By Zack Rosenblatt, Dianna Russini and Michael Silver

Woody Johnson decided to do his own research.

The New York Jets’ owner was at his house in Palm Beach, Fla., last February, discussing potential offseason acquisitions with team decision-makers as they watched game tape. Wide receiver Jerry Jeudy, a former Denver Broncos first-round pick, flashed on the screen. Jets general manager Joe Douglas expressed interest, according to someone familiar with the meeting. Johnson took out his phone and started typing.

A few weeks later, Douglas and his Broncos counterpart, George Paton, were deep in negotiations for a trade that would have sent Jeudy to the Jets and given future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers another potential playmaker. The Broncos felt a deal was near. Then, abruptly, it all fell apart. In Denver’s executive offices, they couldn’t believe the reason why.

Douglas told the Broncos that Johnson didn’t want to make the trade because the owner felt Jeudy’s player rating in “Madden NFL,” the popular video game, wasn’t high enough, according to multiple league sources. The Broncos ultimately traded the receiver to the Cleveland Browns. Last Sunday, Jeudy crossed the 1,000-yard receiving mark for the first time in his career.

Coming into this season, the Jets had hopes of ending the franchise’s 13-year playoff drought — the longest in the four major men’s North American sports — and quieting years of talk about the franchise’s dysfunction. Instead, this season has only cemented the Jets’ reputation.

Head coach Robert Saleh was fired five games into the campaign. Douglas was fired six weeks later. Johnson suggested benching Rodgers due to poor performance — a Jets spokesperson said the owner was “being provocative. He made the statement in jest to see how it would be handled.” A week later, the Jets traded for Davante Adams, the All-Pro wideout and Rodgers’ close friend and former teammate in Green Bay. New York has stumbled to a 4-10 record and will miss the postseason for the 14th straight season.

Another offseason of turnover awaits, and at the root of the franchise’s problems is Johnson, who was characterized as an over-involved, impulsive owner in conversations with more than 20 people in and around the Jets organization — current and former players, coaches and team executives — who were granted anonymity in order to speak openly without fear of reprisal.

“They keep on doing the same thing over and over: they change the football people. The football people are not the issue,” one former executive said. “It’s, ‘Hey, I have brain cancer.’ And, ‘Well, just cut off your foot.’”

Johnson, who declined The Athletic’s request for comment, soured on his franchise quarterback less than a year after betting big on him, denigrated his own players in the locker room and seemed to follow decision-making advice from his teenage sons, according to various team and league sources. And the proposed Jeudy trade wasn’t the only time Johnson cited “Madden” ratings when evaluating players.

“There are organizations where it is all set up for you to win,” said a player with the team in 2023. “It feels completely different (with the Jets). It’s the most dysfunctional place imaginable.”

Ahead of the Jets-Giants preseason finale at MetLife Stadium in 2019, an administrative assistant popped into the team’s coaching offices to make an announcement to then-head coach Adam Gase and his staff. Woody Johnson, then serving as U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom in the Trump administration, was temporarily returning from London. The assistant said everyone should refer to Johnson as “Mr. Ambassador.”

That has held true long after Johnson left government and returned to his role as Jets chairman in January 2021, striking a discordant tone among those who believe the organization has long been plagued by mismanagement.

“I guess that’s what you’d call him,” one assistant coach said. “I’d never been around royalty before.”

Johnson is an heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune, but he spends most of his working days at the Jets facility in Florham Park, N.J., and often meets with the head coach and general manager. When he bought the team in 2000, Johnson thought he was inheriting Bill Belichick as coach — hand-picked by Bill Parcells to take over before Parcells resigned. Belichick lasted only one day, scribbling “I resign as HC of the NYJ” on a napkin at his introductory news conference before bolting for the New England Patriots.

The legendary coach has spent much of the past two decades torturing the Jets franchise, on the field and off of it. While out of coaching this fall, Belichick mocked Johnson in various media appearances (Belichick’s camp also reached out to the Jets about their head-coaching vacancy). In an appearance on ESPN’s “ManningCast” during a Monday night game between the Jets and Bills on Oct. 14 — New York’s first game since firing Saleh — Belichick described the owner’s approach to running the organization as “ready, fire, aim.”

Many who have been part of the Jets organization during Johnson’s tenure heard that comment and agreed. Others pointed to the owner’s words on Oct. 15, the day the Jets acquired Adams, when Johnson said, “Thinking is overrated.”

