There has been lots of news about Dominique Malonga recently after the conclusion of her promising rookie season with the Seattle Storm. She first announced that she had undergone wrist surgery after the playoffs with no clear timetable on her return. Her next destination was supposed to be Turkish powerhouse Fenerbahce for the European season after she had signed there earlier this year from Lyon, the French team where she had developed. News had filtered out from both countries that she was going to terminate that contract and sign with a different organization instead, which Fenerbahce confirmed with a strongly worded statement indicating that they would respond. The first major story in the American media about the situation came when Annie Costabile of Front Office Sports added to the existing information with a mention that Fenerbahce could move to block Malonga from playing in the WNBA for the entire duration of her contract with them, which would cover the next two seasons. This situation could take a while to be fully resolved, but there are a lot of angles that could be a factor in what happens.
Letter of Clearance
The paperwork that Annie Costabile was discussing that could hold up her return to the WNBA is FIBA’s Letter of Clearance. It is a system designed to govern the movement of players between teams in different countries so that the federation of the player’s previous team can confirm that they no longer have an existing contract to the federation of their new team. The NBA and WNBA are not FIBA-sanctioned, but have an agreement with them to abide by this system as part of the larger agreement that also allows NBA and WNBA players to participate in national team play. Their desire to participate in the global system makes sense as it would certainly be disruptive for players to leave in the middle of a season for a club team elsewhere even though not participating in it would allow the NBA in particular to sign players without regard to existing contracts.
The participation of the WNBA in this process has not resulted in problems up to this point, even with multi-year contracts like Malonga’s deal with Fenerbahce. There have even been cases in both directions where a player has been allowed to move teams even before a season is complete without much contention. The New York Liberty let Han Xu play for Sichuan in 2023 before the WNBA Finals concluded. Whether a player can be blocked during periods when their team is not in season has not really been determined, but is what has been mentioned as a threat here.
The NCAA does not participate in the letter of clearance system, which is starting to be a point of contention overseas as well given that youngers players like Malonga tend to sign multi-year contracts. Players have left for college while still under contract and now that the NCAA more closely resembles a professional competition than the supplement to the education system that exempted it from participating in the sanctioning process, there is a call for it to a party to the process, although not as much on the women’s side yet even as Fenerbahce has lost players to colleges like many other prominent clubs.
The Basketball Arbitral Tribunal
Contracts of significant size globally generally have clauses in them that govern the arbitration process if there are disputes. FIBA’s Basketball Arbitral Tribunal is the place where teams, players, and agents can go and get rulings, which result in FIBA punishments until the terms of the verdict are completed. This process is far from immediate, but is where Fenerbahce would go to get financial compensation for the contract termination. The process would reveal much more about what has happened behind the scenes leading up to the termination, including communication between the team, Malonga, and her agents.
Unless there are relevant facts that just have not been released at all to this point, it would seem likely that some money would be owed to Fenerbahce as compensation, including costs related to bringing the case to arbitration. Whether Malonga, her agent, or both bear responsibility in this situation would be determined in this process. If she owes money and pays it, then the case is cleared up and there is no further impact on her career. Some players, including former WNBA players Angel McCoughtry and Erlana Larkins, do not immediately pay those judgments and are banned from making inter-league moves until they do.
National Team Play
Fenerbahce fans who are hoping for the maximum amount of punishment have been bringing up the possibility that Malonga might receive a ban from appearing for France’s national team. It is true that players who do not comply with the terms of a BAT judgment against them can also be banned from their national team until everything is resolved. This is usually not used strictly as punishment though so it is unlikely to linger if everything else is resolved. While FIBA does not want their players to participate in unsanctioned leagues, they do also want players to be available for national team competitions.
Unrivaled?
Where Malonga intends to play instead of Fenerbahce has not been announced yet, but Unrivaled certainly seems like a reasonable guess. Since Unrivaled is not a sanctioned basketball competition, there would be no way for her to be prevented from playing there. If this is the conflict point, that is also an interesting storyline with Fenerbahce considering that league founders Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart each played there previously and helped them win the EuroLeague title in those seasons. Given that the WNBA also does not have a positive relationship with Unrivaled, it would seem like trying to block her from playing in the WNBA is creating additional conflict.
Project B?
Another new league has been popping up in the news from time to time, including recently. What had been billed as a touring competition featuring men and women now appears to be focused on starting with a women’s league. Which investors will ultimately end up being involved has not been determined yet even with plenty of rumors flying, including American media frequently sidelining Misko Raznatovic, who created a new paradigm for running a basketball agency by owning his own team, by only referring to him within his role as Nikola Jokic’s agent. The league is scheduled to have their first world tour next year, but it is unclear whether they will be sanctioned or not and when they might start to officially sign players.
The NBA and Europe
Another layer to any possible actions that Fenerbahce might take to block Malonga from playing in the WNBA is the NBA’s current movement into the European basketball scene. As a shareholding club in the men’s EuroLeague competition and the champions, they are supposed to be operating on a united front with their fellow permanent members even though it is obvious that there are some teams that plan to immediately jump to the NBA competition once it starts. Fenerbahce would certainly be a major candidate for that, which might cause them to pause before engaging in any direct conflict with the WNBA. This is especially true given that their great rivals Galatasaray have been free to publicly court the NBA since they are not in the EuroLeague ecosystem. The two historic clubs have the allegiance of around 65-70% of Turks worldwide between them and the NBA feels that the market is one that they will need a presence in eventually.
The Future of International Basketball
This matter does start to bring forward discussion about where international teams and leagues will sit in relation to the WNBA in the near future. While there are players outside of the NBA who earn salaries above what they might be offered by the NBA, the scale of growth of the league has greatly outpaced any other competition that was much closer years ago and it seems unlikely that we will ever have a star player internationally again who has not tried to play in the NBA. We are on the verge of a change on the women’s basketball side too, especially after a new WNBA CBA.
Fenerbahce has enjoyed its position as one of if not the premier basketball destination for women since 2022, including winning their first two EuroLeague titles. They have had a substantial budget during this time, but WNBA teams have started to surpass those figures on the revenue side. The league seems determined to keep their player compensation below Fenerbahce’s reported figures in early negotiations, but it would certainly be financially feasible for all the WNBA teams to pay at that level and other teams around the world are not in a position to keep up with much more limited revenue growth potential. Young American stars are now strongly preferring Unrivaled or offseason rest over international clubs and the increase in WNBA salaries is starting to attract foreign players like Malonga, even leading to them skipping national team play as was the case this year. We could very well be entering an era in which players are not playing in multiple countries.
Plenty of international teams are already operating under the assumption that WNBA players are no longer an option as they make their signing decisions in the spring. Some are not even considering players who do not have WNBA contracts, but could draw interest there. Teams have also been letting players go early even in the middle of their seasons with the notable recent example being Girona allowing Chloe Bibby to try to make the roster for the Golden State Valkyries, pretty much sacrificing any realistic shot at winning the Spanish league. She did not end up making the team then, but her injury once she did stick in the WNBA has now affected her ability to return to Girona to start this season.
It is a much tougher adjustment for teams like Fenerbahce who have enjoyed the ability to bring in some of the top players in the world. While there have not always been a large number of their fans in the stands, their long and proud history as a multi-sport club has certainly had their fans following along in each team’s success. Malonga deciding not to play for the team feels more of personal indictment of the club with which the identify than a basketball decision to those fans and contributes to their response to the situation similar to a star leaving a college via transfer. The question at multi-sport clubs is always how resources will be allocated in the future and there remains some question about whether women’s basketball will continue to enjoy a budget on the same scale or if other sections like soccer and volleyball might make better use of those resources.
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