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Close Menu. RSS Feed. A player on a rookie scale contract can sign an extension that will be effective for their fifth year in the league. They can extend their contract for up to three years bringing them to a total of the first seven years of their career. Another way to qualify for a supermax contract going forward - effective January 1, - is to be a free agent with five or more years of service and sign with your prior team.

In earlier years, including the first offseason under the new CBA, the requirement was six or more years of service. Free agents designated as a core player by their team are also eligible for the supermax regardless of their years of service.

Finally, veteran extensions can qualify for the supermax if specific criteria are met. A player must have five or more years of service after January 1, or six seasons prior to that date in order to be eligible for the supermax. They also must have been under contract for at least part of each of the two previous seasons. If they played for multiple teams over those two seasons, they must have changed teams via assignment almost always a trade or have signed with their most recent team as a free agent during the first season.

This means that a contract signed at the supermax in will only match the league's supermax salary in and Players with two or fewer years of service are at the lowest level, while players with three or more years of service have a higher minimum base salary.

For example, a free agent who played in , , and is governed by the higher minimum base salary in There are a few exceptions to the listed minimum base salary. The CBA actually allows for rookie scale contracts to fall below the league minimum, which only happens in a few situations.

The other situations where players may earn less than the league minimum in a season are for non-standard contracts like seven-day contracts , rest-of-season contracts , or replacement contracts. These partial season contracts are prorated based on the percentage of days in the season the player is under contract, so by definition, the player will earn less than a full minimum salary. Seven-day contracts and rest-of-season contracts use the regular minimums before proration is applied.

Base salary protection is an agreement between a player and their team that allows a player to still receive their base salary in the event of being released due to lack of skill, injury, or illness. While protection is the term used in the CBA, it is commonly referred to as guaranteeing a salary.

All or part of a player's salary can be protected, and payment is conditioned on not engaging in prohibited activities that will be outlined below. Contracts can include any combination of the types of protection permitted by the CBA, which are detailed below. Teams can choose to protect certain years and not others. For example, a player could receive a fully protected salary in but no protection in While partial salary protection is allowed for a single season i.

The one exception to the maximum of six protected contracts is that fourth-year team option for rookies drafted in or later do not count.

It should be noted that protected salaries only come into play when a player's contract is terminated due to lack of skill, injury, or illness. If a team instead wants to keep the player, the team can suspend the player without pay if the injury occurs before the season begins or keep the player on the active roster and continue to pay them. All contracts become fully guaranteed after the midpoint of the season, so it is common to see a wave of cuts before the midpoint of the season.

A player and their team can choose any combination of those protections, but all four are included for most protected salaries. If the team seeks to take out insurance for the player - which would allow the team to recoup some costs in the event they need to pay a player who isn't even playing - the player needs to cooperate by filing the required forms and receiving any physical exams that are needed.

Teams are not allowed to insure against a lack of skill. Lack of skill pertains to players who do not perform well enough to remain on the team. If a player with an unprotected base salary were cut, they would not earn any money for the remainder of the regular season, but a player with a protected contract would still receive either all or part of their remaining salary.

As long as a player's level of play is not faltering due to certain off-the-court activities, including the use of prohibited substances or committing a felony, the player is owed the protected portion of their salary if they are cut because of their performance. Players may also have their salaries protected for injuries or illnesses that occur on or off the court.

Teams can choose to include injury protection in someone's contract, but exclude certain reinjuries or limit the amount a player can get paid if they are reinjured. This means a team who is negotiating with someone with a history of ACL tears could make a deal with the player to not pay them their protected salary or a fraction of it if the player once again injures their ACL.

There are also additional requirements for non-basketball related injuries, mostly limiting which activities are deemed too dangerous for players to take part in without written consent from the team. For example, players generally do not get paid if they are injured from risky activities such as sky-diving or bungee-jumping, even if their contracts are protected from injury or illness. Activities like soccer or baseball are also deemed to be an excessive risk-yet softball is explicitly listed as an acceptable activity.