“Woody is just acting on instinct,” said a current Jets executive. “With Woody, it’s like, ‘I’m right — prove me wrong.’ You just don’t know what to expect … He’s been right enough, just with his random opinions, that (a bad decision) doesn’t dissuade him. And when he’s wrong, who’s gonna hold him accountable?”

During the annual NFL Draft, Johnson is known to keep to himself while decisions are being made, according to one former executive, then exit the room and retreat to a nearby snack bar with confidants to make “smart-ass lines” about the front office’s decisions. Team decision-makers didn’t appreciate Johnson’s after-the-fact critiques, but the owner was occasionally proven correct: The executive remembers Johnson being especially vocal when former general manager Mike Maccagnan drafted quarterback Christian Hackenberg out of Penn State in the second round of the 2016 Draft. Hackenberg never played a regular-season snap for the Jets.

Some inside the organization believe Johnson is consumed with the public perception of his franchise, sometimes at the expense of on-the-field success. When the Jets traded quarterback Zach Wilson to the Broncos last April, Denver asked Douglas to include the final pick of the draft (257th overall). According to a source familiar with the negotiations, Johnson instructed Douglas to instead trade the 256th pick — which the Jets also owned — so New York could select “Mr. Irrelevant,” the final pick of the draft who is annually celebrated upon his selection.

“Can you believe that?” the source said. “He thought he needed the Mr. Irrelevant pick to get a Brock Purdy (the final pick of the 2022 draft who has emerged as a franchise quarterback in San Francisco). I don’t think that’s ever happened in the history of the NFL: A team wanted a worse pick.”

The Broncos used pick No. 256 to take offensive guard Nick Gargiulo, who is now on the Broncos’ active roster. The Jets used the “Mr. Irrelevant” pick on Alabama safety Jaylen Key, who didn’t survive the final roster cutdown and is no longer on their practice squad.

Johnson weighs in on matters throughout the organization, from lineup decisions (he forced interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich to bench starting safety Tony Adams in November) to the team schedule (he wanted the Jets to practice during their bye week, much to the chagrin of team leaders). “He’s like most team owners,” the team spokesperson said. “He asks questions of his staff to better understand what their plans are.”

“Your job becomes managing Woody,” a current team executive said. “That’s not unique for an NFL GM — the difference here is that not only are you managing Woody, but you have to manage all the people who influence him. That could be family, that could be media, that could be people in the building.”

When Johnson left for the U.K. in 2017, his sons, Brick and Jack, were 11 and 9, respectively. When he returned, they were teenagers. Last year, Johnson started including his sons in some meetings at the team facility. For some Jets employees, the sons’ increasing involvement clarified their father’s propensity for sharing posts from X and articles from various outlets, including a blog called “Jets X-Factor,” with the organization’s top decision-makers.

“When we’re discussing things, you’ll hear Woody cite something that Brick or Jack read online that’s being weighed equally against whatever opinion someone else in the department has,” said one Jets executive.

“I answer to a teenager,” Douglas quipped to people close to him before the season in an acknowledgment of the perceived power dynamic.

Johnson’s reference to Jeudy’s “Madden” rating was, to some in the Jets’ organization, a sign of Brick and Jack’s influence. Another example came when Johnson pushed back on signing free-agent guard John Simpson due to a lackluster “awareness” rating in Madden. The Jets signed Simpson anyway, and he has had a solid season: Pro Football Focus currently has him graded as the eighth-best guard in the NFL.

The Jets spokesperson disputed the idea that Brick and Jack’s observations impact the organization’s decision-making process. “It is used as a reference point; it is not determinative,” the spokesperson said. “It’s really sad that an adult would use a misleading anecdote about teenagers to make their father look bad. It’s ridiculous, quite honestly, the idea that this was used to influence the opinion of experienced executives.

“(The sons) have no roles in the organization. It’s completely ridiculous to suggest that any outside info is intended to replace the opinions of (Woody Johnson’s) staff.”

The Johnson family’s behavior inside the Jets locker room has also become an issue, according to team and league sources. NFL locker rooms are restricted-access spaces typically limited to players, coaches, team personnel and media members. But Brick and Jack have brought friends — male and female — into the locker room, and current and former players and coaches told The Athletic that Woody Johnson, his wife, Suzanne Ircha Johnson, and his sons criticized players inside the locker room.

