Sun make major Alyssa Thomas roster move ahead of WNBA free agency

The Connecticut Sun underwent a major change already with the hiring of Rachid Meziane as their new head coach following the departure of Stephanie White to the Indiana Fever. And with the WNBA free agency period already here, the Sun are going to have to see what happens with Alyssa Thomas.

The WNBA free agency negotiation period is set to begin on Tuesday, and the Sun already made an initial decision on Alyssa Thomas as they tagged her with the core designation, as per WNBA Transactions.

With a core designation, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Thomas returns to the Sun. What it does is give the Sun exclusive negotiating rights during the free agency period, with an automatic max contract offer on the table.

Should Thomas decide she wants to continue her career elsewhere, the core tag allows the Sun to work out a sign-and-trade deal with another team in order to get something in return, rather than lose Thomas for nothing.

Earlier this month, Thomas, who is currently participating in the new Unrivaled league in Miami, made comments suggesting that she would be open to leaving the Sun and continuing her career with another WNBA team.

Teams designating a player with the core tag, only to have them leave the franchise anyways, isn’t rare at all. Just last season, the Los Angeles Sparks cored Jordin Canada, to work out a sign-and-trade with the Atlanta Dream. This offseason, the Dallas Wings cored Satou Sabally so they could receive something in return in a sign-and-trade as Sabally already declared her intentions to leave the team.

Alyssa Thomas’ stellar WNBA career with Sun

Should Thomas ultimately leave the Sun this offseason, she will be a major pickup for whatever team ends up acquiring her. This past season, Thomas was in the final year of a four-year contract she had signed with the Sun.

The Sun is the only WNBA team that Thomas has ever played for. She was originally selected by the New York Liberty with the No. 4 overall pick in the 2014 WNBA Draft, but had her draft rights immediately traded to the Sun.

Thomas has been named an All-Star in five of her 11 seasons with the Sun, and she finished in the top five in the MVP voting the past three seasons.

Last year, Thomas suited up in all 40 games for the Sun, at a little over 32 minutes per game. She averaged 10.6 points, 8.4 rebounds, 7.9 assists and 1.6 assists with splits of 50.9 percent shooting from the field.

Thomas has set multiple WNBA records, including the most number of triple doubles in the regular season and in the playoffs. She held the record for most number of assists in a single season until that was broken this past year by Caitlin Clark.