What the Core Designation Means Under the New WNBA CBA

WNBA free agency is here, and it began with core designations and qualifying offers. 

In total 10 players were cored. The core tag operates like the NFL’s franchise tag, giving the team exclusive negotiating rights over a player. The 10 players who were cored this week:

Napheesa Collier (Minnesota Lynx)
Kelsey Plum (Los Angeles Sparks) 
Marina Mabrey (Toronto Tempo)
Arike Ogunbowale (Dallas Wings)
Kelsey Mitchell (Indiana Fever)
Ariel Atkins (Chicago Sky)
Allisha Gray (Atlanta Dream)
Ezi Magbegor (Seattle Storm)
Bridget Carleton (Portland Fire)
Sabrina Ionescu (New York Liberty)

Prior to the new collective bargaining agreement, players could be cored twice in their careers regardless of experience. The new CBA says players with six years of service or fewer can be cored up to two times, but once a player reaches their seventh season they are no longer core eligible. (That part of the CBA kicks in next year.)

This designation comes with a supermax qualifying offer from the player’s “home team,” the team they were most recently with. For example, the Sky’s core qualifying offer to Atkins is valued at $1.4 million. However, that doesn’t mean she will sign for that amount. It also doesn’t mean she will stay in Chicago. 

The Sky could negotiate different terms with Atkins and sign her for less than the supermax salary. They also could sign and trade her. In the latter scenario, Atkins would not be eligible to sign a supermax contract, as only the Sky are able to pay her that amount. The same goes for Ogunbowale, Mitchell, and every other unrestricted free agent who was cored by their “home team.” The max a cored player could sign for in a sign-and-trade scenario is $1.19 million. 

The supermax under the previous CBA was $249,244—less than the rookie minimum under the new labor deal.

Noticeably absent from the list of cored players: Phoenix Mercury forward Satou Sabally. 

The three-time All-Star is not expected to re-sign with the Mercury, according to multiple sources. (Sabally thanked Phoenix in a social media post Wednesday.) It’s unclear why GM Nick U’ren wouldn’t extend a core designation to at least preserve a return with her departure. Additionally, the Las Vegas Aces, Golden State Valkyries, Washington Mystics, and Connecticut Sun did not core a player. 

One could argue the Valkyries, Mystics, and Sun didn’t have a player who warrants a supermax qualifying offer.

The Aces, though, certainly do.

The Las Vegas Review Journal reported weeks ago that the Aces planned to re-sign four-time MVP A’ja Wilson to a supermax contract. But there are questions about whether the team can keep its collection of stars together under the new CBA, which severely limits the bottom of teams’ rosters if they sign more than one supermax player because it’s a 20% hit to the cap. 

The Aces will need their stars to make sacrifices to keep their championship roster together, similar to the Liberty. 

Ionescu and Breanna Stewart both said they will be re-signing with the Liberty. But for GM Jonathan Kolb to re-sign Jonquel Jones—he said at the end of last season he had the utmost confidence his Big Three would be back—at least one of the three players will have to take less than the maximum salary, and likely more. 

Balloongate

WNBA champion Nneka Ogwumike had a meeting with the Minnesota Lynx on Wednesday.

Amazing Balloons MN, a local Minnesota balloon company, was first to report the news when the company posted and quickly deleted a video of the company’s employees setting up a balloon arch around a sign that said “Welcome Nneka” at the Lynx practice facility. Ogwumike has planned meetings with multiple teams in the coming days and has not agreed to terms with the Lynx.