With the significantly higher supermax in the new CBA, there are new reasons a sign-and-trade can be beneficial to players and teams. Skylar Diggins-Smith had already been designated as a core player by the Wings in , so she had the right to deny any trade destination she didn't like. The Wings also had the power to only let her go elsewhere if they got a good enough return because they had cored her and had her exclusive negotiation rights.
Dallas got the significant return they were looking for, and Diggins-Smith got to go to her preferred destination, Phoenix. In the case of DeWanna Bonner in , Bonner was an unrestricted free agent so she could have signed with a new team while Phoenix received nothing in return.
However, she was able to sign for an extra year and for the full supermax by structuring the deal to be a sign-and-trade where she initially re-signed with Phoenix, her previous team. All three parties need to agree to the conditions of a sign-and-trade agreement or the agreement becomes void and the situation reverts to before the new contract was signed.
The trade that is agreed to also must be completed within 48 hours. Players who were born in the United States, reside in the United States, or who have played basketball collegiately in the United States are governed by one set of eligibility rules.
We will refer to these players as domestic players. International players have a different set of requirements, which are covered in the section below. To be eligible for the WNBA draft, all domestic players must have no remaining collegiate eligibility, or they must renounce it in writing at least 10 days before the date of the draft. The day timeline was adjusted for the draft to account for the fact that all NCAA athletes were granted an extra year of eligibility due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Additionally, domestic players must meet one of three other requirements. The first, and most common one, is for a player to be at least 22 years old by December 31 of the calendar year of the draft.
As a second option, players younger than 22 are eligible to enter the draft if they have graduated from a four-year university or will graduate from a four-year university within three months of the draft.
For example, if a player enrolls in college in the Fall of and graduates in just three years in the Spring of , they would be eligible for the draft in April regardless of their age, provided they choose to renounce their remaining collegiate eligibility. As an example, if a player enrolls in college at the age of 17 in the Fall of , they would be eligible for the draft at age 21 even if they do not graduate. Players deemed to be international have a different set of rules determining eligibility for the draft.
In order to qualify as an international player, they must have been born and reside outside of the United States. They may play professional or amateur basketball prior to being drafted, but they cannot play collegiately in the United States. If the player meets those requirements, they will automatically become eligible for the draft in the calendar year that they turn 20 years old. Although not outlined in the CBA, the league has made clear how the draft order is determined.
The four teams who miss the playoffs in a given season, or the current holder of their first-round pick, make up the first four picks of the next draft, and the order of those teams is selected via the draft lottery.
The lottery is conducted by choosing combinations of four ping-pong balls numbered 1 through 14 from a lottery machine. There are 1, possible sets of four, ranging from to to Teams are ranked by their win-loss percentage over the past two seasons, regardless of differences in games played. This means the season 34 games held more impact on this calculation for the draft than the season 22 games. Based on this ranking, teams receive the following number of combinations from the 1, assigned combinations is not assigned to any team :.
For each of the top two picks, four balls will be drawn from a lottery machine. Whichever team has been assigned that four-ball combination will receive the No. The process is repeated to determine the No. The two teams who are not drawn in the lottery are given the Nos. As a result, the complete set of odds of each of the four lottery teams receiving any of the first four picks is as follows:.
The remaining picks, Nos. This means that for the remaining eight picks of the first round, the playoff team with the highest winning percentage that season gets No. This is also done with all 12 teams for rounds two and three. For example, starting on January 1, , teams can trade draft picks but not picks covering or later. On January 1, , they can begin to trade picks.
If the exclusive negotiation rights to a drafted player are traded, the new team retains the exact same rights as the drafting team. If a player goes undrafted, they immediately become an unrestricted free agent and are free to sign a rookie-scale contract at the undrafted base salary for either one or two years.
This includes players drafted out of college, as well as any players who go undrafted. This is not the conventional definition of "rookie" that fans typically think of: someone who is playing her first-ever regular-season game that year.
