By ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK (AP) — The WNBA will have its first expansion draft in 16 years in December as the Golden State Valkyries start to fill out their roster.
The draft will be on Dec. 6 and the Valkyries will begin play next season.
Teams will be able to protect a maximum of six players who will not be available for selection by Golden State. All other players on a team’s roster will be eligible for selection by the Valkyries. Players that are unrestricted free agents must be designated on a team’s list as such and must be either on the protected players list or the unprotected list.
The Valkyries will only be able to choose one player from each team and can select players in the draft without regard to the league’s salary cap. Golden State, though, must be below the cap at the start of the player contract signing period in February.
While this expansion draft is relatively straight forward, next year’s one when Toronto and Portland come into the league could be a lot more difficult. Most of the league’s players have contracts that expire next season with an expected new collective bargaining agreement set to take place that will most likely balloon salaries.
A high percentage of the league, who are not on their rookie contracts, will be unrestricted free agents. That will make it more difficult for teams to figure out which players to protect.
The last time the league had an expansion draft was in 2008 when the Atlanta Dream began play.
The WNBA hasn’t announced where Golden State will pick in the upcoming college draft next April. The Dream had the fourth pick in the 2008 draft before trading it.
The Valkyries have hired Ohemaa Nyanin as their general manager and already have more than 17,500 season ticket deposits.
