Storm Will Need to be Smart with the Salary Cap

I hope you like math and numbers!

As the new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) was agreed upon, WNBA players will receive a significant increase in their pay. This also means the Salary Cap is going way, way up. In the previous CBA, minimum salaries were around $66,000, and the Supermax salary was roughly $250,000 with a total team salary cap set at $1,507,100. This year, that increases to $270,000/$1,400,000/$7,000,000. That means teams will have a lot more money to spend, but with the higher salaries, they’re going to have to be smart with where they put their money.

With Free Agency upon us, it’s time for the Storm to decide what type of team they want to put together for the 2026 WNBA season. Last season’s Seattle Storm team was a frustrating watch because they had so much talent, and yet, the results weren’t there. They should have been title contenders, but they nearly missed the playoffs entirely. They gave the eventual champions, the Las Vegas Aces, their toughest matchup in the playoffs, but they weren’t able to get the job done and were eliminated in the first round.

Months ago, I wrote this.

“I could be wrong, but I think there is a good chance that Diggins and Ogwumike play the rest of their career together. But will that be in Seattle? If it’s going to be in Seattle with the Storm, they are going to have to find a way to transition into more complementary pieces. If they’re struggling to lead the team to the playoffs now, I’m not confident that they will have more success as they turn 36, 37, 38, etc. Especially with the league likely expanding to 48-60 games soon…

A partial rebuild would be Seattle moving on from its oldest veterans (Diggins, Ogwumike, Wheeler), but trying to retain Gabby Williams, Ezi Magbegor, and possibly Brittney Sykes. Plus, Dominique Malonga, Jordan Horston, the future first-round picks, etc.

A complete rebuild would likely go with just a full youth movement of Dominique Malonga, Jordan Horston, Ezi Magbegor, and the 2026 first-round pick(s). This would ask Horston to step into a starting role. It would also require Magbegor to have a larger role on the offensive end. Similar to 2023, they would likely lose a lot of games. But ideally, LA misses the playoffs this year, and you combine a 2026 lottery pick with Dominique Malonga, plus maybe another lottery pick in 2027, and build around that core with Horston and Magbegor as well.”

Depending on the path they choose to take, we’ll know where the team’s money will be allotted. Below, I wrote down the percentages of the salary cap each player made last season and what the rough equivalent would be this season.

Gabby Williams made around 15% of the salary cap. That would now be $1,050,000.
Skylar Diggins made around 14% of the salary cap. In 2026 = $980,000.
Nneka Ogwumike made around 13% of the salary cap. In 2026 = $910,000.
Brittney Sykes made around 13% of the salary cap. In 2026 = $910,000.
Ezi Magbegor made around 12% of the salary cap. In 2026 = $840,000.
Dominique Malonga made 5% of the salary cap. In 2026 = $350,000.
Erica Wheeler made 5% of the salary cap (now $350,000).
Lexie Brown made 6% of the salary cap (now $420,000).
Katie Lou Samuelson made 6% of the salary cap ($420,000).
Mackenzie Holmes made 3% of the cap ($224,000).
Tiffany Mitchell made 3% of the cap ($224,000).

That total would equal $6,678,000. But that’s only good for 11 players, and the Storm will be required to have 12 in the new CBA. Plus, that includes some partial-season salaries of Mackenzie Holmes and Tiffany Mitchell.

Per the incredible Her Hoop Stats team, the Storm will need $436,016 for the 3rd overall pick. They’ll need around $289,000 for their late first-round pick (14th overall), and another $270,000 each for their 2nd and 3rd round picks. Of course, not all draft picks will likely make the team. Some might end up as part of the Development Squad. This just gives us a general idea of what salaries could look like.

One big adjustment I had to make with the latest contract details for 2026 from Her Hoop Stats is that I thought the older contracts that still had years remaining would still be based on the old CBA valuations. For instance, I thought Dominique Malonga and Jordan Horston would still only be making around $70,000-$80,000 this year. And that Lexie Brown’s guaranteed contract would still be under $100,000 total. That would have made things significantly easier to build a loaded roster, but I wouldn’t feel good about it.

Fortunately for the players, those contracts are all being adjusted. Per HHS, Dominique Malonga will make around $467,000 this season after making less than $80,000 in 2025. Jordan Horston gets a nice bump to around $332,000. Brown’s deal increases to $277,500. Because the Portland Fire took Nika Mühl in the expansion draft, these three players are the only players currently signed to the Storm’s roster. Their salaries come to a total of $1,076,691, leaving the Storm with $5,923,309 with nine players left to sign.

If we divided that up by the nine remaining players, those players would need to average out to $658,145. Of course, we already know that the team will be adding at least one rookie to the team, and possibly two to four in total. Let’s say the Storm’s two first-round picks make the team, and the 3rd and 4th picks (from the 2nd and 3rd rounds) are put onto the Development Squad. I mentioned the prices above for these 2026 first-round draft picks; combined, they equal $725,016. Now Seattle’s salary spent is $1,801,707, and their remaining cap space would be $5,198,293. Divide that total by seven (5 players under contract, 7 more to sign), and that averages out to $742,613.

