Liberty are expected to sign another veteran player on a guaranteed deal. Curious who else Kolb and Brondello want.
moving this over from the Draft thread, but are they expected to outright sign another protected vet, or acquire another protected vet via trade? i’ve said what i said on the latter option, but i’m not sure i see who else is left to outright sign to a guaranteed deal, unless there’s yet another player (namely of the post variety) in the Spanish/Italian/French league who’ll sign a cheap but guaranteed deal in order to get the proper clearance to leave her overseas team early, à la Kennedy Burke.
Whoops. I moved the Stewart signing to this thread. @stormeo
Post by bluedevilsdsufan5 on Feb 27, 2024 0:14:58 GMT -5
Looking at EuroLeague stats, I wonder about Destiny Slocum and Kristine Anigwe? Not sure they are ‘worth’ a protected contract but I’m not sure I would have given that to Burke either.
Anyway they both are upper tier PPG in EuroLeague action. Anigwe is 12th, Slocum is 19th. I notice Fiebich (18th), Dojkic (9th), Burke (6th), Fraser (7th) and Green (17th) are all top 20 scoring who we’ve picked up.
Or maybe it’s Emma Meesseman 😜
Be kind to yourself, the way you expect others to be kind to you.
Good for her, but Dolson has got to be the luckiest player in the league history when it comes to getting contracts. Pretty much every one of her contemporaries is either out of the league or a vet minimum but she still manages to pull 175k. Wild. Good for her.
Good for her, but Dolson has got to be the luckiest player in the league history when it comes to getting contracts. Pretty much every one of her contemporaries is either out of the league or a vet minimum but she still manages to pull 175k. Wild. Good for her.
Dolson had value with the Sky and was a key to them winning the championship in 2021. But her career has greatly declined since them. Why Washington would give her that much is dumbfounding.
For $175,000, doesn’t she pretty much have to be starting alongside Shakira Austin? For what it is worth, while I think of Dolson, Austin, and Egbo as all being centers, the latter two are both listed as Forward/Centers or Center/Forwards on the Mystics website.
For $175,000, doesn’t she pretty much have to be starting alongside Shakira Austin? For what it is worth, while I think of Dolson, Austin, and Egbo as all being centers, the latter two are both listed as Forward/Centers or Center/Forwards on the Mystics website.
Egbo and Austin can’t shoot well enough to start at PF.
For $175,000, doesn’t she pretty much have to be starting alongside Shakira Austin? For what it is worth, while I think of Dolson, Austin, and Egbo as all being centers, the latter two are both listed as Forward/Centers or Center/Forwards on the Mystics website.
Egbo and Austin can’t shoot well enough to start at PF.
Dolson is way too slow. Paired up with Austin or Egbo, and that's a bad defensive setup for DC.
I think that Austin has to start. If she starts at center, then that means that Washington is paying Dolson $175,000 just to be her back-up—indeed, just to be one of two available back-ups at the position. How does that make any sense?
I think that Austin has to start. If she starts at center, then that means that Washington is paying Dolson $175,000 just to be her back-up—indeed, just to be one of two available back-ups at the position. How does that make any sense?
Or they just trade Egbo for a PG. Or another draft pick. Or pair Egbo & Hines-Allen together in a trade.
I think that Austin has to start. If she starts at center, then that means that Washington is paying Dolson $175,000 just to be her back-up—indeed, just to be one of two available back-ups at the position. How does that make any sense?
It's their version of Indiana's Samuelson/Vivians salary situation. Hines-Allen makes more than Dolson so I guess she is the starter at power forward and Dolson is the primary backup at both post positions and Egbo takes any other backup center minutes. Depending on what happens in the draft, it feels like Cunane or Engstler could actually make the roster as the fifth big.
?/Vanloo
Sykes/Walker-Kimbrough
Atkins/Samuelson
Hines-Allen/Dolson
Austin/Egbo
It feels like Richards also has a reasonable chance to make the final roster.
Back during the free agency period of 2021, when the Lynx still had Fowles as a fixture at center and when Collier was a rising young star, they went out and offered max contracts both to Kayla McBride and to Aerial Powers (who was just coming off of a promising season), and a $160,000 contract to Natalie Achonwa, in order to poach them away from their existing teams. They did so with the idea that their addition to the team might allow the Lynx to compete for a championship. (I suppose that it was with much the same idea that Indiana just went out and signed Samuelson for $175,000, and that it was with kind of the same idea that the Mystics offered MHA her contract in order to keep her from leaving in free agency after her promising season.) Things did not work out for the Lynx as they expected, at least not with Powers and Achonwa, and Aerial in particular ended up buried deep on Reeve's bench despite the max contract that she received when the Lynx at one time thought she might be their starting SF. (Things likewise have not worked out for the Mystics, at least not so far, with MHA.)
The thing is that the Washington Mystics are not competing for a championship, not this year or during either of the two years of Stefanie Dolson's two-year contract, and the Mystics certainly knew that when they offered $175,000 to Dolson to re-sign with the team that originally drafted her. So why did they overpay in order to poach her away from the Liberty? Personally, I don't think it's so that she can be a back-up (and a second back-up at that barring an Egbo trade) on a team that clearly had no prayer of competing for a championship when the contract offer was made. Maybe I'm completely out to lunch, but based on the current roster and the amount of money that Dolson was offered, I expect to see Dolson and Austin to spend significant time on the court together.
P.S.--This part is intended as a response to Awhom's post: I never said or meant to suggest that a player's current salary, based on a contract that may have been signed years earlier, will in any way dictate their role on a team, and specifically, whether or not they start. What I do believe and mean to suggest is that the offer which a team makes in order to convince a free agent to sign with the team is oftentimes indicative of their plans and intentions for that player, plans which may or may not be borne out in the long run.
I thought that I'd add a little more to my last post in order to cut off an objection that may be coming. As I said, during the 2021 free agency period, the Lynx offered Natalie Achonwa $160,000 in order to sign with Minnesota and to be a back-up for Sylvia Fowles. Given the manner in which league salaries have grown, $160,000 in 2021 is pretty comparable as an offer to $175,000 in 2024. Doesn't that undercut the point that I was making about the size of the offer to Dolson?
I don't think so. When the Lynx made their free agency signings in 2021, they did so with aspirations of competing for a championship. More specifically, they were aspiring to compete for a championship with a soon-to-be 36-year-old center who had a history of breaking down during the regular season and thus not being fully available for the playoffs. Indeed, in the season immediately preceding the free agency signings, 2020, Fowles appeared in just 7 games. While the Lynx were not offering Achonwa $160,000 to come to Minnesota in a starting role, they were offering her that money to perform a no less important function for the team's title aspirations, to be a veteran center capable of spelling Fowles and keeping her fresh for the postseason. I don't think that the situation in Washington is at all comparable, which is why I question why the Mystics would agree to spend $175,000 on a second back-up center.