Lexie Brown contradicts WNBA leadership, claiming active involvement and understanding of negotiations. This starkly contrasts with other top players' accounts.
Two days after Kelsey Plum and Breanna Stewart wrote that they had been shut out of the WNBA's collective bargaining process for nearly 17 months, another player said that was not how she saw it.
Lexie Brown is one of only two veteran players currently under contract in the league. On Wednesday, she posted on Threads that "we (the players who decide to get on the calls) speak to the PA and are updated often" and that she is "extremely well informed and prepared for any situation that comes from these negotiations."
That went up the same day the WNBPA's executive committee released a joint statement — Plum and Stewart among the seven who signed it — calling the union "united" and the league's latest proposal "not worth taking."
Plum and Stewart's Monday letter read differently. The two wrote that even though the WNBPA opted out of the previous CBA in October 2024, they had only been "privy to details of these negotiations for less than two months, having first seen a proposal in January." They said they "repeatedly" asked PA staff for information and never got it, and that players who raise concerns are made to feel they are "acting against the interests of the PA."
The letter was written to executive director Terri Jackson. It was not written for public consumption. ESPN got it anyway, and Wednesday became a long day for the union — a joint statement, a player survey and an all-player call before it was over.
Brown has no seat on the executive committee. Plum is the union's first vice president. Stewart is a vice president. Those are not small distinctions. Those positions exist so that those two players are among the first to know things, not among the last.
Which is the part that does not add up. Brown is outside of leadership and says she has what she needs going into whatever comes next. Plum and Stewart are two of the seven people running the union and wrote a three-page letter saying they had to beg for financial information they never received. There is no version where both of those things are fully true.
The WNBPA did not respond to ESPN's request for comment on the letter. Jackson shared it with the full executive committee Tuesday. That night, the union held an all-player call to go over the issues it raised and survey results showing 84% of respondents were against taking the league's current offer.
What was said on that call, beyond what showed up in a public statement, nobody has said. The players sent their latest counter to the league Monday night. The season is set to open May 8.