In 2022, quarterback Mike White played through broken ribs in a late-season game against the Seahawks with postseason hopes on the line. White played poorly; the Jets lost and were eliminated from playoff contention. After the game, with the quarterback in the showers after throwing his helmet to the locker room floor, multiple Jets players said they heard Woody Johnson say, “You should throw your helmet, you f—ing suck.” The statement got back to White. The team spokesperson said Johnson apologized to the quarterback, who declined to comment for this story.

In the postgame locker room after last year’s Week 17 loss to the Cleveland Browns, multiple players said they heard Johnson’s sons loudly disparaging certain Jets players.

This year, on Halloween night, the Jets registered their first victory since Saleh’s firing four weeks earlier. It was a significant moment for a struggling team. Rodgers walked into an energized locker room with a game ball in hand, and it was expected that he’d give the ball to Ulbrich, a customary gesture when a coach gets his first NFL win.

But before Rodgers could speak, Brick Johnson took another game ball and awarded it to wide receiver Garrett Wilson in a profanity-laced exclamation, which the owner’s son later posted to Instagram. Woody Johnson then gave Ulbrich the ball Rodgers had been holding. Multiple players said the energy felt drained out of the room.

“It was the most awkward, cringe-worthy, brutal experience,” one player said.

The high point of the Johnson-Rodgers marriage came at Rodgers’ introductory news conference, when he spoke of the Jets’ lone Super Bowl trophy — won in 1969 — looking a little “lonely.” New York entered the 2023 season as one of the league’s buzziest teams — and potentially Super Bowl contenders — and the Jets were selected to appear on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” during training camp. Johnson wore a custom-made chain featuring 80 carats of emeralds and diamonds spelling out “Woody,” a gift from star cornerback Sauce Gardner.

Then Rodgers tore his Achilles on the fourth play of the season, and everything changed. Following surgery, Rodgers rehabbed with the goal of potentially returning at the end of the season, but only if the Jets were still in playoff contention.

In Week 14, New York was mathematically eliminated with a 30-0 loss to the Dolphins. Rodgers preferred to rehab on his own in Los Angeles with an eye toward the 2024 season, but Johnson, according to team sources, insisted that Rodgers practice with the team, so the quarterback reluctantly returned to New York. When Rodgers was activated off injured reserve five days before Christmas, which resulted in the release of fullback Nick Bawden, Rodgers said on “The Pat McAfee Show” that the move wasn’t his idea.

“There was a conversation: ‘Do you want to practice?’ And I said, ‘Not at the expense of somebody getting cut.’ I know how this works,” Rodgers said. “I didn’t feel like I needed to practice to continue my rehab. I could do on-the-field stuff on the side. But obviously I got overruled there.”

Several Jets players and coaches — Garrett Wilson and running back Breece Hall, in particular — were unhappy with offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett throughout the 2023 campaign. There were rumblings that Johnson wanted to fire Hackett, so Rodgers, who considers the coach a close friend, brought it up with the owner at the end of the season. The conversation “didn’t go over well” with Johnson, according to a current Jets executive.

Johnson ultimately didn’t force Saleh to fire Hackett, as he had with Mike LaFleur after the 2022 season. In the offseason, Saleh tried to hire a veteran offensive coach to join the Jets staff and potentially reduce Hackett’s role, speaking with Arthur Smith, Kliff Kingsbury, Luke Getsy and Eric Bieniemy. Rodgers got on the phone in an attempt to recruit, but each coach took jobs with offensive coordinator titles elsewhere.

Before this season, according to a team source, Johnson demanded that Saleh’s signature phrase — “All Gas, No Brakes” — be stripped off the walls around the facility. “Another completely out-of-context and false narrative,” the team spokesperson said. “That was removed as part of the entire organizational rebrand.” Saleh later introduced a new team motto: “Love and Regard,” which was not displayed on the facility’s walls.

Rodgers and Johnson spoke on Oct. 7, just after the Jets lost to the Vikings in London to drop to 2-3, a game behind the Bills in the AFC East with Buffalo coming to MetLife Stadium the following Monday night. According to a team source, Rodgers implored Johnson to remain patient.

The following morning, Saleh called Rodgers to let him know he was demoting Hackett and installing passing game coordinator Todd Downing as the new play caller. Rodgers made it clear to Saleh that he did not agree with the decision — so much so that Saleh told his staff to get backup Tyrod Taylor ready to play in case a banged-up, disgruntled Rodgers wouldn’t, according to a team source.

