July 4, 2020
Liz Cambage will not play in the 2020 WNBA season
Las Vegas signs Avery Warley-Talbert
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Las Vegas Aces center Liz Cambage (8) warms up before the WNBA game between the Las Vegas Aces and the Connecticut Sun at Mohegan Sun Arena, Uncasville, Connecticut, USA on August 23, 2019. Photo Credit: Chris Poss
The Next has learned that Liz Cambage, the dominant center with the Las Vegas Aces, will not play in the 2020 WNBA season scheduled to start later this month at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida.
The Aces have signed Avery Warley-Talbert, the veteran big who has played for head coach Bill Laimbeer in New York, to a contract. She and Carolyn Swords, another veteran five, will hold down the position for Las Vegas.
But the absence of Cambage is arguably the biggest name who will be missing the 2020 season to date, and alters Las Vegas’ plans and destiny considerably.
Cambage, in her first season with the Aces, overcame early-season injury problems to finish near the top of virtually every category where she typical excels — top-ten in points per game, rebounding percentage and block percentage, with a career-high 16.8 assist percentage.
She did all this while learning to share space with A’ja Wilson, the young big who anchored the Aces prior to the team acquiring Cambage in a blockbuster trade late last offseason. Expect Wilson to get many more offensive touches this season, on a team without Cambage or Kelsey Plum, who was lost for the season last month due to an Achilles injury.
Cambage, 28, remains one of the most accomplished players on a per-minute basis in the history of the league, and her off-the-court personality would have helped elevate the league’s return, planned for later this month.
With a number of players still in the process of finalizing medically excused absences, giving them the option to play, or not, for full salaries, the league’s rosters, and even the reporting date, remain in flux.
