International WNBA players often leave their teams during the regular season; why that's changing

NBC Sports

4 hours ago

The Seattle Storm's Gabby Williams is enjoying a career season in 2025. She's averaging the most points (14), assists (4.7) and rebounds (4.5) she ever has in seven WNBA seasons. Her three-point percentage has increased by over 20 percent year-over-year even as her attempts from deep have increased from 2.6 to 4.8 in 2025. Satou Sabally too has had a career year in scoring, leading the Phoenix Mercury so far with 19.3 points per game.
Imagine if both Sabally and Williams had to just pause their WNBA seasons and potential WNBA All-Star campaigns to jet off to Europe to play in EuroBasket from June 18 through June 29. EuroBasket is a biennial continental championship tournament sponsored by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) that can qualify a national team's entry into the next Olympics.
For a long time, that was often the case for WNBA players with ties to countries like France, Germany, Belgium, and Italy, who would — and still do — leave their WNBA teams midseason to compete in a week-and-a-half-long tournament. The event can feature up to six games in just 12 days, with only one day of rest between the first three games.
It isn't only national teams from Europe, however, that often feature WNBA players in these continental tournaments. FIBA also sponsors other continental tournaments such as the Asia Cup and the AmeriCup that serve a similar purpose. The AmeriCup runs from late June into early July and then the Asia Cup begins in the middle of July and runs for a week. The Sky's Kamilla Cardoso and the Fever's Damiris Dantas left just this week to compete in the AmeriCup for the Brazilian National team.
As of right now the WNBA has 162 rostered players, which includes players on hardship contracts and 22 of them (13.5 percent) faced a choice to leave in the middle of the season or will be late for the WNBA season because of these continental tournaments.
While 13 players have made commitments to play in these tournaments during the first half of the WNBA season, eight players have firmly decided not to including German national team star Sabally, French two-way wing Williams, New York Liberty French guard Marine Johannès and Sabally's sister Nyara who also plays for New York in the W.
'It gives the autonomy back to the players,' Satou told reporters about what to glean from this new trend amongst international WNBA players in 2025.
All but three teams in the WNBA including the Mystics, Aces and Dream—teams that don't roster international players— have been impacted by the decisions that international players have made or will continue to make. Teams like the new expansion franchise, the Golden State Valkyries, have had to adjust the most as the franchise has dealt with one-third of their team leaving for EuroBasket in the month of June. But some teams also have players making different types of decisions that aren't in line with the desires of international federations. French Rookie Carla Leite decided to stay in San Francisco with the Valkyries rather than return to France to train with her national team prior to EuroBasket and as did No. 2 overall pick Dominique Malonga, who made a commitment to the Seattle Storm.
Explaining the status quo
Until 2023, the expectation for players within the French Federation's women's basketball team was that prior to competitions like EuroBasket and the Olympics players would report to the national team's training camp after their club seasons in either the French league or some other international league concluded.
To be clear, this is what one player on the Connecticut Sun, 2024 No. 10 overall draft pick Leïla Lacan, has had to do this season. She is expected to join the Sun after the French national team completes their stint in EuroBasket which could be as soon as on June 30, a day after the Sun play the Lynx in Minneapolis.
But prior to 2023, French players didn't really challenge the wishes of the Federation. This wasn't until Johannès had a desire to fly to New York to get settled with the Liberty and then meet the national team at EuroBasket instead of staying in France for weeks-long training sessions. She and her agent negotiated for months with the Federation but the French body didn't oblige and instead punished Johannès by not allowing her to compete in EuroBasket in addition to settling in with the Liberty first.
The federation even threatened to ban Johannès from competing in the 2024 Paris Olympics, but they quickly changed course after realizing how this looked optically, banning one of their best players and how they were limiting player autonomy. To be clear, Johannès had come late every other WNBA season she's played because of her French domestic league and national team commitments.
