WNBA family was constantly hitting fresh on their computers to see what the latest on Carter was. She averaged 17.4 points per game in her rookie season in the bubble. Even in the 11 contests she did play in last season, she still averaged 14.2 points per game.

She reportedly got into a locker room spat with Courtney Williams after a blowout loss to the Las Vegas Aces at Michelob Ultra Arena and did not play for the remainder of the season. Then, at one point during the offseason, she showed up at an Adidas event with ex-Indiana Fever Kysre Gondrezick.

There will not have to be much wonder about her whereabouts in the coming season. After all, her nickname is Hollywood.

Los Angeles acquired her and Li Yueru. In the process, they sent Erica Wheeler, who was the 2019 All-Star Game MVP to the Dream. She was selected by Atlanta in the 2015 draft.

As bold as these moves are, and as much as they seem to put Los Angeles back, theoretically, in the hunt for one of the eight playoff berths, Sparks fans are going to continue to have questions about the one figure they believe is holding the team back – and that is the coach/GM.

Ask what Sparks brass thinks of Fisher and what Sparks fans think of Fisher and one is likely to get two very different answers. After all – the Sparks extended Fisher after the 2020 season. Los Angeles fans believe, right or wrong, that he had a lot to do with Candace Parker leaving Hollywood for the Chicago Sky – where she won a championship last season. On paper, the Sparks look like championship contenders once again, but the reality may be starkly different.

Meanwhile as for what seems to be Cambage’s former team, the Aces, Becky Hammon will be without Cambage and Angel McCoughtry as she recently signed with the Minnesota Lynx. Layshia Clarendon, who had a lot to do with the Lynx’s ascent to the third overall seed lats season, also re-upped in Minnesota as well.

As for Hammon, they did get one of their big three back in A’ja Wilson for a reported two-year deal.

Wilson, of course, was previously on a rookie contract. And Mark Davis has let it be known that he believes in investing in WNBA players. After all – he is investing lots of money into Hammon and wants to build an Aces training facility in Henderson – a Las Vegas suburb. There is also talk of an arena for the Aces per team president Nikki Fargas’ remarks at Hammon’s presser.

One cannot help but think that this will cause plenty of intrigue around the Aces over the next couple of seasons. At this stage of Wilson’s career, she has to be thinking championship. Las Vegas has to realize that with Cambage gone and McCoughtry gone that now is the time to put pieces around Wilson so the team can continue to be the championship contender they have been the last couple of seasons when Las Vegas made it to the Finals in the bubble in 2020, then made it back to the conference finals last season.

If that is not the case, then will Wilson consider bolting for another team? Only time (and Davis’ money) will tell.

Not too far away from Tinseltown is the Valley of the Sun. Even as veteran-based as the Phoenix Mercury is, Jim Pitman and Vince Kozar still remain in reload mode as opposed to a rebuild.

Phoenix did not enter this free agency period with plenty of cap space, but are still managing to find ways to re-sign players. On top of bringing back Kia Nurse and Sophie Cunningham, Phoenix made another big move with the acquisition of ex-Chicago Sky Diamond DeShields.

In 2019, when DeShields earned All-Star honors, she averaged 16.2 points per game in what was James Wade’s first season as coach. DeShields played 32 games last season with the WNBA championship-winning Sky and averaged 11.3 points per game.

Phoenix’s front office, though, remained busy. When Mercury brass began teasing that they would make one more move – apparently looking east to Washington was where that move would be made.

Tina Charles was the WNBA’s leading scorer last season at 23.4 points per game with the Mystics and broke the Liberty’s all-time scoring mark in 2019.

Despite Charles’ heroics this past season, the Mystics barely were on the outside looking in of the postseason picture last season also – and a late-season loss to her former team, the Liberty, at Barclays Center probably had a lot to do with it.

At this point in her career, Charles is one of the all-time greats. But she has one thing she has yet to accomplish in her illustrious time in the WNBA and that is win a championship.

She has certainly put herself in position to do just that by her latest move – joining the Mercury.

The Mercury advanced to the WNBA Finals last season and went four games with the eventual champions out of Chicago. Phoenix has officially put the rest of the league on notice – A path to a WNBA championship in 2022 may go through the confines of the Footprint Center.

Speaking of those very Sky, a good number of them are probably on pins and needles after seeing what has happened with them so far in free agency.

Chicago managed to re-sign last year’s Finals MVP in Kahleah Copper. They landed the 2019 WNBA Finals MVP in Emma Meesseman. But there remains the lingering possibility that the WNBA’s favorite couple outside of Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe may not return to Chicago in 2022.

That would be really devastating if the Sky went into the upcoming season without Courtney Vandersloot or Allie Quigley. Between Sloot’s ability to create and score along with her high basketball IQ and Quigley’s 3-point shooting, those are two elements to the puzzle that has made the Sky the Sky in recent seasons. They have given the Sky an identity.

If Chicago has neither one of them, it is a massive setback in terms of the team and in terms of PR. After all, VanderQuigs are two of the most beloved Sky players among fans. Also, they have become synonymous with the Sky.

The possibility of either one not being in a Sky uniform has legs. Especially considering reports that Vandersloot’s overseas team may actually pay her to not play in the WNBA. And overseas teams offer more money than WNBA teams – that is why so many players go overseas in the first place.

If the Sky represent the country’s second city, the Liberty undoubtedly represent the country’s first city.

And what Jonathan Kolb and Sandy Brondello pulled off did not make life any easier for the Skytown faithful.

Even though the Liberty’s 2021 season encountered lots of smooth train rides and periods where messy tracks were encountered, New York still persevered through the down period after the Olympic break and was one of the eight teams that qualified for last season’s playoffs.

The Liberty nearly pulled off a massive upset over the eventual Finals participant Mercury in the first round of said postseason, making it all the more ironic that the former Phoenix coach would assume the same post in Brooklyn.

Anyone who watched Liberty basketball last season could tell that it was a team that shot a number of 3-pointers, but needed someone in the post to stretch the floor and open things up for those long range shooters.

New York is another team that did not go into free agency with a great deal of cap space. Meaning in order to sign free agents, they had to clear cap space by making other moves. The Liberty had to part ways with Neah Odom as well as Jazmine Jones while re-upping with Bec Allen and reportedly making progress on the Marine Johannes front.

And while the Liberty’s offseason gained notoriety for its talks with Breanna Stewart (who re-upped with the Seattle Storm for one season) and Jewell Loyd (who re-upped with those same Storm for two seasons), New York found that big in the form of native New Yorker Stefanie Dolson, bringing her back to her home state via Atlantic and Flatbush.

When Kolb said to Erica Ayala at the Brondello virtual presser that we could get rid of the “hybrid rebuild” moniker as it relates to the Lib, moves like this are exactly what he was talking about. Getting someone in Dolson who is fresh of winning a WNBA championship with the Sky is exactly the sort of move that a team that is building towards sustained success would make, especially given the composition of its roster.

Betnijah Laney, Sabrina Ionescu, Natasha Howard, Didi Richards, Michaela Onyenwere, Sami Whitcomb, Rebecca Allen, Jocelyn Willoughby, Asia Durr, Stefanie Dolson.

Look out…

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