DC Defenders quarterback Cardale Jones had just moved his team across midfield with a couple effortless flicks of his wrist, the types of throws that helped make him a legend at Ohio State, where the Cleveland native went from third on the depth chart to starting – and winning – the national championship game at the end of the 2014 season.

“Yeah, I heard them a little bit,” the 27-year-old Jones said with a wry smile. “I wouldn’t say they were for me.”

It’s been a while since Jones was the center of attention on the football field, and it will apparently take some getting used to. But how Jones fares as the Defenders’ most recognizable player could help shape the XFL’s popularity in its first season.

“He is a well-known name, and he’s someone that has had a lot of success at the highest levels,” Defenders Coach Pep Hamilton said this week. “To have a player that’s as accomplished as a Cardale Jones in our league is only beneficial to the quality of football that we have, and indicative of the quality of football that we have.”

Jones’ college career may never be replicated. He made his first start as a redshirt sophomore in the 2014 Big Ten championship game in place of Heisman Trophy candidate J.T. Barrett, who fractured his ankle in the Buckeyes’ previous game, and fueled a 59-0 rout of Wisconsin that earned Ohio State a spot in the College Football Playoff. Jones was similarly brilliant in his next two starts against Alabama and Oregon to claim the national title. He lost the starting job midway through the following season and declared for the NFL draft, leaving Ohio State with an 11-0 record as a starter.

A fourth-round pick of the Buffalo Bills in 2016, Jones appeared in one regular season game during his rookie year, was traded to the Los Angeles Chargers in 2017 and was among the team’s final cuts last summer. When Jones was assigned to the Defenders in October, one month after being released by the Seattle Seahawks, he called it an opportunity to “go somewhere and be ‘the guy.’ ” The role suited Jones just fine Saturday.

“Other than playing in mop-up duties in preseason games, it’s definitely a good feeling to be in a position where my play can ultimately determine the outcome of the game,” said Jones, who threw for 235 yards and two touchdowns in the Defenders’ 31-19 win over the Seattle Dragons. “It’s a position I always wanted to be in.”

Two days before the season opener, ESPN, one of the XFL’s broadcast partners, published a feature on Dallas Renegades quarterback Landry Jones. The accompanying headline declared the former Oklahoma star, who became the first player to commit to the league last August, “the face of the XFL.”

“That’s good,” Cardale Jones said when asked about the label, with no hint of bitterness. “None of those individual accolades matter to me personally, or this team, because we know what we’re chasing, and it’s bigger than one individual person. It’s a long season, and we’ve got a long way to go.”

Landry Jones sat out the Renegades’ season-opening loss to the St. Louis BattleHawks with a knee injury. And Defenders defensive lineman Tracy Sprinkle, who played with Cardale Jones at Ohio State, was less reserved than his teammate when asked about that title.

“I’m definitely biased, but Cardale is for sure the face of the XFL,” Sprinkle said. “He’s extremely talented, did a lot of great things in his career. He’s just continuing to get better. He’s still young, he’s still an exciting player to watch.”

Jones later joked, “I paid Tracy to say that. Anyone who says it’s me, I paid them to say that.”

Those who know Jones from his time at Ohio State, where he seemed destined to be remembered for his tweet about not coming to Columbus to “play school,” aren’t surprised by his tendency to stiff-arm praise.

“That’s always the way that he’s been,” said Lettermen Row senior writer Austin Ward, who covered Jones for ESPN during his roller-coaster career at Ohio State. “When you look at the way his whole journey played out . . . he has always believed in his own ability, but he’s never had any moment where anyone looked at him after high school as ‘the guy.’ He’s constantly had to fight for that recognition and fight for a spot. He always knew the next challenge was going to be bigger.”

Cardale Jones is already the unquestioned face of the XFL in Ohio, with Cleveland and Columbus ranking second and third behind Seattle in TV ratings for last Saturday’s opener on ABC. (Washington ranked fifth.) Jones, Sprinkle and cornerback Doran Grant give the Defenders three former Buckeyes, and there are no XFL franchises in Ohio.

