For months, the league and its players have been trying to hammer out an agreement—a process that has brought to the surface many of the longest-simmering issues in women’s basketball. Players, paid relatively little by professional sports standards for years, are looking to earn their fair share of the league’s growing profits. The league, meanwhile, is conscious of the real economic challenges that it has faced and seems reluctant to agree to anything that could threaten its solid footing. It was only for the first time in 2025 that the WNBA even earned enough to trigger revenue sharing. It’s a complex dance, one that comes with years of baggage, passion, and genuine desire on both sides to see women’s basketball thrive into the decades ahead.

I was lucky enough to recently chat with a women’s basketball legend who has a view into all sides of this debate. Dawn Staley is a former WNBA star, now best known as the head coach for the South Carolina Gamecocks at the college level, where she’s won three championships. She’s seen the WNBA at all its high points and low points. She’s seen the economic potential of women’s basketball; her latest $4 million-a-year deal at South Carolina made her the highest-paid coach in women’s basketball. Last summer, she interviewed for the head coaching job at the New York Knicks—which, had she continued, would have made her the NBA’s first female head coach.

Through all of those experiences, she’s come to a conclusion: women’s sports shouldn’t be singled out for drama that happens in every sport, but professional teams and leagues still need to understand when something involving women does change the conversation. Here are some of Staley’s words of wisdom on women’s basketball’s hottest topics:

Being the highest-paid coach in women’s basketball? “I’ve never been one that’s driven by money. I am, however, driven by principle and core values,” she told me. “I do think it stands for something to be in a male-dominated sport, to be a Black woman and to hold that title.”

The WNBA’s CBA drama? “The stage that we’re in at women’s basketball is happens in every other sport. We shouldn’t be held to a different standard, because we’re women. … I won’t be happy if there’s a lockout, but I’m kind of happy that the players are stepping up for what they feel is their worth.”

Whether she would want to be the NBA’s first female head coach? “An NBA franchise has to be ready to hire the first female coach. You’ve got to prepare for a female head coach, because things will change. The questions regarding basketball will be more sexist questions. If I had gotten the job, a five-game losing streak wouldn’t be just about basketball. It would be more about was she fit for the job? Can she do it? Can she handle it? It’s not your normal hire, no matter how much we want it to be, it’s not.”

What she learned from her sister’s leukemia diagnosis, which has led her to become an advocate for screening and early detection, including through a partnership with Aflac. “It just taught me to exhale and and bring some balance to what I’m doing.”

And her ultimate goal as a women’s basketball legend: “The responsibility is to make sure that women’s basketball is OK. To really demand the things that we need to in our sport, to really have people respect us.”

That’s what the players are trying to do now—and we’ll likely have to wait a week to see what happens next.

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com

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PARTING WORDS

"I've always been someone that's focused on the gain, not the gap."

— WNBA star Kelsey Plum on the status of collective bargaining negotiations between the league and its players