That more conventional definition is used for awards and years of service to determine veteran status. The base salaries, meaning salary without any bonuses, are fully specified for each draft pick for every draft governed by this CBA. Rookie base salaries are not guaranteed "protected," in the language of the CBA , meaning that players are only paid for the portion of the season they are actually on the roster. The length of contracts for drafted rookies are fully specified as well.
Undrafted rookies may have a contract length of one or two years. The tables below show the terms for rookie contracts by draft class. The structure of rookie contracts for each year of the CBA follows the same framework with tiers of players, length, and team options.
Note: the entry for 'Picks ' reflects remaining first round picks. If the league expands in the future, it could become 'Picks ' or similar. In addition to the base salaries in the table above, players may earn performance bonuses for team success and individual awards. This is true for all future classes of rookies including undrafted rookies.
The situation repeats itself for 's draft picks relative to 's draft picks and continues throughout the length of the agreement. Whether a player was drafted or not changes a few aspects of the contract. Drafted players are given contracts that last three seasons with a team option for a fourth year. Undrafted players are only given contracts for up to two years, with no team option. Additionally, drafted players are eligible for rookie scale extensions.
Undrafted players will typically become 'reserved' players but could become free agents once their contracts expire. Players who signed contracts under the previous CBA were governed by a rookie scale using the same contract structure but with base salaries lower than the current minimum salary. To remedy this, all players who would be below the league minimum have been bumped up to their applicable minimum base salary. Players who were already over the league minimum did not receive any bump in their salary.
Teams are required to offer a rookie scale contract to a draft pick to retain their rights in what is known as a "Required Tender. Teams must make this tender within seven days of the draft, and if they do offer a contract within seven days then the player cannot negotiate with any other team. If the team doesn't offer the required tender in that time frame, then the player becomes an unrestricted free agent and may sign a rookie scale contract with any team.
This is incredibly rare, because retaining the exclusive rights to draft picks is valuable, and unprotected salaries mean there is no risk if the player doesn't make the team. If the team does tender a contract and the player doesn't sign it, the team still retains exclusive negotiating rights with the player until at least the next draft. For undrafted players, they are unrestricted free agents that will sign rookie scale contracts instead of veteran contracts.
All this means is there are no restrictions like the one above where a player is bound to only one team if offered a contract. Undrafted free agents are free to negotiate with multiple teams any time after the draft has concluded. The fourth-year option, which is included for drafted rookies only, is a team option. This means that the team can decide whether to bring the player back for a fourth year at the salary specified in the rookie scale, even if the player would rather test free agency.
Teams must make this decision and notify the player by May 15 following the player's second contract year. That is typically during the preseason of a player's third year in the league. If the team does not exercise its option, the player would become an unrestricted free agent after the conclusion of her third season.
Unlike the first three years of the contract, the fourth year is fully protected beginning with the Draft Class. The core component of rookie contracts is that the player can not have previously signed a WNBA contract. Therefore, once a player is cut from their rookie contract they become an unrestricted free agent who is no longer governed by the rookie scale. This is true even if the player is cut in training camp before their first season which regularly happens to 2nd and 3rd round draft picks.
If a player is drafted into the WNBA, they may choose to sign a contract even if they do not plan to play in the upcoming season. In this situation, the player and their team may work out an agreement to suspend the player for that season. Players who work out a deal with their team do not get paid for the seasons they are suspended nor do they gain years of service, but it "starts the clock" on their rookie contract to bring players closer to graduating to larger contracts not governed by the rookie scale.
Players may choose to do this rather than force a team to cut them if they want to stay connected to the team that drafted them in the hopes that it will increase their chances in subsequent seasons. The team benefits from this agreement because they do not have to lose their player to free agency, which would happen if they cut the player. This is often used for foreign players as well as players who could use a year off after an injury.
In some recent cases, teams who are very deep and don't have room for all the draft picks they would like have also employed this strategy. Alternatively, the player could decide to just not show up. Players who simply do not show up after signing a contract can be fined by their teams, but as long as an agreement is made, there are no further consequences. There are a couple of reasons a player would not sign a contract with the team that drafted them. Both situations affect the terms of the player's contract when they do eventually join the WNBA team.