While not all federations are as strict as the French, it remains notable that both Belgian players in Julie Vanloo and Julie Allemand decided to leave their respective WNBA teams in the Valkyries and the Sparks in favor of competing in EuroBasket. They could begin their seasons in the United States, but both made different decisions compared to Johannès, Williams, and the Sabally sisters.
There is also personal pressure on players to leave their WNBA teams in order to strengthen their national teams and help grow the sport in their home countries. Mercury head coach Nate Tibbets had breakfast with Satou one morning and the two were discussing her decision to stay with the Mercury amid some doubt she had about letting her country down. 'I'm sure both [Satou and Nyara] are feeling like they're leaving their country down, not being there, and because I know they've got such a pride for playing for their team,' he said.
Tibbets, who came to the WNBA after 20 years of experience in the G league and NBA, isn't used to this constant struggle that many WNBA players endure season to season. 'Players would never probably leave, or that league wouldn't allow players to leave to go and play for their national team in these tournaments,' he said about the NBA.
Why is that? Typically G league players or college aged players represent international federations and even Team USA. For the FIBA AmeriCup taking place this year, USA Basketball sent some of the United States' best college players rather than pulling from the WNBA. That's not always the case for Federations that don't have the depth of talent available in the United States.
But also with EuroBasket in particular, the next men's tournament will happen during the NBA offseason later this summer in August. No conflict there.
What sparked a change
Prior to the Tokyo Olympics, Williams had a falling out with her former WNBA team the Chicago Sky. Her plan was to begin the 2021 season in France to prepare for the Olympics after her French league team ASVEL completed its domestic season. Initially the agreement between the Sky and Williams was that they would trade her contract, but then the franchise defected and suspended her contract instead, preventing her from playing at all in the WNBA in 2021.
Williams explained to Andscape's Sean Heard her frustration with this situation and what she said to Sky owner Michael Alter. 'I told him, 'You have to understand, I don't make money here,' ' she said. 'Not even about money – I wasn't getting a lot of minutes. I didn't feel very important to the team – they didn't make me feel important – and I was like, 'You're asking me to sacrifice this for that.''
Williams' dissatisfaction with Sky ownership came down to an endemic WNBA issue. Over the years, the Sky were notorious for being a franchise that didn't treat its players on the level of professional athletes. Back in 2021, teams weren't in the arms race they are now to provide players with the best experience and player amenities.
The WNBA was also a year into a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that had a provision that limited international players or players who chose to play overseas. The owners argued in the 2020 CBA that the quality of the product was suffering because so many of the best players were supplementing their incomes abroad and arriving late to training camp and the regular season.
After Brittney Griner's ordeal in Russia, more opportunities have opened up for the top players to stay in the United States during the WNBA offseason. But players have their eyes on the next CBA which is being negotiated as we speak and set to go into action next season. Salaries are expected to go up pretty dramatically in addition to requirements for franchises when it comes to the player experience. This is the reason why players like Williams, Satou and Johannès are committing to the WNBA this year.
For Satou her reason to skip EuroBasket was because of her desire to prove to the Mercury how committed she is to them. She, like most of the league, is on a one-year contract that will expire once the current CBA does. She missed more than half of the 2024 WNBA season recovering from injury and preparing for the Paris Olympics. She knew that in 2025 she would need to prove to her WNBA team that she's committed and deserving of the increase in pay that's going to come to most players.
'So sometimes you just have to give and take a little bit in your professional career,' Satou said about her decision. 'There's so many people that will pull from all sides. So just knowing what you can and can't do is also something that I've learned throughout my time.'
Johannès' reasoning is similar to Satou's. She wants to prove to the Liberty and the entire league that she can play an entire season in the WNBA. But she also made a decision for her own physical and mental health.
'I'm 30 right now, and like, I can't be everywhere and nowhere, you know? I know some people were mad about my decision, but they have to understand that I'm not 23 anymore. Like, I need stabilization too.'
