How FIBA World Cup impacts WNBA players at home and abroad, creates opportunity that's 'good for our league'

· Yahoo Sports

The suspensions began hitting the WNBA waiver wire over the weekend. 

There’s no hidden drama or tea here. It’s a common practice for WNBA front offices to temporarily suspend a player’s contract when they report to their national team for competitions. Connecticut’s Leila Lacan (France) and Minnesota pair Dorka Juhasz (Hungary) and Antonia Delaere (Belgium) left early to join their national teams’ training camps ahead of the World Cup, while the majority waited for the break that begins on Monday, a wrench in the works of WNBA seasons for decades. 

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Every other year, the WNBA enters an international hiatus period so that players can represent their senior national teams in the Olympics or FIBA World Cup. In the past, it concluded its season ahead of the World Cup in late September. The Las 2022 Vegas Aces secured the title on Sept. 18, and the World Cup tipped off from Australia on Sept. 22. 

But as the WNBA schedule expands to a league-high 44 games this year with more to be added in the coming years, the league can no longer cram it all in. Fortunately for players and the league, FIBA’s Central Board approved rescheduling the competition to November-December beginning in 2030. 

The 2026 World Cup, held in Germany from Sept. 4-13, consists of an expanded 16-team draw. Competitors include WNBA players representing Australia, Belgium, China, Czechia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mali, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Spain, Türkiye and the U.S. Rosters for every country were not yet released, but WNBA teams in Golden State (29-11), Las Vegas (27-13), New York (24-16), Washington (24-16), Phoenix (14-26) and Toronto (11-29) will be without a handful of players as well as coaches. 

Those hanging back receive the benefit of rest, relaxation and extra practice time, a rarity in the league’s densely packed and occasionally oddly enacted schedule

The collective bargaining agreement (CBA) signed in March requires teams to give players not competing in the World Cup a vacation of seven consecutive days. It is at the team’s discretion whether players split their vacations into two groups, as detailed in Article XL of the CBA, or if they all take it at the same time. 

“I mean, I’m looking forward to it,” Lynx guard Kayla McBride told local reporters earlier this month. “I’m opening up my coffee shop [near Charlotte]. I’m going to Hawaii, probably. I’m going to my first Vikings game during that break.” 

Teams are not allowed to hold more than seven practices per week during the hiatus, and no practice can exceed three hours, or four if it includes film or conditioning activities, according to the CBA. A team could practice 10 days during the break with their full remaining squad if given the same vacation time period. 

“I do think that break is good for our league,” Fever guard Sophie Cunningham said ahead of a win in Toronto in mid-August. “I think you're going to see a really competitive playoff game and competitiveness in each series this year, just because you kind of have that extra break for people to rest their bodies a little bit.”

Cunningham knows what it takes to utilize an international hiatus as a launching pad for a Finals run. In 2021, her Mercury team entered the month-long Tokyo Olympic break at 9-10 and finished 10-3 on the backside for a playoff berth. 

She credits the chemistry-building time for “the others,” the players who weren’t on Olympic rosters and a moniker she has taken to using for Fever players not named Caitlin Clark, Aliyah Boston and Kelsey Mitchell. Clark and Boston, as well as head coach Stephanie White, will be with Team USA in Germany. 

“It gives us other players just kind of time to rest our bodies, but really just a mental break, too,” Cunningham said. 

That 2021 postseason proved one of the most surprising in league history. The No. 5-seeded Mercury and No. 6 Chicago Sky were the lowest seeds to reach the Finals in league history. The Sky won in four games, becoming the lowest seed to win it all. 

The Liberty, a team besieged by injuries again, could join such rare air while sitting in sixth currently. They will be without six players during the break: Breanna Stewart (USA), Leonie Fiebich (Germany), Pauline Astier (France), Marine Johannès (France), Han Xu (China) and Raquel Carrera (Spain). The Mystics, a roster with merely three players of more than one year of experience, will be without two of their young stars as Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen replace A’ja Wilson and Kelsey Plum, who pulled out of the World Cup on Monday for health reasons. But Washington, the current No. 7 seed, is playing with house money as a young rebuilding franchise. 

A similar month-long hiatus for the 2024 Paris Olympics created opportunity. The Fever caught fire out of the break, going 8-2 to finish Clark’s rookie season and reach the playoffs for the first time since 2016. The breather was Clark’s first in nearly a year after she went from a national championship game season with Iowa directly into her rookie year. 

That’s the type of refresher Olivia Miles, a near lock for Rookie of the Year, could use, particularly as the Minnesota Lynx stand atop the table with their eyes set on the franchise’s record fifth WNBA championship. They last won in 2017.  

The World Cup break is significantly shorter than either of those, and falls at an awkward time in the calendar. The eight postseason berths are clinched, and there are merely eight days remaining in the regular season when teams return to action on Sept. 17. 

“Coming back from the World Cup, we have a couple of games, then you’re right into playoffs,” Allisha Gray said on Yahoo Sports’ Hoops 360 last month. “I feel like that break will be well needed.” 

The playoff-bound Dream, as with most of the league, will play four games in seven days to finish off the season and close on a two-game road trip in New York. Gray intends to prepare for the final push by playing extra golf, a favorite pastime. 

The expansion Tempo, another team that navigated a litany of injuries, will miss the playoffs. The team will practice during the break for their final week of four games without Carla Leite (France), Julie Allemand (Belgium) or Maria Conde (Spain). They will also be without head coach Sandy Brondello, the Australian national coach, who will leave straight from her home in Phoenix after Toronto’s game there on Saturday. Associate head coach Olaf Lange is the head coach for Germany, which has not released its final roster.   

As is the case when players miss time due to absences, Brondello told Yahoo Sports the break is an opportunity for her assistants to gain experience. 

“They’re good opportunities for them to have a bigger voice in front of the team and to lead,” Brondello said. “I think it’s great. I do that with the Australian team, everyone else gets to lead. They’d get bored if it was just me.” 

Their front offices will begin the typical end-of-season business in earnest without any game-day tasks begging for their attention. 

“We really want to take a deep dive and make sure that we’re discussing with coaches all facets of how we feel about how the season went,” Tempo general manager Monica Wright Rogers told Yahoo Sports. “And take that time to also prepare [development] plans for the players’ postseason that they’ll take with them wherever they go.” 

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