WNBA’s new CBA creates challenge for Liberty to keep Big 3

Despite the looming uncertainty regarding a new collective bargaining agreement, Liberty general manager Jonathan Kolb said last September that he had the “utmost confidence” Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones would return in 2026.

Now with a tentative CBA in place, the pathway to bring back the Liberty’s big three may be complicated, but not impossible.

Each member of the Liberty’s star trio is eligible for a $1.4 million supermax contract.

Given that the WNBA has a hard cap, though, signing multiple players to supermax deals is not feasible. Heck, signing one supermax contract will be tough for contending teams to swing.

A challenge with the new collective bargaining agreement — ratified Monday via a unanimous vote by 90 percent of the Women’s National Basketball Players Association members but still pending WNBA Board of Governors approval — is that the supermax rose much more than the salary cap.

There will undoubtedly be a middle-class squeeze, and teams wanting to sign multiple star players will have to get creative in how they distribute their millions.

A way to also make this work is by signing the trio to extended deals, giving them long-term security. And multiple sources have indicated that top free agents are seeking multi-year contracts.

The 2026 salary cap is $7 million — up from $1.5 million last year.

Meanwhile, this year’s supermax is a 20 percent cap hit — a significant jump from the previous CBA, where the supermax accounted for roughly 16.5 percent of a team’s cap.

Also, teams are now required to carry 12 players (not including the two developmental spots that don’t impact the salary cap).

Signing a supermax contract is a status symbol in the NBA. Will that be the case in the WNBA? Or will being able to call yourself a “million-dollar player” be enough?

Stewart signed last year for $208,400, which accounted for roughly 13.8 percent of the team’s salary cap. (For the purpose of this exercise, the $14,000 time-off bonuses awarded at the end of the season are not included.)

If she were to take the same cap hit in 2026, she would earn roughly $967,951.

In 2025, Stewart signed for $40,844 less than the 2025 supermax. In 2026, she theoretically would be surrendering $432,049.

Given Stewart’s star power and effort in making this new CBA a reality, earning less than $1 million seems preposterous. Arguments can be easily made for Ionescu and Jones to earn million-dollar salaries, too.

If all three made $1 million, they would take up around 42.9 percent of the Liberty’s salary cap in 2026.

The starting five combining for 55 to 60 percent of a team’s cap could be doable for New York, especially considering Leonie Fiebich is only two years into her rookie-scale contract.

Salary figures for Fiebich and Nyara Sabally, the Liberty’s lone two players under contract for 2026, are determined by the CBA and not immediately known.

It’s also worth noting that minimum contracts carry different cap hits in the new CBA.

In 2025, a veteran minimum salary for a player with two or fewer years of service was $66,079, or 4.39 percent of the cap. A veteran minimum for a player with three or more years was $78,831, or 5.24 percent of the cap.

In the new CBA, the veteran minimum ranges from $277,500 for players with three or fewer years of service to $300,000 for players with 10 or more years. However, a veteran minimum contract carries a 3.96 percent cap hit in 2026 regardless of a player’s experience level.

General managers across the WNBA are all grappling with the same question.

How do you maximize your dollar when there’s still relatively so little space?

Meanwhile, the question players have to answer for themselves is: What’s the price for contending?

Kolb has his work cut out for him.