Layup Lines: Big expansion news

Happy Monday and welcome back to Layup Lines, your quick recap of what’s going on in the WNBA. I missed you over the weekend but had a truly awesome time on my brother’s bachelor party and was grateful to be able to focus.

• Without any games today, we’re here to break down some big news before tomorrow’s Commissioner’s Cup championship.

This 497 word newsletter should take about 2 minutes to read.

$250 million!

• After a few years of speculation, the league announced this morning that it’s officially expanding to 18 teams by 2030.

• The three “new” teams include a return to Cleveland in 2028 and Detroit in 2029, plus Philadelphia in 2030 — and yes, they’re all playing in NBA arenas with dedicated practice facilities.

• The three expansion teams join those in Portland and Toronto, who begin play next year, and Golden State, which is already the most valuable franchise in the league in its first season.

• It can’t be exaggerated how much the expansion fee of $250 million per franchise, which is roughly 5x as much as the Valkyries paid a few years ago, will help the league. That number makes every existing team so much more valuable that the cheapest franchises in the league (Connecticut, Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas) might now sell to better owners. Rising tides, boats, etc.

3 weekend takeaways

1. Don’t look now, but the Wings have won four of their last six after beating Washington over the weekend.

2. The Sky have yet to beat a good team this season and need to focus on building everything around Angel Reese, who just broke her own record for the most consecutive games with 15+ rebounds (four).

3. Ballhalla is more than just an awesome nickname for the Chase Center. Golden State led all teams with six home wins in June after blowing out the Storm last night and has a very real home court advantage. Fun fact: That was the Valkyries’ 9th win of the season and oddsmakers had their preseason win total at 9.5.

Another bad round of injuries

The good news is that most of the players who left the WNBA for EuroBasket are returning to their teams. The bad news is that over the weekend, we saw Atlanta’s Rhyne Howard, Golden State’s Kayla Thornton and Minnesota’s Karlie Samuelson all leave early. We’re still waiting for updates, but just about every team in the league has dealt with a serious injury or two at this point.

All-Stars

• No big surprise that Caitlin Clark and Napheesa Collier received the most fan votes to be the two captains for this year’s All-Star game, but I will be very curious who gets announced as the other eight starters tonight (7pm ET, ESPN).

Layup Lines is written 100% by human beings and we appreciate your support. If you’re still reading, you must like this newsletter enough to share it with a friend. We’ll see you back here tomorrow.

— Everett Cook, Founder & Editor