This is all hypothetical, but let’s use my estimates from above to see if that could work. If we combined the Storm’s starting five (Skylar, Brittney, Gabby, Nneka, and Ezi) with their new projections, that would total $4,690,000. Subtract that from our projected salary cap after signing five players, and that leaves Seattle with $508,293 for two more players ($254,147 each), while the average minimum player salary will be $285,000, and the absolute cheapest it can be is $270,000. We obviously have a problem here. In this scenario, we are already over the salary cap limit of $7,000,000. Not to mention the fact that we didn’t pay even one player the Supermax ($1.4 million) or the fact that teams will want to save some salary cap space (probably between $200,000-$500,000) to potentially work a mid-season trade or sign additional players in the case of an unexpected injury.

So what happens if the Storm want to (or need to) pay two players the Supermax contract? That could be Nneka and Skylar or Gabby and Ezi. The Supermax is roughly 20% of the salary cap. For two players, it would be 40% of the cap. That’s $1.4 million times two = $2.8 million + the $1,076,691 for the three current rostered players (Dominique, Jordan, Lexie), and now we have five players taking up $3,876,691, leaving the team with $3,123,309 for seven players. That would average the remaining seven players out to $446,187. With the new CBA, there is no longer an option to only roster 11 players. Teams must roster 12 players.

There is more granular math here. If we have the three currently signed players + two supermax contracts + two rookie contracts for the 3rd and 14th overall picks, we’d be looking at $4,601,707 of the salary cap used up, leaving the team with $2,398,293 in cap space. That would mean the final five players’ salaries would average around $479,658. Once again, this isn’t factoring in that the team needs to save probably somewhere between $200,000-$500,000 in case of future trades or signings throughout the season.

Could the Storm offer two players a Supermax deal ($1.4 million) and still build the team? Due to their younger players (Malonga and Horston) plus their future draft picks, they should be able to make it work. Things definitely get a lot more complicated if they’re trying to pay a third player the regular max of around $1.1 million, however.

What if the Storm were to offer four players the regular max (around $1 million)? The five existing players of Dom, Jordan, and Lexie, plus the two first-round draft picks (#3, 14), equal $1,801,707. Adding four players at $1 million each gets us to $5,801,707 for 9 roster spots, which leaves $1,198,293 for three more players ($399,431). If the team saves $200,000 for additional emergency cap space, that would leave the three remaining players with an average of $332,764.

It seems that either option could work, but the team definitely has to be careful. Paying two players the Supermax can work if they’re going to have multiple rookies or minimum contracts to fill out the roster. Paying four players around $1 million each can also work, but the rest of the players will need to be similar to lower-end contracts.

We’ve talked a lot about the two timelines. Trying to compete now with multiple star players on higher-paying contracts or rebuilding through the draft. I think the biggest thing is that Seattle doesn’t want to sign older veterans to multi-year max or supermax deals. That is probably the worst thing they can do. If players like Nneka and Skylar were interested in one-year deals, that makes it more palpable compared to if they’re looking for multi-year deals at or near the max salary.

By comparison, signing Gabby Williams and Ezi Magbegor to longer-term deals makes more sense, as Gabby is in the prime of her career (29 years old) and Ezi is just entering hers (26 years old).

I think it’s highly doubtful that the Storm will retain all five starters from last year’s playoff team. There are too many variables, and too much money would go into the starters, where it’d be difficult to build the rest of the team around them, even on minimum deals. Frankly, I’m not sure I see even three starters re-signing with the Storm. Both Dominique Malonga and Jordan Horston can move into starting roles in 2026. It’s also certainly possible that the #3 overall pick could as well, whether that’s Olivia Miles, Azzi Fudd, Kiki Rice, Flau’jae Johnson, etc.

We could see something like this: Olivia Miles, Jordan Horston, Gabby Williams, Ezi Magbegor, and Dominique Malonga. Or maybe it’s Skylar Diggins, Azzi Fudd, Gabby Williams, Nneka Ogwumike, and Dominique Malonga.

If the Storm are going to pay any of their players the Supermax or max salary, they should pay their younger players entering their prime. Or try to attract outside free agents who fit that bill. Since it appears that the Las Vegas Aces didn’t place the Core franchise tag on Jackie Young, I’d try to offer her the max to get her to sign in Seattle.

Within the next few days, we should know if the Storm are looking to bring back their veteran core of Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins, or if they’re ready to build around more youth (Dom, Jordan, Ezi, and probably Gabby).

After writing this article, I have received confirmation that the Seattle Storm placed the Core franchise tag on Ezi Magbegor. I’ll put out a separate article for that. I’ll just note that there will be multiple options there. Magbegor might sign a one-year guaranteed contract at the supermax value of $1.4 million, but that’s not the only option the Storm and Ezi have.

Notes:
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