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Under Brondello, who has won two titles and never missed the playoffs, the Tempo appear to be a team very much embracing the now and the opportunity that comes with the blank slate in front of them, with wide eyes at the thought of all the roster-building possibilities while also introducing WNBA basketball to another country. “To build a team from the ground up, that really excited me,” Brondello said. The teams are joining the league at a unique time, with the WNBA and its players negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement, and the league’s 11-year, $2.2 billion television rights deal beginning next season. Seeing these factors on the horizon, the majority of players structured their contracts to end this year. According to Her Hoops Stats data, there are 105 unrestricted free agents, 17 restricted free agents, 32 reserve players, and 15 suspended contracts. For context, there is a maximum of 156 roster spots available based on the 12-player roster size set by the previous CBA. Essentially, Toronto and Portland have the entire league to choose from. “This is just a little different situation, obviously,” Brondello said. “A lot of the players are free agents. Yes, we’ll be an expansion team, but summer in Toronto is pretty special, I hear, so hopefully we can get some pretty special players to represent the Tempo . . . We have an opportunity to bring in the right players.” Meanwhile, the Fire sound like a tech startup, laser-focused on the idea of innovation and integrating every level. Sarama, who was previously director of player development and an assistant coach for the NBA’s Cavaliers, beamed at the idea of implementing key performance indicators, introducing a constraints-led approach to coaching, and said one of the measures of success for his first season will be building on one of the leading analytics programs in the WNBA, with player health as a point of emphasis. “I’ll be utilizing a principles-of-play approach to offense and defense,” he said. “I want to prepare the team for where basketball is going and the future for how I think the game is going to be played. And that means incorporating trends which are emerging in global basketball, whether it’s the men’s and women’s EuroLeague, B1 in Japan, NBL in Australia, or the WNBA and NBA. I want to really embrace all these unique ideas and create a style of play that is unique to the Fire.” Like the Tempo, the Fire see a blank canvas, but they’re using it differently. “We’re actually going to be creating some roles and some titles which we’ve never seen before in professional basketball, some hybrid roles that I think are so exciting,” Sarama said. The Fire have a large-scale — and ambitious — vision for what they want their franchise to be. “We’re going to focus on the tangible values and behaviors every day that allows us to create an environment of psychological safety, and that’s not just for the players but very importantly for the staff,” Sarama said. “Because if we want to be on the cutting edge of innovation and having the staff come up with brilliant ideas every single day, then it needs to be a psychologically safe environment. I want this to be one of the best places to work in professional sports.” The word of the week in women’s basketball is “equity.” Southern Cal star JuJu Watkins became the first college athlete to invest directly in a women’s pro sports team, buying a stake in the National Women’s Soccer League’s Boston Legacy. Meanwhile, Nneka Ogwumike, a 10-time WNBA All-Star, 2016 MVP and champion, plus president of the players’ union, joined the upstart offseason league Project B, which is set to launch next fall. Signing a contract with the league comes with a salary-plus-equity arrangement. Their public comments are almost mirror images. Ogwumike told the Associated Press, “For there to be an entry level of equity across the board was eye-catching. It’s something that I stand for, obviously.” Watkins told Bloomberg, “When you’re talking about equity, those opportunities don’t come around as often as endorsements, so this raised my eyebrows and piqued my interest even more.” A positive sign for the WNBA calendar: The league set Nov. 23 as the date for its draft lottery. Dallas has the highest odds of winning the No. 1 overall pick (40 percent). Minnesota, which acquired the rights to Chicago’s pick, has the second-best odds (25 percent). The team with the worst overall record of the remaining teams is guaranteed the third pick, and so on. Connecticut traded its 2026 first-round pick to Chicago in 2024 to acquire Marina Mabrey, but got back into the first round by acquiring the Liberty’s first-round pick in exchange for Natasha Cloud.
