Aces owner Davis backs Cambage's salary cap criticism: 'I agree 100%'
On Tuesday - the first day players could officially sign new contracts - center Liz Cambage expressed immense frustration with the current rules governing the amount players can make as WNBA teams and her fellow free agents began to break news.
ahhh yes the @WNBA, where a head coach can get paid 4X the highest paid players super max contract. lmao and y’all think imma spend another season upgrading my seat on a flight to get to games out of my own pocket.
— Elizabeth Cambage (@ecambage) February 1, 2022
Becky Hammon's case is central to Cambage's point. After establishing herself as a top candidate for a head coaching role in the NBA, the Las Vegas Aces lured the former all-time great player back to the WNBA on a record-breaking contract for the job - around $1 million per season.
By comparison, the most Cambage could make if she re-signs with Las Vegas in 2022 would be just over $228,000 - a slim raise on the $221,450 she earned last year while boasting the league's sixth-highest PER. And even with the latest collective bargaining agreement requiring "premium economy" seats for WNBA players (if available), the 6-foot-8 Australian still inevitably has to cram her towering frame into commercial flights.
As of Feb. 3, Cambage remains unsigned.
Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis, who purchased the Aces from MGM Resorts International in January 2021, says he wholeheartedly backs the sentiment from the team's now-former player.
"I agree 100% with what she says - that the players do deserve more money, that they don't need to be flying on commercial flights ... that we should have charter flights," Davis said Thursday during a press conference touting 2020 MVP A'ja Wilson's new deal ($398,422 over two years). "I agree with all of those things.
"And those are things that the Las Vegas Aces are going to be champions of and that we're going to grow for the good of everybody in this league."
However, Davis also noted that although the current CBA caps player contracts, there are no restrictions on salaries for coaches. For the son of the late maverick Raiders owner Al Davis, that created an opportunity for the franchise to use Hammon's deal to re-establish the baseline for how much bench bosses around the WNBA can earn.
Taking a page from his family's history in professional football, Davis compared Hammon's contract to the then-eye-popping salary once given to New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath, whose paycheck helped legitimize the fledgling American Football League as a competitor to the long-dominant NFL.
"Joe Namath had the $400,000 contract, and he sparked the imagination of everybody that, 'This league is real,'" Davis recalled. "And so I felt that giving Becky Hammon the million-dollar contract, or whatever you want to call it, would then show everybody that there is value here."