For off-season injury or illnesses, any injuries that occur as a result of off-season non-WNBA playing obligations do not count as protected injuries.

This includes injuries that occur while playing for national teams and international professional teams. Because the injury happened during her WNBA obligations, her salary was protected and the Aces wouldn't have had any benefit in waiving her. All other types of contracts may have base salary protection, but it must be negotiated. The only contracts that must have base salary protection are fourth-year option seasons on rookie contracts and signed core qualifying offers.

A player who has been cored could then negotiate a contract with their team that is not protected, but the one-year qualifying offer must contain salary protection if it is accepted. While all other types of qualifying offers can't have base salary protection, players who have received qualifying offers can still negotiate for a contract that includes protections. Players typically sign contracts in terms of an annual salary, which is the base salary of a contract that lasts the entirety of the regular season.

Annual salaries are prorated if players join a team mid-season or leave a team mid-season. In either case, players will earn a fraction of the annual salary to account for the part of the season before or after their contract is in place. The CBA specifies that the proration is based on the number of days of the regular season, not the number of games, that the player was under contract.

If the player has a fully protected salary, this is not an issue because they will earn the same amount regardless of when in the season they are released. During a normal season, players are paid one-eighth of their base salary twice per month. The CBA specifies that the payments begin on or around June 1 and continue until approximately September In years with an Olympic hiatus, the expanded schedule for games translates to an expanded schedule for payments.

Players receive one-ninth of their base salary twice per month because of the extended regular season. The payments begin on or around June 1 and continue until approximately September A rest-of-season contract is a contract that is entered into after the start of the regular season. Because the contract begins after the regular season has started, the player will receive a prorated amount of their base salary depending on when the contract is signed.

The contract also cannot have any sort of base salary protection. The base salary can be any value between the league minimum and maximum, though they are typically for the minimum.

The base salary is then multiplied by the fraction consisting of the number of days covered by the contract divided by the total number of days in the regular season. A replacement contract is similar to a rest-of-season contract, but teams are only allowed to sign a player to a replacement contract if multiple players are currently unable to play under a hardship or emergency hardship exception.

The contract is signed for the remainder of the season but must be terminated if the player being replaced returns from their injury.

Replacement contracts are the only time a team may exceed the league's salary cap during the regular season. Teams can become eligible to sign players to replacement contracts if they qualify for either a hardship exception or an emergency hardship exception.

The basic hardship exception is for teams with two players who are out because of injury, illness, or other conditions. Both players must be unable to play for at least three weeks from the time the team requests an exception. Whether or not an injured player will be unable to play for the next three weeks is determined by a physician designated by the league.

If additional players are expected to be out for an extended period of time, the team may start the process again to request an additional exception. Crucially, the second injured player must miss at least two consecutive games before the team can ask the league for an exemption.

Therefore, no team can sign a player to a replacement contract under the basic hardship exception for opening night. An emergency hardship exception is allowed, at the discretion of the league, when a team has fewer than 10 available players on their roster. This can be a result of injury or illness like the regular hardship exception, but players who are away from the team for other reasons count as well.

If granted the exception, the team can sign as many players to replacement contracts as needed to reach 10 available players. As the original players return to play, the team must terminate those replacement contracts to remain at 10 players until at least 10 non-replacement players are available. A seven-day contract is exactly what it sounds like, a contract that is in effect for only seven days.

They may only be signed in the second half of the season. These contracts are used as a flexible alternative to standard or rest-of-season contracts when filling out the roster, or when covering for an injured player.

As noted in the base salary protection section, all contracts become fully guaranteed after the midpoint of the season, so seven-day contracts are a very low commitment compared to a rest-of-season contract that must be paid out in full even if the player is released.

The contracts are at the minimum base salary and prorated where the fraction is seven divided by the total number of days in the regular season. Seven-day contracts cannot extend to or past the end of the regular season, so they must be signed at least eight days prior to the last day of the regular season. Additionally, a player can only sign three or fewer seven-day contracts with the same team in any one season.