“I’m shocked that [Cleveland and Columbus] weren’t one and two,” cracked Jones, who received his degree from Ohio State in 2017.

After last Saturday’s game, Jones said he heard from a number of his former college and pro teammates, including Tyvis Powell, Raekwon McMillan, Barrett and Super Bowl champion Frank Clark. Singer-songwriter John Legend, a die-hard Ohio State fan, tuned in for Jones’ XFL debut, too.

“I ain’t mad at this XFL action,” Legend tweeted to his 13.3 million followers. “I’ll be rooting for champion Buckeye QB @CJ1two.”

The XFL could prove to be a good fit for the 6-foot-5, 264-pound Jones, who has the opportunity to get game experience that he wouldn’t on an NFL practice squad and perhaps earn another opportunity in that league. He also has a built-in following; his 1.6 million Twitter followers, for example, are nearly 10 times the number of Redskins quarterback Dwayne Haskins, who also played at Ohio State.

“Cardale wanted a place to show what he could do,” said Ward, the Lettermen Row writer. “The XFL needs players who can do things other people can’t. Nothing against Landry Jones, but Cardale is the kind of person that can elevate your league. He has such a remarkable story, and the personality and athleticism to match it. If the XFL is going to be a success, you need people like that who fans are invested in, and I think that’s true not just in Columbus or Cleveland.”

Jones will look to improve to 13-0 as a starter since high school when the Defenders host the New York Guardians on Saturday.

“At the end of the day, you gotta go out there and win games,” Jones said. “If you’re [the] quote, unquote ‘face of the league’ or not, you gotta go out there and still do your job.”

The Asian Tour and European Tour accepted a request from title sponsor and promoter Maybank to postpone the Maybank Championship.

Discussions are ongoing with all parties looking into the possibility of rescheduling the tournament later this season.

Cho Minn Thant, Commissioner and CEO of the Asian Tour said: “We respect the decision made by the various key stakeholders of the Maybank Championship. We understand their concerns over the evolving Covid-19 situation which is a major international health issue and we look forward to the return of the Maybank Championship when the situation normalises.”

Datuk Abdul Farid Alias, Group President & CEO of Maybank, said: “The decision to postpone the Maybank Championship was made after intense deliberation and careful consideration in the interest of all the players, visitors, working teams and partners.

“The postponement of the Maybank Championship was not an easy decision to make, however, the safety of all stakeholders takes precedence, and we want to ensure that any risk of possible exposure to Covid-19 is mitigated. We will monitor the situation and work closely with the European and Asian Tours, as well as our other partners, as we plan for our return in the future.”

Elina Kvitolina 

Ranked 84 in the world, the Japanese who is just 1.63 metre in height proved very aggressive from the baseline as she unleashed a series of deep attacking groundstrokes to send the top seed packing in just 77 minutes.

“I’m so happy to win the match,” said the 25-year-old after her first win over a top 5 player. “Elina is one of the best players in the world in the world. I’ve watched her play on TV so many times. I’m incredibly happy,” added Hibino whose best ranking was at No 56 in 2016.

The winner of two WTA titles in Monterrey in 2017 and Hiroshima last year will face teenage qualifier  Leonie Kung of Switzerland who upset third-seeded Wang Qiang of China 2-6 6-3 6-3  on Saturday.

“I normally don’t care who I’m going to play. I just need to play my game and do my best,” she added.

In other quarter-final matches,  Magda Linette of Poland stopped the impressive run of 18-year-old rising star Xiyu Wang of China, coming back from the first set deficit to win 2-6 6-3 6-3 in one hour and 56 minutes.

“It was too fast for me at the beginning. But I tried to stay close with her, playing point by point and waited for my chance,” said the 42^nd-ranked Linette in her back-to-back semi-finals in Hua Hin. She will face Patricia Maria Tig of Romania, the world No 105 who upset fourth-seeded Saisai Zheng of China 6-4 6-2.

