Mercury’s 2026 WNBA season outlook after historic CBA negotiations appeared first on ClutchPoints. Add ClutchPoints as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Six months prior, Phoenix Mercury general manager Nick U’Ren braced himself for an offseason of uncertainty due to the looming WNBA, CBA agreement.
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24 hours before, Phoenix was in the WNBA Finals, and eventually swept by the Las Vegas Aces.
Still, the trio of Kahleah Copper, Alyssa Thomas, and Satou Sabally all showed major promise together despite not playing together until the back end of the season.
The talent was undeniable, and the chemistry was beyond impressive for playing together for the first time in their respective careers.
The entire offseason was filled with questions surrounding whether there would be a season or not. When negotiations kicked off at the beginning of March, it felt like a stalemate between the players and the league office.
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After nearly 10 days and an incline in progress, the WNBA revealed a new CBA agreement that will be in effect for the next seven years. However, it doesn’t give the Mercury much time to shake up their roster.
With just about a month before preseason play begins, Phoenix has some questions to answer rather quickly.
How will the Mercury resign its superstar trio?
© Rob Schumacher/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
A one-season sample size might be all the franchise needs for them to commit to Copper, Sabally, and Thomas again. The latter was in the MVP and Defensive Player of the Year conversation.
She eventually made the All-WNBA first team and defensive first team. Playing in 39 of the team’s 44 games, health wasn’t much of an issue.
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For Copper, she battled two consecutive injuries that kept her sidelined through a solid chunk of the beginning of the season. Nonetheless, she showed that she’s the team’s best scorer and clutch shot-maker. Furthermore, Copper’s leadership style for the Mercury, rooted in relatability, gave them an extra jolt.
Lastly, there is Sabally, the youngest of the three and perhaps the one with the most potential. Dubbed as ‘the unicorn’ when she was at Oregon, there is more than a valid explanation.
She has the finesse of a guard, but the all-around skills of a 3-level scorer. In her first season in Phoenix, Sabally made the All-Star game and had an amazing first half of the season. Then, the inefficiency caught up, and was an underlying theme the rest of the season.
All three players jelled well and were able to play off one another, but here’s the kicker: they are all due for a new contract.
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Granted, the CBA increased the salary cap to $7 million, compared to $1.5. The top supermax salary jumps to $1.4 million, and each player could feel they deserve it.
While the Mercury could navigate well after the CBA negotiations, committing to those three for the supermax only leaves $2.8 million for key depth pieces.
Much of why they succeeded was how deep they were. Luckily, players like Kathryn Westbeld and Monique Akoa Makani are under rookie contracts, which won’t affect the cap too much.
They were also starters, and ones that head coach Nate Tibbetts had full confidence in.
This might not be a matter of extending the three superstars: it might be a matter of keeping or even improving the surrounding cast around the trio.
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The Mercury need to prepare for the upcoming expansion draft
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The expansion draft goes hand-in-hand with potentially extending Copper, Thomas, and Sabally. Luckily for Phoenix, the expansion draft has some nice rules to protect its roster.
They can keep up to six players from being poached by either the Toronto Tempo or the Portland Fire. Either way, three of those will automatically go to the trio.
But what about the other three?
As mentioned earlier, Makani and Westbeld showed legitimate value and fit seamlessly into Tibbetts’s system. The head coach even called his rookie point guard the best pick-and-roll defender in the league, from an analytics and metrics standpoint.
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And then there’s Sami Whitcomb and DeWanna Bonner, two of the most impactful veterans off the bench. Money still needs to go their way if they are a part of the team next season.
The unrestricted free agents seem too many to count, so U’Ren will certainly have his hands full.
Nate Tibbetts’s coaching staff is intriguing
Although assistant coach Michael Joiner left for the Seattle Storm, he still has Kristi Toliver as the associate head coach. He’s talked extensively about her chance to be the head coach one day.
While she’s with the team, Toliver has been the perfect bridge between the players and the coaching staff. Her basketball acumen and maximizing players’ strengths are easily her biggest weapons.
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After all, her first stint as a head coach came in Game 4 of the WNBA Finals, when Tibbetts was subsequently ejected.
As of writing this, Megan Vogel remains with the staff. She was a major part of helping them develop the five-out and positionless offense. The Mercury will miss Joiner’s ‘intelligent aggression’ philosophy on the defensive end, but have two assistants returning.
For both Tibbetts and U’Ren, they’re racing against the clock. The first preseason game begins on April 25 against the Chicago Sky in Tibbetts’s home state of South Dakota.
Between then and now, establishing the roster, more assistant coaching spots, and committing to an identity should be at the forefront of the Mercury’s mind.
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Otherwise, a trip to the WNBA Finals could fade like the Phoenix sun.
Related: Why Mercury legend Diana Taurasi is ‘proud’ of historic WNBA CBA agreement
