'Beyond repair': Napheesa Collier, Cathy Engelbert and a WNBA teetering on the brink

NAPHEESA COLLIER BARELY slept the nighttime earlier she wrote the connection that would stone the WNBA.

It was precocious successful the evening connected Friday, Sept. 26, lone a fewer hours aft the Minnesota Lynx dropped Game 3 of their semifinal bid against the Phoenix Mercury. With 26 seconds near successful the crippled and the Lynx down four, Collier had crashed to the level aft a collision with the Mercury's Alyssa Thomas.

An MRI revealed 3 Grade 2 torn ligaments and a torn musculus successful her little leg. Inside the Phoenician edifice successful Scottsdale, Arizona, with symptom radiating crossed her leg, Collier sat to constitute a withering 4½-minute missive astir the authorities of WNBA officiating and commissioner Cathy Engelbert's enactment and cognition toward players. She planned to present it whenever Minnesota's play concluded.

Collier would bash this alone: There was nary connection oregon coordination with the players' association, for which Collier served arsenic vice president, sources say.

The wide connection she planned to present had been connected her caput for months, sources say, ever since a gathering 7 months agone successful Miami.

Back successful February, sources accidental Engelbert called a gathering with Collier and her husband, Alex Bazzell, the president of Unrivaled, a startup 3-on-3 league founded alongside Collier that immoderate successful the WNBA progressively judge is becoming contention to the league itself.

On Tuesday, earlier answering questions from the assembled media, Collier began:

"I'd similar to congratulate the Mercury for advancing to the finals. I privation to beryllium wide that this speech is not astir winning oregon losing. It's astir thing overmuch bigger. The existent menace to our league isn't money. It isn't ratings oregon adjacent missed calls oregon adjacent carnal play. It's the deficiency of accountability from the league office."

She continued.

"This past February, I sat crossed from [Engelbert] and asked however she planned to code the officiating issues successful our league," Collier said. "Her effect was, 'Well, lone the losers kick astir the refs.' I besides asked however she planned to hole the information that players similar [Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers], who are intelligibly driving monolithic gross for the league and are making truthful small for their archetypal 4 years.

"Her effect was, '[Clark] should beryllium grateful she makes $16 cardinal disconnected the tribunal due to the fact that without the level that the WNBA gives her, she wouldn't marque anything.' And successful that aforesaid conversation, she told me, 'Players should beryllium connected their knees, thanking their fortunate stars for the media rights woody that I got them.'"

Multiple sources contacted by ESPN said Collier had relayed Engelbert's comments to them wrong respective days of the February meeting.

Then, earlier Game 1 of the WNBA Finals, successful her archetypal nationalist quality since Collier's statement, Engelbert began her quality league with a connection of her own.

"I person the utmost respect for Napheesa and each azygous subordinate successful our league," Engelbert said. "They are astatine the halfway of everything we do. I was disheartened to perceive that immoderate players consciousness the league and me, personally, bash not attraction astir them oregon perceive to them. And if the players successful the W don't consciousness appreciated and valued by the league, past we person to bash amended and I person to bash better."

She said the league values feedback. She acknowledged that league "stakeholders" -- arsenic she referred to the players connected aggregate occasions -- are "misaligned" with what they privation from officiating. She said that corporate bargaining statement negotiations were ongoing and that the league w...