Shortly afterward, around 10 a.m. ET, Woody and Christopher Johnson, Woody’s brother and the Jets’ vice chairman, walked into Saleh’s office. Woody told Saleh he was fired. Saleh asked why. Woody told him he didn’t think Saleh could turn the season around and that the team needed a spark. Then the Johnsons walked out of the room.

Ulbrich, installed as the interim coach, went forward with Saleh’s plan to demote Hackett and managed to calm the waters with Rodgers, who hadn’t been in favor of firing Saleh, according to multiple team sources.

On the Dec. 3 episode of McAfee’s show, Rodgers, in reference to the 12-2 Detroit Lions, talked about how much of a difference it makes when owners back their coaches and general managers both privately and publicly. The next day, he was asked by members of the media if he felt that Jets ownership operates in that way.

“Is that a rhetorical question?” Rodgers said. “I cited an example I’ve seen. There were other examples in Green Bay, both for and maybe not, as for whoever was in charge. But I think it’s an important part of ownership to hire the right guys, set the vision and support them when the outside world is trying to tear them down.”

On follow-up, he was asked again whether he believes that’s been done in New York. “I’d have to look,” he replied. “I’ll ask you guys, has there been a lot of public comments? Supportive comments?”

The response from reporters that day? Not really, there have been firings.

“Yeah, there’s your answer,” Rodgers replied.

The Jets kept the exchange out of the transcript of Rodgers’ news conference.

In addition to firing the head coach and general manager and suggesting the benching of the star quarterback, Johnson has pursued cuts across the Jets organization.

This offseason, he forced Saleh to fire five coaches and wouldn’t allow Douglas to replace former assistant GM Rex Hogan (who Johnson forced Douglas to fire in January). “The open role was used to re-organize the staff,” the team spokesperson said. “The notion that he didn’t want that position replaced is untrue. The responsibilities were filled by employees who deserved promotions.”

The Jets didn’t hire officials for training camp, a standard practice in the NFL, after being the most penalized team in the league in 2023 (they are the third-most penalized team in 2024). They did have officials for two joint practices with the New York Giants and Washington Commanders, respectively.

Several men from Johnson’s investment group have been attending free agent, draft and other football operations meetings at Johnson’s behest over the last year, according to a current Jets executive. They’ve also interviewed Jets employees from across the organization about their roles and ways they feel the Jets can improve. “It was a positive initiative that identified real gaps in process and communication and collaboration,” the Jets spokesperson said. “(Woody Johnson) values the independent feedback. It’s a way to avoid groupthink. We learned a lot from it.”

Multiple Jets employees refer to the group of men as “The Bobs,” a nod to the condescending corporate efficiency consultants from the film “Office Space.” The arrival of “The Bobs” has only heightened a sense of dread around the building, where some employees don’t feel like they can speak freely.

“There’s no nice way to say what we need to say, which is: Unless we drastically alter our culture and the way we do things from the top down, we have no chance,” one executive said. “There’s not a comfortable environment where you can speak your mind and try to address things that could improve the situation. You have to tiptoe around it.”

The Jets spokesperson disputed that characterization. “That’s just a false premise,” the spokesperson said. “(Woody Johnson) really just seeks out and welcomes feedback and debate. We wouldn’t have been named one of the best places to work in New Jersey if people thought that way … there’s never been a complaint.”

Whether or not Aaron Rodgers will return for a third season in New York is one of the key questions facing the Jets this offseason. (Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images)

As recently as three-and-a-half years ago, there was a different atmosphere at Florham Park. Woody Johnson’s absence during the first Trump presidential term meant that Christopher was running the show.

Like Woody, Christopher Johnson was influenced perhaps too heavily by media coverage — one team source said he was known to lean on prominent media members for advice during his head coach and GM searches in 2019 — but the impression he gave to many in the building was that he wanted to give the keys to the people he hired and let them take the wheel.

“Chris was really, really laid back,” said a former Jets coach. “He’s not a person with any type of ego. When he would talk with you, he was really a regular dude. He never, ever acted like he was the owner or he was in charge; he was just basically trying to get along.”

When Christopher Johnson hired Douglas (in 2019) and Saleh (in 2021), both were under the impression that, when he returned, Woody Johnson would take a similarly hands-off approach. They quickly learned how wrong that assumption was as Woody took control and Chris stepped back.

