Half a world away, the upcoming WNBA season and perhaps the league’s future overall took a dramatic turn on Sunday.

Seattle Storm forward Breanna Stewart suffered what is believed to be a torn Achilles’ on a play against Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner during the EuroLeague final in Sopron, Hungary.

Stewart, playing for Russian team Dynamo Kurst, went up for a 15-footer and was fouled, landing on Griner’s foot and crumpling to the floor in agony. Griner was playing for her Russian team, UMMC Ekaterinburg, which was winning 48-32 at the time and went on to clinch another Euro title.

The potential season-ending loss of Stewart, the 2018 WNBA Most Valuable Player, is crippling not only for the defending champion Storm but for a league coming off its best season at a time when it is about to renegotiate a collective bargaining agreement with its players.

In November, the players association exercised its right to opt out early from the CBA after the 2019 season. The agreement originally was to run through 2021. In addition to salaries, the players want improved working conditions including better scheduling and travel.

Stewart’s injury will be a lightning rod for the negotiations because salaries are low enough that most players must play year-round to maximize their earnings years. The WNBA max salary for 2019 is roughly $117,000 and salaries for first-year players range from $42,000-$53,000.

Players bouncing from the WNBA to overseas leagues and back, combined with international competitions such as the Olympics and World Cup, has been an issue since the league began in 1997. It won’t be resolved because of Stewart’s injury, but that could be an impetus for change.

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The immediate impact is that the Mercury, which lost a tightly contested five-game playoff semifinal to Seattle last summer, will jump ahead of the Storm as the WNBA’s preseason favorite.

With nine players returning led by Griner, Diana Taurasi and DeWanna Bonner plus additions of free agent Essence Carson and draft picks Alanna Smith, Brianna Turner and Sophie Cunningham, Phoenix was going to push Seattle even with Stewart. Without Stewart, the Mercury now will be carrying an even bigger burden of title expectations.

The sobering thing to remember is how the situation easily could have been reversed, with EuroLeague Final Four MVP Griner being seriously injured all those miles away and the Mercury paying the price like when Taurasi sat out in 2012 (thanks to her lucrative Russian salary) to get a break from the year-round grind.

Reach the reporter at [email protected] or 602-444-8053. Follow him on Twitter @jeffmetcalfe.

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