With the Dallas Wings having won Sunday’s WNBA draft lottery, the focus of the 12 existing teams now shifts toward a very different type of draft: the Golden State Valkyries expansion draft, the first in the WNBA since 2008.
Ahead of the Dec. 6 announcement of the draft results on ESPN, each current team has until Monday to submit a list of up to six protected players, including both those who finished the season on their roster and all others to whom the team holds rights.
The inclusion of player rights, most notably for draft picks who have yet to come to the WNBA and are “stashed” overseas, could produce interesting decisions on who teams will protect. Conversely, teams don’t have to protect unrestricted free agents who have already played the maximum two years on contracts signed with the core designation, taking some of the league’s biggest names off the table.
Golden State can choose one player from each team and only one total unrestricted free agent, who then becomes eligible to be designated a core player by the Valkyries. With those rules in mind, let’s…