“It’s not like he just disappeared, but you wouldn’t know if Chris was in the building or even in the room with you,” a former Jets executive said. “He’s just so quiet and reserved. And that’s not a bad thing.”

Some Jets employees hoped Woody might retake his ambassadorship in the U.K. after Donald Trump was elected president in November, which would once again put Christopher in charge. But on Dec. 2, Trump nominated billionaire Arkansas investment banker Warren Stephens to the post. According to team sources, the decision came as a surprise to the Jets owner.

As the Jets close the 2024 season, they’ll enter an offseason promising wholesale change, familiar territory for an organization that hasn’t found much stability since Johnson bought the franchise from the estate of Leon Hess in 2000. In 25 years, the Jets have employed eight interim or full-time head coaches (nine if you count Belichick) and seven general managers. They’ll need another new head coach and general manager and must decide if they want to bring Rodgers back for what would be his 21st NFL season — if he wants to return.

Those decisions remain Woody Johnson’s to make.

(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; photos: Chris Coduto, Matthew Stockman, Cooper Neil, Perry Knotts / Getty Images)

What Donahue knew was that we — women especially — were eager, desperate, to be understood, to learn and learn and learn. We call his job “host” when, really, the way he did it, running that microphone throughout the audience, racing up, down, around, sticking it here then here then over here, was closer to “switchboard operator.” It was “hot dog vendor at Madison Square Garden.” The man got his steps in. He let us do more of the questioning than he did — he would just edit, interpret, clarify. Egalitarianism ruled. Articulation, too. And anybody who needed the mic usually got it.

The show was about both what was on our mind and what had never once crossed it. Atheism. Naziism. Colorism. Childbirth. Prison. Rapists. AIDS. Chippendales, Chernobyl, Cher. Name a fetish, Phil Donahue tried to get to its bottom, sometimes by trying it himself. (Let us never forget the episode when he made his entrance in a long skirt, blouse and pussy bow for one of the show’s many cross-dressing studies.) Now’s the time to add that “Donahue” was a morning talk show. In Philadelphia, he arrived every weekday at 9 a.m., which meant that, in the summers, I could learn about compulsive shopping or shifting gender roles from the same kitchen TV set as my grandmother.

Sex and sexuality were the show’s prime subjects. There was so much that needed confessing, correction, corroboration, an ear lent. For that, Donahue needed an expert. Many times, the expert was Dr. Ruth, a godsend who didn’t land in this country until she was in her late 20s and didn’t land on television until she was in her 50s. Ruth Westheimer arrived to us from Germany, where she started as Karola Ruth Siegel and strapped in as her life corkscrewed, as it mocked fiction. Her family most likely perished in the Auschwitz death camps after she was whisked to the safety of a Swiss children’s home, where she was expected to clean. The twists include sniper training for one of the military outfits that would become the Israel Defense Forces, maiming by cannonball on her 20th birthday, doing research at a Planned Parenthood in Harlem, single motherhood and three husbands. She earned her doctorate from Columbia University, in education, and spent her postdoc researching human sexuality. And because her timing was perfect, she emerged at the dawn of the 1980s, an affable vector of an era’s craze for gnomic sages (Zelda Rubinstein, Linda Hunt, Yoda), masterpiece branding and the nasty.

Hers was the age of Mapplethorpe and Madonna, of Prince, Skinemax and 2 Live Crew. On her radio and television shows, in a raft of books and a Playgirl column and through her promiscuous approach to talk-show appearances, she aimed to purge sex of shame, to promote sexual literacy. Her feline accent and jolly innuendo pitched, among other stuff, the Honda Prelude, Pepsi, Sling TV and Herbal Essences. (“Hey!” she offers to a young elevator passenger. “This is where we get off.”) The instructions for Dr. Ruth’s Game of Good Sex says it can be played by up to four couples; the board is vulval and includes stops at “Yeast Infection,” “Chauvinism” and “Goose Him.”

On “Donahue,” she is direct, explicit, dispelling, humorous, clear, common-sensical, serious, vivid. A professional therapist. It was Donahue who handled the comedy. On one visit in 1987, a caller needs advice about a husband who cheats because he wants to have sex more often than she does. Dr. Ruth tells Donahue that if the caller wants to keep the marriage, and her husband wants to do it all the time, “then what she should do is to masturbate him. And it’s all right for him to masturbate himself also a few times.” The audience is hear-a-pin-drop rapt or maybe just squirmy. So Donahue reaches into his parochial-school-student war chest and pulls out the joke about the teacher who tells third-grade boys, “Don’t play with yourself, or you’ll go blind.” And Donahue raises his hand like a kid at the back of the classroom and asks, “Can I do it till I need glasses?” Westheimer giggles, maybe noticing the large pair on Donahue’s face. This was that day’s cold open.

