Ultimate WNBA trade deadline guide: Buyers, sellers, trade candidates and how the new CBA impacts it all — SkimNews
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- Los Angeles Sparks traded five-time All-Star guard Kelsey Plum to the Phoenix Mercury for Monique Akoa Makani, a 2027 first-round pick and a 2028 second-rounder — only the fourth time in WNBA history an All-Star has been dealt midseason.
- Kelsey Plum was averaging 23.9 points before a leg injury sidelined her on June 21, a mark that would rank sixth-best single-season scoring average in league history if she still qualified for the leaderboard.
- Connecticut Sun traded Aneesah Morrow to the Toronto Tempo on Friday for the rights to Maria Kliundikova and a 2028 second-round pick, making it the second midseason trade of the season.
- The 2026 WNBA trade deadline is Sunday at 3 p.m. ET, after which teams cannot make trades for the remainder of the season.
- Structural barriers — a hard $7 million salary cap, fewer teams (15 with 8 playoff spots), and a rule requiring teams to own a first-round pick in the next three drafts — have historically kept the WNBA deadline far quieter than the NBA's or MLB's.
- This year's activity is fueled by a wider gap between contenders and lottery teams (8th-place Washington Mystics hold a 4.5-game lead over 9th-place Portland Fire), expansion adding more trade partners, and a deep 2027 draft class headlined by JuJu Watkins, Madison Booker and Hannah Hidalgo.
- The new CBA bumped a max contract's share of the cap from 14% to 17%, a small but meaningful change that makes it harder to absorb or trade a player on a max deal.
Why it matters: The WNBA trade deadline has historically been an afterthought, but the Plum blockbuster combined with expansion, a stacked 2027 draft class and a new CBA that raises max-contract costs has turned this into the league's most consequential trade window — giving contenders like the Valkyries a rare midseason path to plug holes before the playoff push.
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