The first possible reason is that a player simply doesn't want to play for the team that drafted them. This is an impractical decision because they would be better off signing the contract anyway and just opting to sit out.
Additionally, the exclusive negotiating rights to a player are valuable to a team with little financial commitment, so it is unlikely their team would give in to a holdout like this. If a player did attempt to do this, they would have to commit to not playing any professional basketball for upwards of two seasons. If the player was under contract internationally, the team would continue to retain the player's rights for every season the player continued to make no attempt to sign with them.
They would then have to go one season without playing professionally, making them eligible for the next WNBA draft. If they go undrafted, then they are free to sign as a rookie free agent. If they are drafted by a different team, they are treated as a standard draft pick. However, if they are drafted again by the same team, they will have to go through the process of remaining out of the professional game for one more season.
After the second season - two seasons with no salary for playing basketball - they would become a rookie free agent. The other reason a player might not sign a contract is if they are inhibited by an existing contract.
This is functionally the same as refusing to sign with a WNBA team, but the blame isn't placed on the player in this case. If it were to happen, the team that drafted the player will retain the exclusive WNBA rights to negotiate a contract for one year once the player is no longer inhibited from signing a contract by the other league.
To be clear, almost all players who are already under contract internationally are not inhibited from signing with a WNBA team, because other leagues typically don't interfere with the WNBA's standard May-October schedule.
In both of those situations, the rookie contract is signed in a year other than the year the player is drafted, so the player would sign for the rookie scale salary for the year they signed rather than the year they were drafted. Drafted players on rookie contracts may have their contracts extended if the team has already exercised the fourth-year option in the rookie contract, which would happen ahead of a player's third season.
The extension must take place between February 1 and May 15 before the player's fourth season. That is, the player must sign an extension before May 15 of the final, team-option year of their rookie contract. A player's base salary for the fourth season of their rookie contract remains the same under an extension.
The extension begins in the fifth year even though it has to be agreed to before May 15 of the fourth season. Extensions of rookie scale contracts can be for up to three years or through the end of the seventh year of their WNBA career. The extension can be for a salary up to the supermax usually reserved for veterans of five or more seasons beginning in six or more seasons in The league allows extensions up to the supermax as a way of incentivizing star players to stay with the team that drafted them.
However, undrafted players cannot have their rookie contracts extended. They will usually become reserved players and in rare cases, they will become free agents after their second season. Much like extensions, what happens after a contract expires is determined by the type of contract and whether or not the team has taken certain actions. In most cases, a player becomes either a restricted free agent or an unrestricted free agent after their rookie contract expires.
A restricted free agent may sign with any WNBA team, but their prior team has the right to match any offer from another team. If their prior team chooses to match the offer, the player remains with that team. If the offer is not matched, the player is free to sign with the new team.
An unrestricted free agent is free to sign with any team, including their prior team, but their prior team has no ability to dictate where the player chooses to sign. The simplest situation of a rookie contract expiring is for a drafted rookie whose fourth-year option was not exercised by their team.
In that scenario, the player becomes an unrestricted free agent after the conclusion of their third season. For rookie contracts that run for the entirety of their initial terms four seasons for drafted players and one or two seasons for undrafted players , teams have the option to extend a qualifying offer after the conclusion of the final year.
The two types of qualifying offers that follow the expiration of rookie contracts are restricted qualifying offers for drafted rookie contracts and reserved qualifying offers for players with years of service.
Base salary is what is commonly reported as a player's salary in the media and is, as the name suggests, the base of their total compensation. Players may receive additional compensation from their team or the league, but none of that additional compensation is part of the base salary. There are two tiers of minimum base salary and two different tiers of maximum base salary. Eligibility for each level is governed by the number of years of service a player has among other criteria.
A year of service is counted for every season a player is on the active roster for at least one day of the regular season, with a few exceptions. Players who only play on seven-day or replacement contracts do not earn a year of service.
