Why isn’t Gabby Williams playing in the WNBA?

It’s a question that Williams has had to reckon with too many times over the past four years, and one that is once again at the forefront after the former UConn guard’s dominant showing at the Paris Olympics. As Williams debates a return to the league she has played 135 games in since 2018, the barriers to her re-entry raise important questions about player agency in the WNBA and what changes the players union should prioritize as they decide whether to opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement at the end of 2024.

Williams, who led France to a silver medal and averaged 15.5 points, 4.8 assists, and 2.8 steals per game during the Olympics, entered the 2024 WNBA offseason as an unrestricted free agent. She has been an ace perimeter defender throughout her professional career and has improved her ballhandling and shot creation while playing in Europe and could immediately step into a guard rotation for a contender.

But Williams has been an intermittent member of the WNBA since 2021. She couldn’t play that entire season and has dealt with prioritization challenges each of the last two years. The players union has a variety of priorities to address in a new CBA, including salaries, maternity protections (of particular importance after the Dearica Hamby lawsuit) and revenue sharing. The experience of Williams also shines a light on player agency and autonomy, and what sort of freedoms the players have earned after helping to build the league.

BEST of Xi’an 👑

Gabby Williams helped France 🇫🇷 sweep #FIBAOQT in Xi’an, while averaging 16.3 PTS, 4.0 REB, 2.7 STL and 19.3 EFF and claiming TISSOT MVP honours ⚙️ pic.twitter.com/UALfRCwPCe

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— FIBA (@FIBA) February 12, 2024

During the 2024 offseason, rather than sign with a team, Williams opted to spend the first half of the season preparing for the Olympics. Since she retained her status as a free agent and finished her European club season before May 1, Williams isn’t restricted by the WNBA’s prioritization clause, which requires players competing internationally to report at the start of the WNBA calendar (even if their overseas team is still playing) or else be suspended for the season. She could choose to play out the remainder of the season stateside provided a team has a roster spot and cap space available. Even with the WNBA trade deadline on Tuesday, Williams is likely the most impactful addition a team could make before the end of the regular season.

However, as originally reported by Rachel Galligan on X and confirmed by The Athletic, Williams is considering whether to return to the WNBA this season because of how that decision would impact her options in 2025. If Williams simply elects to eschew the WNBA in 2024 (she already has a contract to play for Turkish powerhouse Fenerbahçe for 2024-25), she will once again be an unrestricted free agent in the 2025 offseason and have full control over where she plays in the league next year. However, if she signs for the rest of the season, that team would have the opportunity to core Williams and thus retain her exclusive negotiating rights for 2025.

WNBA teams have the opportunity to designate a free agent as a core player during the offseason. The player can subsequently only negotiate with said team as a free agent and is guaranteed a one-year, supermax contract unless the two parties agree on a deal with different terms or a trade.

The purpose of the core provision was to give teams the ability to protect their investment in a player. After drafting, developing and investing in a player, the core gives franchises another mechanism to keep top talent in their organizations. However, it also by definition reduces player freedom, which has inadvertently been the story of Williams’ WNBA career.

In 2021, Williams was set to miss part of the season to compete in EuroBasket and the Tokyo Olympics for France. Although she anticipated being able to return stateside once her international commitments were complete, the Chicago Sky suspended her for the full season, meaning she wasn’t paid her WNBA contract. In 2023, the prioritization clause would have prevented Williams from suiting up for the Seattle Storm because her French season ended after the start of the WNBA calendar. She only ended up being able to play for the Storm because of an unexpected coincidence; she got a concussion in France, thus prematurely bringing her European season to a close and clearing her to be available for Seattle.

Now, Williams finds her autonomy threatened by another CBA provision: the core.

Williams’ case challenges the theory of the core provision. She isn’t a franchise player. If she returns to the WNBA, it will be to a team that didn’t draft her and hasn’t given her any marketing money because she’s always overseas during the offseason. A team’s only investment in her would be the $20,000 or so it will pay her for about a dozen regular-season games to close out the season. And for that limited stretch, a team would be able to control where she plays in 2025.

As the WNBA increases in scale, bringing in more revenue, the CBA still exists to protect the teams’ interests, not the players. Mechanisms like restricted free agency, a hard cap and the core depress players’ markets and ability to seek out situations of their choosing.

As a result, players are called upon to make tough decisions that often disincentivize their participation in the WNBA. Prioritization forces a choice between playing overseas and in the U.S., and overseas contracts often outpace what the best players can earn stateside. Elena Delle Donne was cored this offseason by the Washington Mystics, and the veteran is now sitting out despite reportedly expressing an interest to play elsewhere, so the WNBA is missing out on one of the final healthy seasons of a two-time MVP.

Williams could stay in France and bask in the glory of her silver medal for a month before reporting to Turkey. Instead, the decision to help a team chase a WNBA title could handcuff her, once again putting her WNBA career in the hands of an outside actor. The professional experience should be prioritizing players, not forcing them to rely on the promises and goodwill of organizations. The reason Williams isn’t playing in the WNBA is because she is trying to control her career, and the league’s CBA is trying to control her.

(Photo: Jean Catuffe / Getty Images)