Phoenix Mercury waive 3 players, suspend Murjanatu Musa's deal to cut roster to 12
The Phoenix Mercury waived Celeste Taylor, Megan McConnell and Temira Poindexter, and suspended Murjanatu Musa's contract, cutting their roster to 12 players.
PHOENIX — The Phoenix Mercury waived Celeste Taylor, Megan McConnell and Temira Poindexter on Thursday.
The team also temporarily suspended Murjanatu Musa’s contract to trim their roster to 12 players, but Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts said the plan is for Musa to come over and play for the Mercury during the 2025 season.
Musa is currently playing for Tarbes Gespe Bigorre in the French league finals. A decisive Game 3 is on Friday at 12:10 p.m. MST.
“I think the plan is for her to come over,” Tibbetts said Thursday. “She may be suspended for a little bit to start … but my guess is we will see Musa at some point.”
The deadline for WNBA teams to cut their roster down to 11-12 players was Thursday at 2 p.m. MST.
League rules state a team can carry as few as 11 players or as many as 12 players on its opening night roster.
Of the three players cut, Taylor’s omission from the team’s roster is the most shocking. She played in 15 regular season games for the Mercury last season and made four starts. She also led the Mercury in +/- during the 2024 season at a +1.1, recording a zero or greater +/- in 11 of her games.
She averaged 3.5 points, 1.8 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 1.0 steals and 0.8 blocks in 20.1 minutes per game last season.
“I think when you have a competitive camp, you’re gonna have to make some tough decisions,” Tibbetts said. “We really like (Taylor) as a player and as a person. Because of some of the roster stuff that is going on, we had to make a decision to not bring (Taylor) back.
“I really believe (Taylor) is a (WNBA) player. I think she’s gonna find a home. She’s about the right stuff. She’s super smart, competitive, so we wish (Taylor) nothing but the best.”
Over two preseason games, Taylor averaged 5.5 points, 2.0 rebounds, 0.5 assists, 1.0 steals and 1.5 turnovers.
Taylor did not play in the first half of Phoenix’s first preseason game, an 85-84 loss against the Las Vegas Aces, but was part of the group that started the third quarter on a 17-8 run. She checked out with the Mercury up double digits and by the time she checked back in, the Mercury lead was already evaporating.
On Sunday, Taylor saw an increased role with the absences of Kahleah Copper, Monique Akoa Makani and Alexa Held. Taylor had nine points (on 3-for-5 shooting), three rebounds, an assist, two steals and just one turnover in 21 minutes.
The two other players that were waived Thursday had roles that were a lot less prominent in the two preseason games.
McConnell was the second-to-last player to come off the bench for the Mercury in both preseason games.
In the two games, McConnell averaged 3.0 points, 1.0 assists, 1.0 steals and 1.5 turnovers in 10 minutes per game. She was a combined -11 over the two games.
Poindexter was the last available Mercury player to come off the bench in Sunday’s loss. She averaged 0.0 points, 0.5 assists, 1.0 rebounds and 1.0 turnovers in 9.4 minutes over the two games. She was a combined -7.5 over the two preseason losses.
Alexis Prince, Alexa Held and Kathryn Westbeld all make Mercury roster
While Taylor, Poindexter and McConnell were all cut, Alexis Prince, Held and Kathryn Westbeld were all camp players who made the Mercury’s opening night roster.
Of the three aforementioned players, Westbeld had arguably the best preseason of the bunch.
In last week’s preseason loss against the Aces, Westbeld had 14 points (on 6-for-13 shooting), three rebounds, a steal and zero turnovers in 16 minutes.
Westbeld followed up that performance with eight points (on 3-for-6 shooting), two rebounds, two assists and one turnover in 20 minutes on Sunday.
Westbeld went undrafted in 2018 and was invited to the Los Angeles Sparks’ training camp but missed out on making the Sparks’ roster. Seven years later she is on a WNBA team’s opening night roster for the first time.
“I’m 29 years old, a 29-year-old rookie,” Westbeld said. “It feels good, but you just never know. I didn’t give up on it and I feel like I’ve just been progressing ever since.”
In both preseason games, Prince was among the first subs off the bench for the Mercury, coming in during the first quarter of both contests.
But after Prince scored 10 points and added four rebounds in 15 minutes in the preseason opener against the Aces, Sunday saw her shoot 1-for-8 from the field and finish as a game-worst -18 over 19 minutes.
“It feels good to know that I got past the first cut initially, but it’s been what I’ve been working for for the past couple years, so yeah it feels good,” Prince said.
Prince was drafted by the Mercury in 2017 and played in 18 games for the team that season.
After later spending training camp with the Chicago Sky in 2021, she spent the past several years playing overseas in Turkey, Spain and Israel.
Held did not appear in Sunday’s preseason loss due to hamstring tightness but played 10 minutes in last week’s preseason loss to the Aces. She had three points (on 1-for-4 shooting), two rebounds and a turnover against the Aces and was a -8.
“I’m super, super excited, super grateful,” Held said Thursday. “Obviously, it’s (a) pretty cutthroat business, and you don’t know really what your chances are. You just have to focus on what you can control and that’s what I did.”
Tibbetts was asked Sunday what the evaluation process would be when selecting the team’s final roster.
“I would say who's going to fit next to our best players, right? Culturally, what we're about. Are they workers? Are they team players? All that stuff matters,” Tibbetts said.
“We'll look at all those things. How they play next to our best players. How they come to work. Are they professional?
“As a coach, (with) the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th player you want to know when you check someone in what you're going to get, right?
“It gets a little scary when you're guessing and don't know. So, there's a lot of different things that we look at.”
Phoenix Mercury opening night roster
Here is the Mercury’s roster after they waived three players and suspended Musa’s contract on Thursday:
G Monique Akoa Makani
G/F Kahleah Copper
G Alexa Held
G Kitija Laksa
G Sevgi Uzun
G Sami Whitcomb
F Natasha Mack
F Alexis Prince
F Satou Sabally
F Alyssa Thomas
F Kathryn Westbeld
C Kalani Brown
The Mercury will open the regular season at home against Skylar Diggins and the Seattle Storm on Saturday at 7 p.m. The game can be watched on Arizona’s Family Sports.