Many WNBA teams surprisingly stood pat at the 2026 trade deadline.
Sunday is, theologically speaking, reserved as a day of rest. Most of the WNBA's 15 squads concurred.
Save for the Phoenix Mercury's Kelsey Plum caper, Sunday's 2026 WNBA trade deadline at 3 p.m. ET flowed peacefully with but one other splash interruption: in addition to Plum leaving Los Angeles in exchange for Monique Akoa Makani and draft assets, the Toronto Tempo made its maiden voyage into the seas of in-season bartering, acquiring sophomore sensation Aneesah Morrow from the Connecticut Sun on Friday.
A good bit of hype followed this trade deadline, the league's first since coming to a historic collective bargaining agreement over the spring. But teams played it relatively safe this time around, apparently attempting to work around the new financial environment and roster regulations.
Even with such caveats in town, some squads' inactivity nonetheless proved glaring ...
Chicago Sky
No one's expecting Chicago to leap back into the playoff chase but the Sky's skies are at least a little bluer thanks to the emergence of Sydney Taylor. How the undrafted rookie sensation works with a healed Rickea Jackson will be one of the most intriguing subplots of the 2027 season, one that will likely stand as one of the most hopeful for Chicago basketball in quite some time.
Things get a little more overcast once one recalls Sky's asset cabinet, however: though it's set to land two firsts, Chicago does not have the comfort of its regularly scheduled draft pick to get through this season, having traded it to surging Washington in a deal for the since-departed Ariel Atkins in a choice swap. They'll get another 2027 first-rounder from Atlanta thanks to the Angel Reese deal but that likely won't be in prime territory considering the recent Georgian boost.
Skylar Diggins Stays Put
That makes it a little surprising that the Sky didn't make a stronger push to re-enter the lottery, where they'd be currently bittersweetly blessed with the second-best odds in the presumed JuJu Watkins sweepstakes. The team had a fair amount of assets to work with, which could have helped provide a foundation of sorts for one or more of their fellow Trojan chasers.
For example, depth stars Natasha Cloud and Elizabeth Williams are set to be free agents while DiJonai Carrington recently returned for what some viewed a trade audition. Skylar Diggins hasn't been on the floor since July 3 and some viewed her days in the Windy City as numbered after she expressed apparent dissatisfaction with a potential role in the second unit after Taylor's breakout proved far more than fleeting.
The Sky can be a little more patient with the Diggins situation considering she's on a two-year deal. But perhaps the remainder of this season could've been better employed as a showcase for younger talents on the roster, one that's set in relative stone after Sunday afternoon.
Dallas Wings
With the fourth quarter of the regular season looming, it's obvious that Minnesota, Las Vegas, and Golden State hold the only keys to the WNBA penthouse.
Right below it is a hodgepodge of the best of the league's present and future, as the Wings are jousting with the Atlanta Dream and Indiana Fever for the last bit of first-round homecourt advantage. Atlanta holds the fourth-seeded honor entering Monday play thanks to the fact it has played two fewer games.
While all three sides have potential-packed futures, Dallas sits in the more purgatorial spot, even with Paige Bueckers in tow. Three players averaging at least 12 minutes a game (Awak Kuier, Maddy Siegrist, Odyssey Sims) are set to hit free agency while Alanna Smith's long-term deal has yet to pay dividends. Jessica Shepard's emergence has helped cover up the latter but Smith's deal lingers as a bit of an albatross considering she's now essentially the third post woman off the bench behind Kuier and Li Yueru.
Patience is a virtue, of course. Thanks to Bueckers and Shepard, not to mention the continued development of top pick Azzi Fudd, Dallas figures to establish some form of penthouse residency soon enough. Still, time will tell if it'll come to regret not striking while the transaction iron was hot. The Wings, after all, know just how fleeting postseason glory can be.
Less than three years ago it was at the cusp of the Finals. A year later, it was in the prime position to draft Bueckers with Arike Ogunbowale being one of the few players left. Maybe there was no move that would officially crash the penthouse party hosted by its Western Conference sisters but no deal has sealed Dallas' fate for the foreseeable future.
New York Liberty
The Liberty have never been one to turn down help from abroad. This is a team, after all, that has built its recent era of contention with international finds like Leonie Fiebich and Marine Johannès supplementing its headlining income.
New York has also had no qualms with shipping off premier picks in the name of adding to its trophy case, such as giving up its debut selections in 2025 and 2026 to obtain a year of Cloud. Last time around, the Liberty stole headlines by signing Emma Meesseman for the second half of the season, which failed to steer them away from falling in the postseason's first round.
Despite spinning in the Morrow/Plum rumor mill, the Liberty opted to stand pat at the deadline, sealing its transactional fate as a rollercoaster season draws to a close. That's perhaps surprising considering 2027 free agent Betnijah Laney-Hamilton has not taken the floor in any of the past six shorthanded games despite her health. The franchise icon and 2024 Finals heroine played less than 40 total minutes in the July of her comeback from last year's knee injury, drawing the stress and ire of a metropolitan fanbase that came to assume she was on the move.
Can New York Bounce back?
In short, eighth-place New York appears to be quietly viewing the injured Fiebich and Satou Sabally as its post-deadline acquisitions, even though neither has a date attached to her re-arrival. Even with Plum moved to one of its closest chasers, making the playoffs shouldn't be an issue for a Liberty team that owns a five-game lead on oblivion with 14 to go. But rounding out the playoff field is certainly not the fate anyone envisioned for the seafoam savants, who will look from within to get back into the WNBA's penthouse.
One of the other, more buried, surprises on the New York ledger is that it didn't open a roster spot for Marine Fauthoux, who has impressed in relief on a developmental contract. Fauthoux, averaging 7.2 points and 3.6 rebounds in her last five (New York is 4-1 in that span), has appeared in nine games this year, three short of the maximum activations a player can have on such a deal.
Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags
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