However, they can sign with multiple teams in the same season. A player who signs a rest-of-season contract will receive a year of service once they have been on the roster for one day. Players do not earn a year of service for years in which they were signed only to replacement contracts or seven-day contracts.

On a similar note, because rookie eligibility doesn't always mean having zero years of service, a player who has only ever been signed to replacement contracts or seven-day contracts is still considered a rookie when signing a standard player contract.

This means that a player who goes undrafted and then signs either a replacement or seven-day contract in their first year would then be governed by a rookie contract when they are signed to a standard contract. A training camp contract is a non-standard contract that is only used in the preseason. Between February 1 and the first day of the regular season, teams may sign players to one-year, non-guaranteed, minimum salaries that aren't added to the salary cap until the first day of the regular season when they become standard contracts if they aren't terminated.

Rookies in the first year of their contracts are also considered to be on training camp contracts until the first day of the regular season. Training camp contracts are meant to allow teams to check out many potential players in the preseason and are never included in a team's final salary. Thus, they do not affect the team minimum or league-wide guarantee unless the player makes the team and it becomes a standard contract.

Time off bonuses are payments made to players to encourage them to refrain from or limit the time spent performing basketball activities with other organizations in the WNBA offseason. That increase is in line with the rate that base salaries may increase throughout a contract.

The time off bonus clause in the contract will specify that a player is permitted to play a given number of days professionally outside of the WNBA during the offseason. The requirement can range from a limit of 90 days allowed down to zero days no professional play during the WNBA offseason. That limit can also vary from season to season in a contract.

Time off bonuses are included in a team's total salary unless they have been canceled, and therefore also have to fit under the salary cap. The bonus counts on the cap for the season before the player has to fulfill their requirements, meaning a player's bonus will be on the cap for the season with an agreement that the player will meet the requirements in the offseason after the season. Time off bonuses must cover the first offseason after they are signed or added, but they are not required to be included for all subsequent seasons.

The bonus can be added to the contract at any point, provided the contract did not initially have one. No time off bonus requirements may be amended by the team or player, but if a player fails to meet the requirements in any season, then the time off bonus for all future seasons is removed from the player's contract.

Any player who does not fulfill their offseason playing obligations, but would have surpassed their maximum allowed days competing professionally if they did, is not eligible to earn their time off bonus. Time off bonuses are prorated in the same manner as base salaries, based on the portion of the season a player was on the team's active list. The only exceptions are for players who only missed time due to on-court discipline, and for rest-of-season contracts that are fully completed.

In both of these cases, the bonus is not prorated. Trade bonuses are additional payments for players who are traded from one team to another. Only players with six or more years of service at the time the contract is signed may receive a trade bonus.

They must be negotiated in a player's contract and cannot be added after the contract has already been accepted except when signing an extension , and can only be exercised once for the duration of the contract.

The specified amount for the trade bonus can either be expressed as a percentage of remaining base salary or as a specific dollar amount. This could be avoided by opting for a percentage of remaining salary instead of a set dollar amount.

Trade bonuses do count against the cap, but only after they are paid out. For this reason, the amount of the trade bonus must not bring the player's salary over the applicable maximum in the event it is paid out.

If the trade bonus would bring the player over the maximum, it must also be amended accordingly. The only other time a trade bonus can be lessened or removed is if the team and player agree to the change at the time of a trade.

A merit bonus is a bonus paid to a player given individual or team success throughout the season. None of these bonuses are considered salary, and therefore they do not count towards a team's total salary. As merit bonuses do not count as salary, players whose base salary is already at or close to the league maximum will earn the entirety of their bonus.

Team bonuses are awarded based on how far a team progresses in the playoffs. The further the team gets, the higher the bonus. Team bonuses above are per player, and they are only available for players who are on the roster for the last day of the regular season. Any players who had their base salary prorated will have their team bonuses decreased at the same rate. They are constant for the length of the CBA, and they cannot increase as team bonuses can. Bonuses for All-Star Game selections are only paid out for years that the All-Star festivities are held.

