With several injuries, the Sparks took a creative approach to acquire healthy players.
After the Sparks’ blowout loss to Minnesota on Wednesday without Kelsey Plum (lower left leg) and Cameron Brink (left ankle), they became the first WNBA team to poach another team’s developmental player by offering a contract to Phoenix guard Kiana Williams.
Advertisement
After any player is in a developmental spot for 14 days or more, another WNBA team can take them and offer them a contract for their 12-player regular roster. Teams cannot pluck a developmental player from another team on a developmental deal.
The team the player originally signed with can retain that player if they choose to put them on the regular roster by cutting another player.
If the Mercury let Williams go, the Sparks will have to cut a player from their regular roster.
Developmental player Kate Martin also sustained a left knee injury on Wednesday night, but she only has two games remaining before the Sparks have to elevate her to their regular roster or she will be ineligible to play for them again this season. Another team could also poach her.
Advertisement
If Martin was going to be promoted to the regular roster at some point, they would have to cut a player. But with how banged up the Sparks are and with two bad losses in a row, they might just be trying to change things up.
The 27-year-old Williams has played in eight games this season and averaged 4.8 points on 36.4% shooting from the field in 14.1 minutes per game. She played 11 games for Phoenix last season and has played in 46 during a six-year career that began in Seattle and included a stop in Connecticut.
She is scoring more per game than Sparks rookies Chance Gray and Ta’Niya Latson as well as veterans Emma Cannon, Sania Feagin and Jihyun Park, but only Gray has been in their regular rotation. Williams would have the eighth-most minutes on the Sparks as well.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