Anyone who holds out for 21 or more days also does not earn a year of service even if they play the rest of the season. There are no partial years of service, players can either earn zero or one.
There are two types of maximum base salaries - one standard maximum and a higher maximum for players who meet any of a number of criteria.
The higher maximum base salary, which is often referred to as the "supermax", is designed to reward elite veterans and incentivize young stars to remain with the teams who drafted them.
The standard maximum is for There are a number of ways players can earn the supermax. The earliest a player can earn a supermax contract is to sign an extension of their rookie scale contract. A player on a rookie scale contract can sign an extension that will be effective for their fifth year in the league.
They can extend their contract for up to three years bringing them to a total of the first seven years of their career. Another way to qualify for a supermax contract going forward - effective January 1, - is to be a free agent with five or more years of service and sign with your prior team. In earlier years, including the first offseason under the new CBA, the requirement was six or more years of service.
Free agents designated as a core player by their team are also eligible for the supermax regardless of their years of service.
Finally, veteran extensions can qualify for the supermax if specific criteria are met. A player must have five or more years of service after January 1, or six seasons prior to that date in order to be eligible for the supermax. They also must have been under contract for at least part of each of the two previous seasons. If they played for multiple teams over those two seasons, they must have changed teams via assignment almost always a trade or have signed with their most recent team as a free agent during the first season.
This means that a contract signed at the supermax in will only match the league's supermax salary in and Players with two or fewer years of service are at the lowest level, while players with three or more years of service have a higher minimum base salary.
For example, a free agent who played in , , and is governed by the higher minimum base salary in There are a few exceptions to the listed minimum base salary. The CBA actually allows for rookie scale contracts to fall below the league minimum, which only happens in a few situations.
The other situations where players may earn less than the league minimum in a season are for non-standard contracts like seven-day contracts , rest-of-season contracts , or replacement contracts. These partial season contracts are prorated based on the percentage of days in the season the player is under contract, so by definition, the player will earn less than a full minimum salary. Seven-day contracts and rest-of-season contracts use the regular minimums before proration is applied.
Base salary protection is an agreement between a player and their team that allows a player to still receive their base salary in the event of being released due to lack of skill, injury, or illness.
While protection is the term used in the CBA, it is commonly referred to as guaranteeing a salary. All or part of a player's salary can be protected, and payment is conditioned on not engaging in prohibited activities that will be outlined below. Contracts can include any combination of the types of protection permitted by the CBA, which are detailed below. Teams can choose to protect certain years and not others. For example, a player could receive a fully protected salary in but no protection in While partial salary protection is allowed for a single season i.
The one exception to the maximum of six protected contracts is that fourth-year team option for rookies drafted in or later do not count. It should be noted that protected salaries only come into play when a player's contract is terminated due to lack of skill, injury, or illness. If a team instead wants to keep the player, the team can suspend the player without pay if the injury occurs before the season begins or keep the player on the active roster and continue to pay them.
All contracts become fully guaranteed after the midpoint of the season, so it is common to see a wave of cuts before the midpoint of the season.
A player and their team can choose any combination of those protections, but all four are included for most protected salaries. If the team seeks to take out insurance for the player - which would allow the team to recoup some costs in the event they need to pay a player who isn't even playing - the player needs to cooperate by filing the required forms and receiving any physical exams that are needed.
Teams are not allowed to insure against a lack of skill. Lack of skill pertains to players who do not perform well enough to remain on the team. If a player with an unprotected base salary were cut, they would not earn any money for the remainder of the regular season, but a player with a protected contract would still receive either all or part of their remaining salary.
As long as a player's level of play is not faltering due to certain off-the-court activities, including the use of prohibited substances or committing a felony, the player is owed the protected portion of their salary if they are cut because of their performance.
Players may also have their salaries protected for injuries or illnesses that occur on or off the court. Teams can choose to include injury protection in someone's contract, but exclude certain reinjuries or limit the amount a player can get paid if they are reinjured.