In the doubles second round, Tamarine Tanasugarn’s return to the WTA Tour came to an end after she and Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine lost to Barbara Hass of Austria and Ellen Perez of Australia 6-3 6-4.

Meawnhile, Natalija Kostic of Croatia of Serbia, the 25-year-old World No.183 who lost to No.4 seed Zheng Saisai in the opening round on Monday, was propsed by her boyfiend Nikola Stevanovic, during her stay at the tournament.

“It was a very big surprise, even after nine years together,” Kostic said. “I was shocked, honestly, but he really had the help of some friends here and the tournament. It was perfect. He had the help of a young couple, [also newly-married World No.135] Varvara Flink and her husband. They’ve been talking, and they were the ones who really helped him to make that step,” she said.

The couple was gifted a two-night stay at the beach-side luxury Intercontinental Resort Hua Hin by tournament organizers to celebrate their engagement, and Kostic didn’t rule out the possibility that they might return to Hua Hin as a part of their nuptials.

“It will take time, but we think [the wedding] will probably be next year,” she said. “We’d like to have it near the beach, so you never know, this is a good place!”

Established in 1959, Joyo Country Club will play host to the best players from the Asian Tour and Japan Golf Tour Organisation (JGTO) for the first time in more than a decade when the co-sanctioned event gets underway from September 24-27.

The Joyo Country Club last hosted the Panasonic Open in 2009 where Japan’s Daisuke Maruyama ended his four-year title drought with a four-stroke triumph then.

The ¥150,000,000 (approx. US$1,389,000) Panasonic Open Golf Championship is expected to be hotly contested by players who are not only battling for top honours but also their positions on the Order of Merit as the event will play a pivotal role in determining their places on the money list.

Reigning Asian Tour Order of Merit champion Jazz Janewattananond of Thailand stole the headlines when he won the second edition of the Panasonic Swing series after finishing in fourth place at the Panasonic Open Golf Championship last year.

That result was enough for him to secure the Panasonic Swing series with 3,021 points, taking home the top bonus prize of US$70,000 along the way too.

Thai duo Poom Saksansin and Panuphol Pittayarat secured second and third places on the final Panasonic Swing rankings, earning US$50,000 and US$30,000 respectively from the reward scheme.

Asian Tour Commissioner and CEO, Cho Minn Thant said: “We look forward to returning to the Joyo Country Club which last hosted the Panasonic Open in 2009. It’s great to travel and experience different courses on the Panasonic Open rota. Our members really appreciate the opportunity to see different parts of Japan whilst competing for such an illustrious championship.

“With the Panasonic Swing reaching its exciting conclusion there, I’m confident the Panasonic Open Golf Championship will continue to provide the galleries with an unforgettable week of top notch golfing action.”

But instead of giving Iowa a chance, the Terps showcased Shakira Austin. The 6-foot-5 sophomore was everywhere – forcing a turnover a midcourt and charging in for a layup, shaking her defender to score in the paint, pulling up for a jumper on the other side of the key .

Austin scored Maryland’s first 11 points of the third quarter – seven of which came before the Hawkeyes had their first point of the second half – and slammed the door on a 93-59 win that had gotten out of hand long before then.

Smothering defense, a strong start from the Terps’ guards and a strong finish from their bigs made what should have been a juicy battle for first place in the Big Ten no contest at all for Maryland (21-4, 12-2 Big Ten) Thursday at Xfinity Center. The Terps not only grabbed the top spot in the conference, they also notched their 10th consecutive win and got a little revenge for a road loss at Iowa (20-5, 11-3) on Jan. 9.

“Wow. That was a lot of fun,” Maryland Coach Brenda Frese said. “. . . This was a game that I knew they’d be ready to play, it was a very prideful game for us. You could see it building up to how we’ve been playing and our practices and where this team’s at.”

The matchup provided a chance for Maryland to show how far it has come since that early-January loss in Iowa City.

Maryland certainly showed its progress, but the game was no gritty battle. Iowa notched its lowest scoring game of the season and allowed its most points. The Hawkeyes had a season-high 27 turnovers (which the Terps turned into 37 points) and trailed by 40 with four minutes left in the game. At one point in the third quarter, the Hawkeyes had 21 turnovers in 46 possessions.

