Collier blasts WNBA's Engelbert: 'Worst leadership'

MINNEAPOLIS -- Minnesota Lynx prima Napheesa Collier blasted WNBA enactment successful her exit interrogation Tuesday, accusing league president Cathy Engelbert of being "negligent" successful her governance.

Collier said the league has failed to sufficiently code issues with officiating, compensation for players and the authorities of the wide product. She besides alleged that Engelbert told her successful a backstage speech that superstar Caitlin Clark and different young standouts "should beryllium connected their knees" successful gratitude for the level the league has fixed them.

"Our leadership's reply to being held accountable is to suppress everyone's voices by handing retired fines," Collier said. "I'm not acrophobic astir a fine, I'm acrophobic astir the aboriginal of our sport. At immoderate point, everyone deserves to perceive the information from idiosyncratic who I anticipation has earned the payment of the uncertainty to combat for what is close and just for our athletes and our fans.

"We person the champion players successful the world. We person the champion fans successful the world, but close present we person the worst enactment successful the world. If I didn't cognize precisely what the occupation entailed, possibly I wouldn't consciousness this way, but unluckily for them, I do. We service a league that has shown they deliberation title coaches and Hall of Fame players are dispensable and that's fine. It's nonrecreational sports, but I volition not basal softly by and let antithetic standards to beryllium applied astatine the league level."

Collier, who said the WNBA's officiating lapses are a signifier of "self-sabotage" by the league, missed her team's Game 4 nonaccomplishment and elimination against the Phoenix Mercury owed to an ankle wounded she suffered pursuing a arguable collision with Phoenix prima Alyssa Thomas successful Game 3. Lynx caput manager Cheryl Reeve was ejected aft arguing for a foul connected the play and past subsequently suspended for Game 4 aft she criticized the full authorities of officiating successful the league.

Collier has a unsocial relation arsenic some vice president of the WNBA Players Association and the co-founder of Unrivaled, a nonrecreational women's hoops league which was precocious valued astatine $340 cardinal and announced the caller signings of prima players similar Paige Bueckers. The imaginable struggle of involvement with Collier's dual roles person been scrutinized during a captious clip for the aboriginal of the league.

The league's players are successful a fiery conflict with the WNBA arsenic they effort to negociate a caller corporate bargaining agreement. Collier's words could adhd adjacent much strength to a speech that could pb to a enactment stoppage successful 2026 for players.

Collier said Monday that she wanted to publicize immoderate of the backstage conversations she's had with Engerlbert and different WNBA leaders successful caller months arsenic some sides hole to beryllium connected other sides of the dialog array this offseason. She said that Engelbert's alleged words astir Clark and different young players successful the league successful those backstage conversations were not due from a WNBA president. Engelbert allegedly told Collier that Clark should beryllium "grateful" to the WNBA, which the WNBA president claimed had helped the Indiana Fever prima marque wealth disconnected the court.

"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, Read Entire Article