This means a team who is negotiating with someone with a history of ACL tears could make a deal with the player to not pay them their protected salary or a fraction of it if the player once again injures their ACL. There are also additional requirements for non-basketball related injuries, mostly limiting which activities are deemed too dangerous for players to take part in without written consent from the team.
For example, players generally do not get paid if they are injured from risky activities such as sky-diving or bungee-jumping, even if their contracts are protected from injury or illness.
Activities like soccer or baseball are also deemed to be an excessive risk-yet softball is explicitly listed as an acceptable activity. For off-season injury or illnesses, any injuries that occur as a result of off-season non-WNBA playing obligations do not count as protected injuries. This includes injuries that occur while playing for national teams and international professional teams.
Because the injury happened during her WNBA obligations, her salary was protected and the Aces wouldn't have had any benefit in waiving her. Couldn't find the full form or full meaning of WNBA? Notify me of new comments via email. Breanna Owens. Like Reply Report 4 years ago. Cancel Report. Create a new account.
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Use our Power Search technology to look for more unique definitions from across the web! Foul: A violation. Usually, illegal contact between two players. Foul line: The line that is feet from each baskboard from which the free throws are attempted; also referred to as the "charity stripe. Free throw: An uncontested shot from 15 feet, worth one point.
A player who is fouled while in the act of shooting receives two free throws. Also: foul shot. Frontcourt: A team's offensive half of the court. As it refers to players, a team's center and forwards. Full-court press: A defensive tactice by which a team's players guard their opponents closely for the length of the court. Give-and-go: A fundamental play in which one player passes to a teammate, then cuts to the basket to receive a return pass for an open layup or dunk.
Goaltending: A violation in which a player interferes with a shot while the ball is on its downward arc, pins it against the backboard or touches it while it is in an imaginary cylinder above the basket; may be committed by either an offensive or defensive player. Gunner: A frequent shooter. Half-court press: A defensive tactic by which a team's players guard their opponents closely after they cross the midcourt line.
Hand-checking: A violation in which a defender uses his hand to impede a player's progress. Hang time: The amount of time a player can stay in the air while attempting a shot.
High post: The area around the free throw circle. Hook shot: A shot taken with a sweeping, hooking motion. May be taken stationary or while running. Hoop: Basket or rim. Also slang for playing basketball. Return to top of page In the paint: In the free-throw lane, beneath the foul line that is painted a different color than the rest of the court; also referred to as: the lane, the key.
Isolation: When a team sets up its offense so one player is left alone to go one-on-one against her defender. J: jump shot. Jump ball: When players from opposing teams gain simultaneous possession of the ball, the referee stops play.
After the teams are realigned, she tosses the ball up between those two players, who attempt to tap it to a teammate. Jump hook: A hook shot taken while jumping, popular among taller players because it is difficult to block. Jump shot: A shot taken after a player jumps in the air. Key: Slang for "lane;" same as "in the paint. Also known as the key, because in the early years it was key-shaped.
It was twice widened to its present rectangular shape. Layup: A short shot in which a player lays the ball into the basket either directly or by banking it off the backboard. Loose-ball foul: A foul committed while neither team has possession of the ball, as while going for a rebound. Lottery: The process that determines the order of selection in the draft. Low post: The area at the base of the foul lane to either side of the basket.
Man-to-man: The type of defense in which each defender is assigned a specific player to guard. Net: The cord, 15 to 18 inches long, that hangs from the rim of the basket. Open man: A player who is left unguarded. Outlet pass: A pass thrown by a player after getting a rebound to a teammate, generally near midcourt, to start a fast break. Over the limit: Beyond a given number of fouls.
Each team is allowed seven fouls per half for which no free throws are assessed unless they are committed against players in the act of shooting ; after seven fouls a team is said to be "over the limit" and free throws are assessed on all subsequent fouls; also known as "in the bonus," or a "penalty situation. If a game remains tied following an overtime period, another is played and another until there is a winner. Palming: A violation in which a player moves her hand under the ball and scoops it while dribbling.
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