“My family can now walk around Cedar Rapids and kind of have some bragging rights where they had to take a couple hits the last time,” said Frese, an Iowa native.

The Terps came out playing aggressive defense and the game was competitive for about five minutes until the first timeout.

Then Maryland scored seven straight points in 41 seconds – two buckets from freshman point guard Ashley Owusu and a 3-pointer from sophomore guard Taylor Mikesell – and Iowa was shaken.

The Hawkeyes shot 40 percent from the field, but the issue was they couldn’t get around the Terps’ defense. They had 50 attempted field goals to Maryland’s 70 and suffered three shot clock violations in the first half.

Center Monika Czinano had 15 points. Preseason All-Big Ten selection Kathleen Doyle, who scored 21 against the Terps the first time around, had 10.

“Right from the get, we needed to be a little more aggressive,” Czinano said. “That’s what we were lacking today. Credit to Maryland, they came out firing and we needed to get some more defensive stops in the beginning.”

Senior guard Kaila Charles led five scorers in double figures with 21 points and nine rebounds, passing 1,900 career points along the way. She, Mikesell (12 points) and Owusu (17 points, five assists) helped Maryland off to a 25-point lead at halftime and let the Terps’ forwards finish the job.

Austin had 20 points, including 13 in the third quarter, seven rebounds and five assists. Senior forward Stephanie Jones had 16 points, making all eight of field goal attempts.

“I like this mean Shakira. She was angry, she was dynamic, she just separated herself tonight and was so aggressive,” Frese said. “I can handle misses when you’re going to the rim that hard. Then when you talk about Steph, 8-for-8 from the field, are you kidding me, like, Miss Efficiency? That duo with the two of them, they didn’t have an answer.”

“I feel like the third quarter is just my quarter lately,” Austin said, agreeing with Frese that she played like a bully. “I get it from my dad. He’s like, ‘I wish you would play mean from the jump,’ I’m like, ‘It doesn’t work like that sometimes.’ I’m going to try.”

Austin doesn’t have much time left; the Terps have four games remaining in the regular season before the start of the Big Ten tournament. Frese said the timing of Thursday’s win – and taking over first place in the conference – couldn’t have been better as postseason nears.

“I’m just so proud, the courage that it’s taken from that loss on Jan. 9 to where they are now – it’s completely them,” Frese said. “. . . We didn’t lose our minds down there at Iowa. We understood. They taught us a lesson, and, you know. Everybody was going to have to come back through Xfinity.”

The 42-year-old is making a comeback on the WTA circuit after she announced her retirement in 2016. In fact he returned to the competition since last year by entering small ITF events. She also represented Thailand in the 2019 SEA Games, bringing home two silvers from women’s doubles and mixed doubles categories.

Elina Svitolina 

Earlier, world No 4 Elina Svitolna of Ukraine lived up to her seeded billing as she picked off Storm Sanders of Australia 6-1 6-2 to reach the singles quarter-finals.

The top seed benefited by a string of unforced errors from the hard-hitting but inconsistent opponent to land the first set in just 29 minutes. The 319th ranked Sanders raised the level of her game in the second set but, it was not for long.

After four all, the 13-time WTA winner Svitolina dominated play with superior groundstrokes, reeling off four games to advance in just 57 minutes.

“I’m happy with the way I started the match. She is a tough opponent, so I have to step up which is the key of the match,” added Svitolina, hoping to emulate her fellow player and boyfriend Gael Monfils who just claimed an ATP title in Montpellier last week.

“We have some competition between us. I will try to win this week while he is trying in Rotterdam at the same time,” added Svitolina who lines up a quarter-final encounter with Nao Hibino of Japan.

Earlier in the day, 2018 US Open junior champion Xiyu Wang beat Barbara Haas of Austria 6-3 6-4 to join countrywomen Wang Qiang and Zheng Saisai in the quarter-finals. Patricia Maria Tig of Romania downed Xiaodi You of China 6-1 6-3 while Magda Linette of Poland ousted Shuai Peng of China 7-5 6-1.