Liberty and Australian national team coach Sandy Brondello, who once was a WNBA player who did not grow up in the United States, understands these issues from all sides. She knows how much of a bind international federations put on players, and she knows how much WNBA teams are impacted when star players leave in the beginning of the season. Leonie Fiebich, another German national team mainstay, hasn't played for the Liberty since June 14, and New York has gone 2-3 since.
Brondello respects all the choices of her players, but sees a deterioration of the status quo that was prevalent in so many international federations.
'I think all the Federations understand that this is their jobs, and this is how they make money,' Brondello said about the WNBA. 'And there's a new CBA coming out next year, opportunities to be financially secure. So I just think it's just a different time where there's a little bit more appreciation, and players have more of a voice in what they should be doing for their careers and not being told what they should be doing.'
Li Yueru of the Dallas Wings is a mainstay on the Chinese national team and she forced a trade this year for that same reason. Li knew that if she stayed on the Seattle Storm and continued to get small amounts of playing time, the Chinese Federation would have demanded that she return to China to compete in the Asia Cup. Li wanted to prioritize the WNBA and forced her way to Dallas to prevent conflict between her and her home federation.
While Satou's sister Nyara's reasons are different from her sister's reasons for sitting EuroBasket out, especially since she's still on her rookie scale contract in 2026, hers are more about her own physical health and overall convenience. She has had a history of issues with her right knee and it flared up again earlier this WNBA season. If she would have participated in EuroBasket, she would have put her health at risk. Another flight would lead to more knee swelling, and then back-to-back games wouldn't have helped with her load management and injury prevention either.
But it isn't just physical for players. It's about how difficult it is mentally to move from place to place so quickly.
'I'm always talking about coming late during the season is not easy,' Johannès told reporters reflecting on her decision. 'So I guess I think that coming here first, like going to the national team, it's completely in a different organization, like we don't play the same. So coming back again here, like, it's going to be a lot.'
Challenges will persist moving forward
Because of a new CBA on the way and because WNBA franchises have upped their player experience and amenities, players are more inclined to stay in the United States now during these more minor tournaments.
But what is going to happen when the WNBA season has to once again contend with the 2026 FIBA World Cup which is set to take place in Germany from September 4 through September 13?
The WNBA's 2025 schedule has 44 games, and it would be foolish to believe that the league would want to decrease the number of games in its season in the year after under the new CBA. Traditionally the WNBA season would end before the World Cup and the Finals would end as the World Cup begins. That might not be possible in 2026. Could the WNBA take a World Cup break in September and then resume later in the fall? That's a similar approach that the league takes with the Olympics? The possibility is one that still remains to be seen.
Emma Meeseman, a former WNBA Finals MVP who hasn't played in the league for years because of limits on international players, namely prioritization under the current CBA, has expressed frustration about how often EuroBasket and other FIBA continental tournaments have to happen.
But a source familiar with how FIBA operates explained to NBC Sports why FIBA probably won't be open to having less EuroBaskets, Asia Cups and AmeriCup tournaments. The tournaments are how the governing body makes money, and so the only compromise would be moving the tournaments rather than eliminating them.
'It's just a really hard scheduling problem,' Nyara said in response to Meeseman's frustrations. 'I'm pretty sure people are also working on it. I think they're probably aware of the issue that's going on and the trend that more and more players ought to stay in the States…so maybe moving it to one of the national team windows would be a possibility but that's wishful thinking.'
But then Nyara noted that if EuroBasket moves to during the winter time, then players who are playing in Europe during the winter will have to miss parts of EuroLeague or their domestic league's season.
The solution, which is one that's quite common in the NBA, is that with higher pay more international and domestic WNBA players won't even have to supplement their incomes overseas. With a new CBA in 2026, the WNBA could become not only the most talented league in the world, but finally a professional women's league where its players are treated like the money-making superstars they are.