LAS VEGAS (AP) — Minnesota forward Napheesa Collier canceled a meeting with WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert expected to take place next week, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press on Saturday night.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly about it.
Engelbert said Friday night that she had talked to Collier earlier this week after the Lynx player said the league has “the worst leadership in the world” and a commissioner who lacks accountability in a blistering assessment. The two had planned to meet next week, either in person or virtually.
ESPN first reported the meeting was canceled.
The commissioner said before Game 1 of the WNBA Finals that comments made by Collier about a private conversation between them were filled with “inaccuracies,” including one about Caitlin Clark needing the WNBA to succeed financially. The commissioner denied saying that.
“Caitlin has been a transformational player in this league. She’s been a great representative of the game,” Engelbert said. “She’s brought in tens of millions of new fans to the game.”
Engelbert said Friday there’s work to be done to repair relationships with players in the league.
“I was disheartened to hear that some players feel the league and that I personally do not care about them or listen to them,” Engelbert said ahead of the WNBA Finals. “If the players in the W don’t feel appreciated and valued by the league, then we have to do better and I have to do better."
The league and the players' union are in the middle of a collective bargaining agreement negotiation as the current deal expires at the end of the month.
AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball
Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier, left, steals the ball from Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas during the first half of Game 3 of a WNBA basketball playoff semifinals series game Friday, Sept. 26, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
FILE - WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert speaks during a news conference before the WNBA All-Star basketball game, Saturday, July 19, 2025, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Yankees general manager Brian Cashman says Sonny Gray admitted he expressed a desire to play in New York at the behest of his agent so as not to harm his free-agency value and didn't voice his dislike of the Big Apple until after the 2018 trade deadline had passed.
Gray was acquired by Boston in a trade from St. Louis last month and spoke of his 1 1/2 seasons in New York during a Zoom news conference on Dec. 2.
“New York was, it just wasn’t a good situation for me, wasn’t a great setup for me and my family,” he said. “I never wanted to go there in the first place.”
His agent denied Cashman's allegations in an email to The Associated Press.
Gray was traded from Oakland to the Yankees in July 2017 and went 15-16 with a 4.52 ERA with New York. He was dropped from the rotation in August 2018 after he smirked when fans booed as he walked off the Yankee Stadium mound in the third inning of a 7-5 loss to Baltimore. He was dealt to Cincinnati in January 2019.
“After the deadline was over, he asked to meet with me. He said, 'Hey, can we talk?'” Cashman said Sunday night after arriving at the winter meetings.
Cashman recalled meeting with Gray in the clubhouse office of Chad Bohling, the Yankees' senior director of organizational performance.
“He said, 'I thought you were going to trade me,'” Cashman said. “I was like, publicly I’m out trying to get pitching, starting pitching and bullpen. Why would I trade a starter when we need pitching badly? ... And he goes, ‘Well I got to tell you, I’ve never wanted to —' that’s when he told me he never wanted to be here. He hates New York. This is the worst place. He just sits in his hotel room."
“I said, Well it’s a little late now,” Cashman recalled. “So then I told him, I said, but you said you wanted to be traded here. And he said, 'My agent, Bo McKinnis, told me to do that. He told me to lie. It wouldn’t be good for my free agency to say there are certain places that I don't want to go to.'”
“And I told him: Nothing I can do about it now. I wish you’d told me well beforehand. I wish we knew this before we even tried to acquire you that you never wanted to come here," Cashman said. "We tried to do our homework. … And I said so now we’ll just have to play the year out and this winter I’ll do whatever I can to move you and we moved him to the Reds.”
Cashman said the Yankees had a minor league video coordinator who had been roommates of Gray at Vanderbilt and that Gray had mentioned to his former roommate: "Tell Cash, get me over to the Yankees. Blah, blah, blah. Like I want out of Oakland. I want to win a world championship. Blah, blah, blah. So, and it wasn’t just him. He was communicating that to a number of different people that was getting to us, that he wants to be a Yankee."
McKinnis refuted Cashman's comments.
“So Brian is trying to make people believe I told Sonny to, in Cashman’s words, `lie' to the minor league video guy to try to get Sonny to the Yankees, even though, per Cashman, Sonny did not want to be with the Yankees, to subsequently somehow help Sonny’s free agency,” McKinnis wrote in an email to the AP.
“This makes zero sense,” McKinnis added. “If any player does not want to play for a certain club — thus potentially not performing at their best if they were with that team — it does not help their career and future free agency to lie their way into a trade to that club. Brian’s claim makes no sense. Further, the words, `I want out of Oakland,' have never been said by Sonny. He loved his time with the A’s.”
Now 36, Gray has become a three-time All-Star and is 125-102 with a 3.58 ERA over 13 seasons with the Athletics (2013-17), Yankees (2017-18), Reds (2019-21), Minnesota (2022-23) and Cardinals (2024-25). The right-hander waived a no-trade provision to accept the deal to the Red Sox.
“What did factor into my decision to come to Boston is it feels good to me to go to a place now where you know what, it’s easy to hate the Yankees, right? It’s easy to go out and have that rivalry and go in it with full force, full steam ahead," Gray said. "I like the challenge. I appreciate the challenge. I accept the challenge. But this time around it's just go out and be yourself. Don't try to be anything other than yourself and if people don't like it, it is what it is. I am who I am, and I'm OK with that."
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
FILE - St. Louis Cardinals' Sonny Gray pitches to a San Francisco Giants batter during the first inning of a baseball game, Sept. 24, 2025, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez, file)