The top seed who made her first appearance in Thailand was up a break twice at 3-1 and 4-3 in the second set but allowed the 195th-ranked opponent to level at four all. The Ukrainian, however, regrouped her concentration to break again for 5-4 and had to save two break points to serve out for the match after one hour and 19 minutes.

“I have to adjust a bit because I came from Europe which is quite cold,” said the 25-year-old from Odessa. “It’s quite warm here. But in the end I played a solid match. I hope to go far in this tournament,” added Svitolina whose coaching team includes former Australian Open finalist Marcos Baghdatis.

The 2018 WTA finals winner will next face Australian qualifier Storm Sanders.

“I haven’t played against her before. My coach will look it up on the internet to see how she plays. But I’ve seen her play before. She is left-handed. I have to be ready for a different spin. But in the end I have to focus on what I have to play on course,” Svitolina said.

Joining her in round two is fifth-seeded Magda Linette of Poland who toppled another Ukrainian Kateryna Bondarenko, the former world No 9, 6-2 6-2.

Meanwhile in the second round actions, fourth-seeded Saisai Zheng of China ousted En-Shuo Liang of Taiwan 6-4 6-3, eighth-seeded Nao Habino of Japan routed Peangtarn Plipuech of Thailand 6-0 6-1 while seventh-seeded Lin Zhu of China went down to 19-year-old Leonie Kung of Switzerland 3-6 1-

6.

Martic who received a wildcard into the event committed seven double faults as she surrendered the match 6-3 6-4 in one hour and 28 minutes on a victorious day for several Chinese representatives.

That included No 3 seed Wang Qiang who dropped only one game to rout out countrywoman  Han Xinyun 6-1 6-0 .

Han enjoyed a significant advantage on the head-to-head approaching this match, having won all three meetings previously between the players, yet there was scant evidence of that as she was blown away in a one-sided encounter.

Wang Qiang 

Wang, who famously overcame Serena Williams at the Australian Open en route to the fourth round, imposed herself from the beginning and rapidly eased through in her first match since Melbourne.

“The first match is not easy,” Wang said. “I just tried to get used to the court, the conditions and the balls. I think I did that really well. She made a lot of mistakes – double faults and unforced errors. I didn’t play so well today. She just made a lot of mistakes.”

The World No.27 broke in the opening game of the match to set the tone for the afternoon. She was especially relentless on her opponent’s second serve, with Han winning a paltry 21% of points on that delivery in the first set.

Han, who was seeking a first hard court win on the WTA Tour since Nanchang in 2018, did not help herself, making an array of errors in the first set and failing to settle even after finally getting on the board following an arm wrestle in the fifth game of the match.

The opener escaped her after she served one of six double faults then pushed a forehand out with only 32 minutes on the clock.

The second, though, was to prove just as one sided. Wang won the first four games by losing two points in each, and she moved to within a game of victory with her first love service game of the match.

Patricia Maria Tig

Although Han responded with a love game of her own, Wang swept her opponent away on serve, closing it out to 30 once more to set up a meeting with Katarzyna Kawa, who defeated Ankita Raina, 3-6, 6-0, 6-1.

Wang was one of four Chinese winners on Tuesday in Hua Hin, joining unseeded compatriots Peng Shuai and Wang Xiyu, and No.7 seed Zhu Lin, who beat Russia’s Varvara Flink in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2.

No.6 seed Wang Yafan proved less fortunate than her seeded compatriots, however, as she fell in a 6-1, 1-6, 7-6(5) marathon match to Romania’s Patricia Maria Tig in a contest that lasted two hours and 13 minutes.

The World No.105, ranked 99 spots below her opponent in the WTA rankings, was twice a break down in the decider, and steadied through to the finish despite losing a 4-1 edge in the tiebreak to 5-5.

