INDIANAPOLIS — Starting this season, the Indiana Fever will have a new ability to develop players within the organization.
Players and coaches were pushing for some form of roster expansion in the new collective bargaining agreement, as the majority of rookies and young players didn’t make the final 12-player roster because of the learning curve of the WNBA.
So, the league and players’ union agreed to create two developmental spots, which operate similar to the NFL’s practice squad, for each team starting in 2026.
“Year in, year out, we’ve seen it: You have good, young, talented players not make rosters, and there just weren’t enough roster spots,” Fever GM Amber Cox told IndyStar on the “Fever Insider” podcast. “And now we’ve got these two development spots with two additional teams coming in the league, three more down the road. It just allows us to develop players again.”
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Players in the development pool will make a $750 weekly stipend, according to Richard Cohen of Her Hoop Stats, and make the prorated minimum salary whenever they are activated for a game (around $6,000 per game). The development squad is limited to players with 0-3 years of experience.
They will practice and participate in team activities as normal, outside of games. Development pool players can be activated for up to 12 games a season, and they can be converted to a standard contract on the 12-player roster at any time.
Teams are still able to sign replacement or hardship players as well, Cox said, but development players can also step up in the case of an injury. That should help teams like when the Fever in 2025 had to sign multiple hardship contracts, using players that had little-to-no practice time because of six season-ending injuries.
For the Fever, it will give them a chance to develop their later-round draft picks and young players that may not have otherwise made the standard roster.
“You still have the ability, if a player gets injured, to add a player via hardship,” Cox said. “So the development pool is truly there to develop those players, it’s not meant to necessarily be a stop gap due to injury. So that’s really nice.”
Indiana already made its first development player pool addition, adding second-round pick Justine Pissott on Friday afternoon. As a 6-foot-4 guard that shot 42% from 3-point range at Vanderbilt last year, Pissott has a lot of potential. The Fever assigned her directly to the developmental squad in order to protect her rights, Cox said, and ensure she stays within the Fever organization.
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Pissott would’ve likely been a long shot to make the standard Fever roster at the beginning of the season; Indiana has nine experienced players essentially guaranteed to make the team, as well as Makayla Timpson in the second year of her rookie contract, No. 10 pick Raven Johnson projected to back up starting point guard Caitlin Clark, and veteran Shatori Walker-Kimbrough coming in on a training camp deal.
Starting out on the developmental squad, Cox said, eliminates the possibility that Pissott can be picked up on waivers by another team.
“We wanted to lock Justine in,” Cox said. “She is a bit of a unicorn in that she led the SEC in 3-point shooting, and she’s 6 foot 4. She still has some growth areas, as all rookies do coming into the league, but we really want to see what she can do as a part of this roster. What signing her (to the developmental pool) now allows us to do is, instead of putting her in a standard player contract, we get to the end of camp and waiving her, then you put her on the waiver wire for somebody else to pick her up, she is already with us, and so it gives us a bit more control over her destiny.”
Teams are, however, able to sign players to a standard contract off of other teams’ developmental squads, but the original team has the right of first refusal. So, if another team wanted to sign Pissott to a standard contract, for example, the Fever could match that and elevate her to their standard roster to keep her within the organization.
That would, of course, then take up a roster spot on the 12-player roster, meaning someone else would potentially need to be waived for that to happen.
“It’s an interesting new scenario that we’re all navigating,” Cox said. “But we think a lot of Justine, we believe in her ability. Again, she’s got an elite talent in terms of her 3-point shooting ability, so we want to see how that really plays out for us.”
Chloe Peterson is the Indiana Fever beat reporter for IndyStar. Reach her at chloe.peterson@indystar.com or follow her on X at @chloepeterson67. Get IndyStar’s Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Caitlin Clark Fever newsletter. Subscribe to IndyStar TV: Fever for in-depth analysis, behind-the-scenes coverage and more.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: WNBA developmental roster spots ‘an interesting new scenario.’ Why Fever named draft pick to one
Reporting by Chloe Peterson, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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