There are still serious issues to be resolved, and the process of building the 海角社区官网Tempo remains unclear, but things are much more real now for general manager Monica Wright Rogers.
The WNBA鈥檚 29th season 鈥 the last before the Tempo join in 2026聽鈥 kicked off with three games Friday night. That gives Wright Rogers a chance to see the women who may be available when an expansion draft is held, and drill down on the group she already anticipates being unprotected.
鈥淭he biggest thing we do is scout everyone and just have a great, great feel for all the players in the league right now, all the upcoming players obviously coming into the league from international and college ranks,鈥 Wright Rogers said in an interview this past week.
鈥淥bviously, we鈥檒l go through several exercises; we鈥檒l lay out some scenarios and some strategies for ourselves. (But) I think based on what we see via analytics, we can almost kind of predict who鈥檒l be available to us come the expansion draft at the end of the year.鈥
Scouting players and anticipating who will be available from among 13 existing teams is truly a broad-strokes exercise because so many details are unclear.
- The WNBA and the players have to negotiate a new collective agreement because the current one expires this summer, and that will surely have an impact on the salary cap that鈥檚 fixed at $1,507,100 (U.S.) per team for this season.
- The league will add 海角社区官网and Portland in 2026 and that will alter the expansion draft experience from that of the Golden State Valkyries, the lone addition this season. For that draft, existing teams were allowed to protect up to six players each.
- Roster sizes might grow from the current 11 or 12.
鈥淚 think the process won鈥檛 be dissimilar to what we鈥檝e seen with the Valkyries聽鈥 I don鈥檛 think we can go to less than that process 鈥斅燽ut there鈥檚 a lot of questions, and I鈥檓 sure we鈥檒l get clarity the closer we get to that (yet to be determined) date,鈥 Wright Rogers said. 鈥淲e can only operate with the information that we have and go from there.鈥
But despite the lingering questions, Wright Rogers can鈥檛 wait to watch players who might wear Tempo jerseys a year from now.
While it鈥檚 too early to discuss specific names, it鈥檚 not too early to look hard at the kinds of players to target. It鈥檒l be months before the Tempo hire their first head coach, a choice that will dictate the style they play. There are also more scouting spots to fill 鈥 covering the WNBA, Europe and the next NCAA season.
鈥淭here鈥檚 obviously some players in our league that are just stars; there are some obvious people that you are going to have to go after no matter what. But when it comes down to style of play, that鈥檚 something we really need a head coach to give us,鈥 she said. 鈥淥n a granular level, we definitely want to make those decisions about the roster in collaboration with our coach.鈥
Until then, Wright Rogers goes back to her go-to basketball history.
鈥淚 come from a scouting background, so a lot of what I will do is based in the scouting space. And I already have existing resources in that space that I pull from that aren鈥檛 officially on staff, but who are part of my professional network.
鈥淚 really do enjoy watching this league in general聽鈥 my TV鈥檚 always on a WNBA game, my phone always has a WNBA game streaming聽鈥 but it is exciting to know and potentially see some of the players that we can hand-pick to be part of the Tempo.鈥
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