“I expected a tough match,” Tig said. “I prepared for it and I’m really happy that I could get the win and fight like I did.  I was trying to move better, to activate myself because I was a little bit behind in the second set and I just told myself to fight for every point because the third set is the last chance to get the win, so that’s what I did and it went great.”

Williams held out for all of last year’s offseason activities and training camp as well as the first half of last season, after demanding a trade because he was unhappy with the way the team’s medical staff handled a growth on his head that turned out to be cancerous. He returned to the club just minutes before the Oct. 29 trade deadline last year but was placed on the non-football injury list and said the team told him to not return to the facility.

When Rivera took over at the beginning of the year, he made clear that bringing back Williams – who has one year left on his contract – was a priority.

Rivera has indicated that getting Williams to return is a top priority. One of his first moves after being hired as Redskins coach was to hire respected trainer Ryan Vermillion – who had been Rivera’s team trainer with the Carolina Panthers. At the time, a person familiar with the move said Vermillion’s hire was with Williams in mind.

“One of Ron’s top goals is to get Trent back,” said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the team’s thinking. “I know for certain that Ron is going to try to get him back.”

Rivera, who began offseason planning meetings with the Redskins coaching and scouting staffs Monday, probably needs to know soon whether a Williams return is possible. The team needs to know whether it can count on having the seven-time Pro Bowl tackle back on the roster this season and whether it needs to draft a left tackle or find one in free agency.

Williams has one year remaining on a five-year $66 million contract, after which he will be eligible for unrestricted free agency. Washington would save $12.7 million in cap space if were to trade him, but it would be losing possibly the team’s best player, at a premium position.

The NFL Network was the first to report that Rivera and Williams had been in contact.

Williams, 31, became frustrated with the Redskins last winter, when he was told that a growth he said the team’s medical staff had ignored for years was actually a rare cancer called Dermatofibrosarcoma Protuberans, or DFSP. Though the cancer has a high survivability rate, he said the cancer was close to penetrating his skull and getting to his brain. He skipped offseason workouts before demanding a trade in early summer.

A standoff developed between Williams and then-president Bruce Allen, with Williams alleging that Allen refused to trade him out of spite. In a November interview, Williams said he came back to the team intending to play the second half of the season. He added that he was even looking forward to the arrival of a new helmet that was supposed to mitigate discomfort from the still-healing wounds from surgeries to remove the cancer and fix the skin on the top of his head. He said Allen had him placed on the non-football injury list Nov. 7 in a “vindictive” punishment for not only his holdout but for criticizing Allen and the team’s medical staff in an Oct. 31 interview session with reporters.

“I don’t see how it can be reconciled,” Williams said in November, when asked whether his relationship with the team could be fixed. “At the end of the day, I’m a human being. I ain’t like a dog and you can slap the s— out of me and I’m going to come back the next morning with my tail wagging. This was a conscious decision; they didn’t burn the bridge by accident. This was something they felt comfortable doing, so I got to feel comfortable with moving on, too.”

Allen, who denied Williams’s allegations at the time, was fired the day after the season ended, along with longtime trainer Larry Hess.

Before the cancer diagnosis, Williams and his agent had been talking about a contract extension with the team. And while those talks died during his holdout, some NFL team executives and player agents have speculated that Williams might consider coming back to the Redskins if he can get the security of a new contract.

Mystics Coach and General Manager Mike Thibault said in a phone interview that Toliver is the only one of Washington’s top three players from last year’s championship-winning team he expects to leave. Although both 2019 WNBA MVP Elena Delle Donne and 2019 WNBA Finals MVP Emma Meesseman are unrestricted free agents, Thibault said he has verbal agreements from both players that they will return to the Mystics in 2020.

“The players that were major factors in our team are all going to be here other than Kristi,” Thibault said.

Toliver, meanwhile, is returning to the team with which she won the 2016 league title, her first.