It is unclear whether or not the league would pay players these bonuses if the festivities had to be canceled on short notice after the participants had been selected.

Putting all of those merit bonuses together, let's make up an imaginary player who can do it all and carries their team to the championship.

About Us Newsletter Podcast. Already have an account? Sign in. What is this document? What is the Collective Bargaining Agreement? What counts on a team's salary? What happens if a team finishes below the team minimum? What is the guarantee level? Do team minimum shortfalls affect the league-wide guarantee?

How do suspensions affect the salary cap? How many players can a team have on its roster? Do players cut as a result of injuries affect the salary cap?

Can teams get a player's salary off their salary cap if the injury is career-ending? What is a cap hold? What is a restricted free agent? Who is eligible to receive a restricted qualifying offer?

What are the terms of a restricted qualifying offer? What is an offer sheet? What is an unrestricted free agent? Does a player always become a restricted or unrestricted free agent? Cored Players Reserved Players Suspended - Contract Expired Coring and reserving players requires the player's previous team to extend some form of qualifying offer to retain the exclusive negotiating rights to the player, while those rights automatically go to the team for suspended - contract expired players.

Who is eligible to receive a core qualifying offer? Who is eligible to receive a reserved qualifying offer? What if the player opts out, or is suspended for their final season? How do qualifying offers affect the salary cap?

Extensions What are the requirements to receive a contract extension? What are the possible terms of an extension? Can a player restructure their contract? Trades Who or what can be traded? When can players be traded? How do trades affect the salary cap? What is a sign-and-trade? When are international players eligible to be drafted?

How is the draft order determined? Based on this ranking, teams receive the following number of combinations from the 1, assigned combinations is not assigned to any team : Rank Combinations Odds Worst As a result, the complete set of odds of each of the four lottery teams receiving any of the first four picks is as follows: Rank 1st Pick 2nd Pick 3rd Pick 4th Pick Worst When and how can draft picks be traded?

What happens if an eligible player goes undrafted? Rookie Scale Contracts Who qualifies for a rookie contract? What are the terms of a rookie contract? Drafted vs undrafted rookie contract terms Whether a player was drafted or not changes a few aspects of the contract. What about players on rookie scale contracts signed under the previous CBA? How is a rookie contract offered? How do fourth-year options work for rookie scale contracts?

What happens if a player on a rookie scale contract gets cut? What if a player doesn't play in the WNBA right after being drafted? What if a drafted player doesn't sign a contract? Can rookie contracts be extended? What happens when rookie contracts expire? Base Salary What is base salary? How are years of service calculated? What is the maximum base salary? Do maximum contracts keep up with the league maximums?

What is the minimum base salary? What is base salary protection? The Players Association had agreed upon setting it up during its Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations with the league 12 months earlier. So when this season was tipping off, and those pesky reporters started asking players what they thought about the upcoming Commissioner's Cup, fan favourite Courtney Williams scratched her head when she spoke candidly on Khristina Williams' WBB Weekly Clubhouse chat: "I'm not even sure what it is.

While east and west conferences are no longer considered much of a thing in the WNBA - having just 12 teams makes it a little redundant - the Commissioner's Cup reignites some of those old regional rivalries in this 25th anniversary season. The competition saw each team play the other five in their conference twice - one home and one away - in the first half of the season.

This structure is appreciated by the Sun's Jonquel Jones. She told Sky Sports : "It pays respect to the way things were done in the past in terms of east versus west. The best from the conference puts a little more validity on games you play in your conference and having them mean something. All games matter, but having something to add that little extra oomph, and having the cash compensation for our league, is overall a good idea for the league.

The games designated as Commissioner's Cup in the first half of the season still count towards the regular season standings, so for Curt Miller, coach of the Connecticut Sun, it has been tough to balance priorities.

We cherish this opportunity [to win the Commissioner's Cup]. But we compartmentalise that.