The Minnesota Lynx spent the entire 2025 WNBA regular season as the league’s most dominant team, but suffered a shocking semifinals loss to the Phoenix Mercury to end their bid for another championship earlier than expected.
That series ended with star forward Napheesa Collier injured and in a walking boot after suffering an ankle injury late in Game 4 on a controversial no-call that sent Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve into a tirade on the sidelines. On Tuesday, Collier met with the media for her post-season exit interview and opened with a lengthy, four-minute statement in which she went scorched earth on WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert over a number of issues from CBA negotiations to officiating problems.
In the statement, which you can read in full below, Coller said the WNBA has “the worst leadership in the world.” She also brought out receipts from a conversation she had with Engelbert in February, in which the commissioner told her that Caitlin Clark “should be grateful” to the WNBA for her endorsement deals and that players should be “on their knees” thanking her for the new media rights deal.
“First of all, I’d like to congratulate the Mercury for advancing to the Finals. I want to be clear this conversation is not about winning or losing, it’s about something much bigger. The real threat to our league isn’t money, it isn’t ratings or even missed calls or even physical play. It’s the lack of accountability from the league office. Since I’ve been in the league, you’ve heard the constant concerns about officiating and it has now reached levels of inconsistency that plague our sport and undermine the integrity with which it operates.
Whether the league cares about the health of the players is one thing, but to also not care about the product we put on the floor is truly self-sabotage. Year after year, the only thing that remains consistent is the lack of accountability from our leaders. The league has a buzzword that they rolled out as a talking point for the CBA as to why they can’t pay the players what we’re worth; that word is sustainability. But what’s truly unsustainable is keeping a good product on the floor while allowing officials to lose control of games. Fans see it every night. Coaches, both winning and losing, point it out every night in pre- and post-game media. And leadership just issues fines and looks the other way. They ignore the issues that everyone inside the game is begging them to fix. That is negligence.
At Unrivaled this past February, I sat across from Cathy and asked how she planned to address the officiating issues in our league. Her response was, ‘Well, only the losers complain about the refs.’ I also asked how she planned to fix the fact that players like Caitlin, Angel and Paige, who are clearly driving massive revenue for the league, are making so little for their first four years. Her response was, ‘Caitlin should be grateful she makes $60 million off the court because without the platform the WNBA gives her, she wouldn’t make anything.’
In that same conversation, she told me ‘players should be on their knees thanking their lucky stars for the media rights deal that I got them.’ That’s the mentality driving our league from the top. We go to battle every day to protect a shield that doesn’t value us. The league believes it succeeds despite its players, not because of them.
I have the privilege of watching my husband run a league where he has to balance 100 different things at once. I won’t pretend the job is easy, but even with all of that on his plate, he always reaches out to players when he sees an injury, whether it’s Unrivaled or even during the WNBA season. That is what leadership looks like. It’s the human element, it’s basic integrity, and it’s the bare minimum any leader should embody. But do you know who I haven’t heard from? Cathy. Not one call, not one text. Instead the only outreach has come from her No. 2 telling my agent that she doesn’t believe physical play is contributing to injuries.
That is infuriating. And it’s the perfect example of the tone deaf, dismissive approach that our leaders always seem to take. I’ve finally grown tired. For too long, I’ve tried to have these conversations in private, but it’s clear there’s no intention of accepting there’s a problem. The league has made it clear it isn’t about innovation, it isn’t about collaboration, it’s about control and power. I’ve earned this platform and I paid the price to get here, and now I have a responsibility to speak on behalf of the fans and everyone in this league that deserves better.
Our leadership’s answer to being held accountable is to suppress everyone’s voices by handing out fines. I’m not concerned about a fine. I’m concerned about the future of our sport. At some point, everyone deserves to hear the truth from someone who I hope has earned the benefit of the doubt to fight for what is right and fair for our athletes and our fans. We have the best players in the world. We have the best fans in the world. But right now we have the worst leadership in the world.
If I didn’t know exactly what the job entailed, maybe I wouldn’t feel this way, but unfortunately for them, I do. We serve a league that has shown they think championship coaches and Hall of Fame players are dispensible, and that’s fine, it’s professional sports. But I will not stand quietly by and allow different standards to be applied at the league level.”
Hours after Collier’s comments, Engelbert responded with a statement of her own, explaining how she was “disheartened” by what she heard.
“I have the utmost respect for Napheesa Collier and for all the players in the WNBA,” Engelbert said. “Together we have all worked tirelessly to transform this league. My focus remains on ensuring a bright future for the players and the WNBA, including collaborating on how we continue to elevate the game. I am disheartened by how Napheesa characterized our conversation and league leadership, but even when our perspectives differ, my commitment to the players and to this work will never waver.”
The frustration Collier and other players have had with Engelbert has been apparent throughout this year as players have consistently called out the league for not engaging in good faith CBA negotiations. This statement seemed to be a rallying cry from Collier, both to the rest of the players and to fans to push back strongly together against leadership that she feels is actively antagonistic toward the players.
The anecdote about Clark, in particular, was a savvy move from Collier given the legions of fans devoted to the Fever star who will certainly not take Engelbert’s comments about how the WNBA has created Clark’s popularity well.
Collier also references her experience running Unrivaled alongside her husband over the past two years, and notes how that has caused her to recognize how poor a job the WNBA’s leadership does with player relations and taking concerns seriously.
All of this points to the players and the WNBA being further apart than ever when it comes to the ongoing CBA negotiations, and it’s hard to see how that gap gets bridged quickly.