“I’m going to miss my teammates and coaches and the fans a ton,” Toliver, a three-time WNBA all-star, said in a phone interview. “But, you know, the business of basketball makes you have to make tough decisions. This was certainly one of them. . . . To get to back-to-back Finals and come up with one – winning a championship was the ultimate goal. Obviously very thankful and blessed that I was able to have this experience in D.C. and help bring a winning culture, a championship, to the city and to the organization. I couldn’t be happier with the past three years.”

Toliver, who signed with the Mystics as a free agent in February 2017, will continue working as an assistant coach for the NBA’s Washington Wizards. Come the WNBA season, her departure will leave the Mystics thin at the guard position – but that’s nothing new for Washington.

In 2019, Toliver averaged 13 points per game, third most on the team, and 5.9 assists, a team high, but she played just 23 games because of a knee injury suffered in August. Without her, the Mystics got creative, sliding Natasha Cloud to the point guard position and occasionally employing a lineup with three bigs on the floor. They thrived despite the unorthodox situation, posting a 10-1 record and locking up the top seed in the WNBA playoffs in Toliver’s absence.

Thibault said Monday that he is trying to bolster the guard position. The team’s top draft pick from 2019, Kiara Leslie, missed last season with a knee injury but is expected to return in 2020 and should help beef up the guard spot.

“Our one solution was to play the bigger lineup last year, and that will be a part of our plan going forward,” Thibault said. “It was effective. It put our best players on the floor for more minutes. . . . Our team feels good about what we did during that time when Kristi was out. And we’ll have to play a little bit differently, but we got some other things that we think will address some of it.”

While the terms of Toliver’s deal were undisclosed, both Thibault and Toliver said her departure ultimately boiled down to business.

Thibault said his long-term goal is to keep together as much of the Mystics’ championship-winning core as he can. But balancing salaries for three of the league’s top players while accounting for a handful of talented young players who will hit free agency in the coming years proved impossible.

“We were offering basically the same contract that she was offered somewhere else. The difference ended up being in the last year on the contract, the third year,” Thibault said. “I think that there’s a couple realities at play here with the new collective bargaining agreement that are the biggest factors. One is that we have four or five other players that are going to become free agents over the next two years. And we needed to make sure that when those things occurred that we can try to keep as many of our good young players here on our team.

“As a GM, you just can’t jeopardize the long-term future of your team in that situation. I’m sad that [Toliver] is leaving. I wish we could’ve put that group out there. But she had to make a decision she was comfortable with for the long term.”

Thibault believes the challenge Washington faced could become a common one for teams around the league with the WNBA’s new CBA in place. The maximum annual salary for top players increased from just over $100,000 last season to $215,000 in the new deal, which was agreed to last month, while the league’s salary cap increased 31%, to $1.3 millionb in the first year of the deal.

Even with the salary cap increase, Thibault believes the new labor deal could make teams skew top-heavy, with a few big talents anchoring each team.

“You’re not going to see teams that have nine or 10 long-term, veteran players on them. It just is not going to happen. They’ll be [top-heavy] or top and bottom and not a lot in the middle,” Thibault said. “The biggest fallacy in all of this new collective bargaining agreement is that the cap went up 31%. The reality is, if you pay two players, your top players, in the range of the individual max, which went up 85%, the reality is paying the rest of your team is not at that 31% raise. A few people get that, and a few people don’t get that. Managing that is going to be interesting for several teams.”

As for the Mystics’ remaining top players, Thibault gave no update on Delle Donne’s status as she recovers from what the team called “minor back surgery” on Jan. 24 to repair herniated disks that were pinching a nerve. Delle Donne is expected to be ready for the start of the season, which for the Mystics comes May 16 against Toliver and the Sparks in Washington.

Thibault also said that when Meesseman returns he expects the Belgian national to spend most of the WNBA season in Washington. The forward often spends part of the season playing overseas for her national team and missed 11 games last year. Thibault expects her to miss about five games this year.

“We’re looking at, long-term, keeping the rest of our core together,” Thibault said. “. . . We’re hoping to sign one more player in free agency that will help. I’m not going to talk about it until I know it’s done. Then we’ll figure it out from there. We’re operating from a position of strength, not weakness.”