They were children of salesmen, these two; his father was in the furniture business, hers sold what people in the garment industry call notions. They inherited a salesman’s facility for people and packaging. When a “Donahue” audience member asks Westheimer whether her own husband believes she practices what she preaches, she says this is why she never brings him anywhere. “He would tell you and Phil: ‘Do not listen to her. It’s all talk,’” which cracks the audience up.

But consider what she talked about — and consider how she said it. My favorite Dr. Ruth word was “pleasure.” From a German mouth, the word conveys what it lacks with an American tongue: sensual unfurling. She vowed to speak about sex to mass audiences using the proper terminology. Damn the euphemisms. People waited as long as a year and a half for tickets to “Donahue” so they could damn them, too. But of everything Westheimer pitched, of all the terms she precisely used, pleasure was her most cogent product, a gift she believed we could give to others, a gift she swore we owed ourselves.

I miss the talk show that Donahue reinvented. I miss the way Dr. Ruth talked about sex. It’s fitting somehow that this antidogmatic-yet-priestly Irish Catholic man would, on occasion, join forces with a carnal, lucky-to-be-alive Jew to urge the exploration of our bodies while demonstrating respect, civility, reciprocation. They believed in us, that we were all interesting, that we could be trustworthy panelists in the discourse of being alive. Trauma, triviality, tubal ligation: Let’s talk about it! Fear doesn’t seem to have occurred to them. Or if it did, it was never a deterrent. Boldly they went. — And with her encouragement, boldly we came.

Wesley Morris is a critic at large for The New York Times and a staff writer for the magazine.

Within the past year, Paige Bueckers has expanded the scope of what it means to be a college athlete. She played in a Final Four but also became an equity partner in Unrivaled, designed her own player-edition sneaker for Nike and appeared courtside throughout the country at various sporting events.

In the new name, image and likeness age of college athletics, Bueckers has exerted unprecedented agency in her career and in building a brand for herself. What the budding superstar still can’t control is what comes next. Last month, the WNBA Draft lottery all but ensured that Bueckers’ next basketball stop will be with the Dallas Wings after they won the No. 1 pick.

For better or worse, that is the nature of the draft. Players have limited influence on their destination. They can choose to meet with or work out with certain teams and potentially withhold their medical records, but ultimately, teams hold the bulk of the power.

Bueckers, however, is in a rare situation where she wields more leverage thanks to her marketability, NIL portfolio and college eligibility. (She can return for a sixth season at UConn because of COVID-19 eligibility rules.) If she decides against playing for the Wings — and the buzz around the league is that Dallas was not her preferred destination — she could exert whatever levers she can to get where she wants as soon as possible.

Although Bueckers has indicated that she is treating this season as her senior year, she can return to UConn if she doesn’t want to enter the WNBA in 2025. Whether that’s because she is chasing a national championship, prefers a different draft destination or wants to delay her pro career until the institution of a new WNBA collective bargaining agreement, there are incentives to play one more season with the Huskies. Even if Bueckers elects to go pro, she could simply demand a trade.

Paige Bueckers says she did not watch the WNBA Draft Lottery over the weekend

“I mostly dealt with it by focusing on having a great practice today” pic.twitter.com/049M5iFilR

— UConn on SNY (@SNYUConn) November 20, 2024

“There’s just a lot of noise — way more noise in terms of rumors, in terms of all those things around women’s basketball, now more than ever,” said ESPN analyst Andraya Carter, who played at Tennessee until her career ended in 2015. “I don’t know if the rumors are true, but this is the first time I’ve heard it to this degree.”

Though Bueckers likely would be a star at any WNBA franchise, Dallas doesn’t provide the most opportunities for a player with a massive built-in fan base and marketing allure. The Wings have been notoriously unstable since moving to Dallas in 2016. They have cycled through coaches every two seasons and are searching for another. In 2018, a postgame altercation between head coach Fred Williams and CEO Greg Bibb led to Williams losing his job. Stars haven’t exactly flocked to the Wings in free agency, and some of their highest-profile players have publicly bashed the organization; Skylar Diggins-Smith called out the lack of support she felt she received during her pregnancy in 2018-19. A constant drain of talent has gone in the other direction. Diggins-Smith and Liz Cambage asked out via trades, as did Allisha Gray and Marina Mabrey in the 2023 offseason.

In fairness to Dallas, the other lottery options also had their flaws. Teams are at the bottom of the league for a reason. Even if Bueckers would rather have gone to Los Angeles or Washington, the Sparks don’t have a practice facility and are in a four-year playoff drought, and the Mystics don’t have a head coach or general manager and play in a 4,200-seat arena.

Given the state of the lottery teams, Bueckers could return to college by foregoing her draft eligibility at the end of the NCAA season and putting off the WNBA until 2026. That unfortunately still leaves her at the mercy of the lottery, but perhaps the threat of playing another season for UConn would motivate the Wings to take a trade demand seriously.

Furthermore, it might behoove her financially to postpone the start of her WNBA career. By entering this season’s draft, she would lock herself into a four-year rookie-scale contract that averages $87,000 annually. However, the WNBA will enact a new collective bargaining agreement before the 2026 season, one that figures to increase player compensation.

The last time the league instituted a new CBA, second- and third-year players were stuck in their rookie contracts from the previous agreement. That led to awkward and unfair situations; Napheesa Collier, already an All-Star as a rookie in 2019, earned the lowest salary in the league in 2020 and 2021 despite being one of its best players. That’s a predicament Bueckers would rather avoid.

If Bueckers elects to leave UConn after this season, which has been her public stance, the primary tool at her disposal is demanding a trade from Dallas. Golden State seems like an ideal destination in terms of market size and organizational strength, plus the Valkyries are motivated to get a star quickly, though Bueckers is best suited to provide a list of suitors to encourage negotiations.

Player empowerment is on the rise in professional sports, but that hasn’t been the case for the draft itself in recent years. In the WNBA, Kelsey Plum accepted her fate in San Antonio in 2017. Aliyah Boston willingly went to Indiana, then a five-win team displaced for three summers due to arena renovations. Before NIL, no other recourse for women’s basketball players existed, as players such as Satou Sabally (who was picked by the Wings) felt compelled to enter the draft to start earning a salary. Even Boston didn’t have the star power to shake the system. Analysts who spoke with The Athletic said they couldn’t recall WNBA prospects trying to angle their way to a different destination in the draft.

The NWSL eliminated drafts. In men’s sports, salaries are so lucrative that there’s a willingness to sacrifice individual autonomy, but the finances aren’t there on the women’s side. A five-figure salary isn’t enough to oblige a star to play in a city that isn’t of her choosing, for an organization that hasn’t had a winning culture.

Trade demands are old hat for WNBA veterans, and stars usually win. Within the last 10 years, Kahleah Copper, Elena Delle Donne and Sylvia Fowles successfully negotiated their way to new teams. Fowles even sat out half a season while waiting for the right deal. Bueckers would hardly be noteworthy if she expressed a desire to play for a different team, even if the timing of her request would be unique.

“With these players being able to make money on their own and start their brands and start their careers outside of school and off the court, it does open up different avenues,” Carter said. “They just have more options now.”

Should Bueckers play chicken with Dallas after being drafted and hold out until she is traded, she can cash in on her corporate sponsorships with Gatorade, Nike and Bose, among others, even if she isn’t earning a salary to play basketball. She also has an equity stake in Unrivaled, a new 3×3 women’s basketball league, that could prove fruitful. Those earnings would more than make up for the $78,831 contract of the projected top pick.

GO DEEPER

Paige Bueckers is used to high expectations. But dealing with the pressure took time to learn

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The idea of willingly not playing basketball might be tough for Bueckers, who has suffered many injuries. But if anything, the precariousness of her career should motivate her to find an ideal WNBA landing spot as soon as possible.

There is a long runway between now and the 2025 draft, plenty of time for Bueckers and her representation to assess Dallas and gauge the market for a trade if the Wings don’t meet her standards. How the Huskies play in 2024-25 could also inform Bueckers’ willingness to spend another season in Storrs. Regardless, Bueckers holds her fate in her hands more than other prospective No. 1 picks. If she wants to reject the path laid out for her by four ping-pong balls, she has the power to do so.

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photo of Paige Bueckers: Michael Miller / ISI Photos / Getty Images)