Maya Caldwell isn’t a perfect player, but she may have been acquired in a perfect trade. The Minnesota Lynx traded for Caldwell on essentially the final day of training camp a few months ago, finalizing their roster roughly 72 hours before the season tipped off. A third-round pick in the 2028 draft is all it took to get her from the expansion Portland Fire.
Caldwell has contributed a number of things to the Lynx this season. Across 30 games (two starts), she’s made 37.7% of her threes and has generally been a good-to-great defender. It’s been up-and-down for her, even this current winning streak alone has held stretches of Cheryl Reeve placing a ton of trust in her, and stretches where Reeve decidedly has not. She didn’t crack double-digit minutes in a single outing during Minnesota’s recent four-game homestand, but has played well over that mark in each of the last four (all Lynx wins).
If the shots are falling and the whistles aren’t blowing, Caldwell is a dynamic bench piece that can hold her own. If there’s a lid on the basket and a whistle-happy zebra on the floor, she can play her way off it in a minute. The good outweighs the bad, and at the time of this writing, Caldwell has been worth a full 1.0 win share (0.2 offensive win shares and 0.8 defensive win shares) for the Lynx, per Basketball Reference.
Getting that kind of analytic contribution in exchange for a future third-round pick is just great business. Caldwell herself is one of just five third-round picks in the last decade who has exceeded 1.0 win shares in her career — Kaitlyn Chen in 2025, Sika Kone and Jade Milbourne in 2022, Caldwell in 2021, and Li Yuerue in 2019 make up the full list.
It’s the exact kind of trade around the margins that championship organizations make. Moves that don’t make you jump out of your seat when you see the announcement, but cause you to make your best Alonzo Morning face when you look at the numbers.
It’s the only type of move I expect the Lynx to make if they make any moves at all at this trade deadline, which arrives Aug. 2. Sorry to not be exciting, but unlike the previous couple of seasons there just aren’t any obviously tradable assets sticking out on the Lynx roster and you already know we don’t give a shit about clickbait.
So instead of feeding just wild speculation for its own sake into the trade deadline hype machine, here are some reasonable names that crossed my mind during a recent spell of playing armchair GM, listed in the order in which they crossed my mind.
Betnijah Laney-Hamilton
Guard, New York ($400,000/UFA)
Betnijah Laney-Hamilton is on everyone’s trade deadline list right now. The two-time all-defense selection is clearly not in any of Chris DeMarco’s plans and I would guess 14 teams have called GM Jonathan Kolb to inquire. I don’t know where, when or why she fell out of favor, but I still see her as the type of defensive specialist and crafty veteran who could slide into almost anywhere.
There’s speculation that New York’s asking price is just way too high, but I can’t imagine they’re going to sit on their hands and lose her for nothing. She’s still a very tradable asset and refusing to move her while simultaneously refusing to play her is just bad business. She’s currently playing the fewest minutes of her career and the chances that she’s employed by anyone other than the Liberty by Monday has to be above 90%. As each moment passes without a deal in place, it’s worth another phone call to Kolb to try and buy low.
Maddy Siegrist
Forward, Dallas ($501,080/RFA)
Despite some recent performances, scoring off the bench has lacked punch for the Lynx most of the 2026 season. It’s worth mentioning that that entire sample size is from the 27 games before Napheesa Collier returned to the starting lineup, which slid Nia Coffey to the bench along with general development from other players.
Is bench scoring something that absolutely needs to be fixed? And, if it is, does Maddy Siegrist fix it? And, and, are the Dallas Wings, a team in the mix, willing to help the Lynx fix it with one of their own?
The answer to at least one of those questions is a no, which makes this feel very unlikely. Still, Siegrist’s minutes this year have nearly been cut in half in year one under Jose Fernandez. If she’s out of favor in Dallas, then I think it’s a buy-low opportunity worth at least a phone call.
Laeticia Amihere
Forward, Golden State ($277,500/RFA)
I love Laeticia Amihere and I doubt the Valkyries are looking to move her. I also doubt seeing a deal between two teams at the top of the league, but she lands on this list simply because I think she could be used more than she currently is in San Francisco, has some nice upside, and the right of first refusal that comes with her restricted free agency status.
As mentioned above, I doubt the Lynx and Valkyries agree to any kind of trade this deadline including the one you’re thinking about but I refuse to mention! This is the move you pull in your fantasy sports leagues when your friend is expecting you to call about a certain player, and you name someone else seemingly at random. It’s always smart to view reality basketball trades through the lens of fantasy basketball.
Damiris Dantas
Forward, Indiana ($277,500/$288,600/UFA)
Because the W is always going to W, the Lynx and Indiana Fever happen to be playing each other during the last few hours of the deadline. The deadline is 2 p.m. CT and the game between the two teams tips off at 12 p.m. CT. Just for the fun of it — because basketball is supposed to be fun, remember — I want Reeve and Stephanie White to make a trade during the game.
Damiris Dantas played 133 games across two stints with the Lynx in her career, but didn’t win a championship. If this is it for Dantas, it would be fun to have her in Minnesota as deep depth during a Finals run.
Dantas has been listed as ‘not with team’ on recent injury reports and has also been ruled out with ‘left knee soreness’ by the famously honest Fever. If she can participate in basketball activities and can be acquired for almost nothing, then color me interested. Could be a fun reunion.
Karlie Samuelson
Guard, Portland ($360,000/UFA)
Also in the reunions category, but someone who played far fewer games for the Lynx than Dantas. Karlie Samuelson suffered a lisfranc fracture before the halfway point of the 2025 season. She shot a tick above 35% from three-point range in 16 games in Minnesota last season and is shooting exactly 35% from three-point range in 16 games in Portland this season.
The Fire are currently the ninth place team in the league and 4.5 games outside of playoff positioning. Going for it and qualifying for the playoffs is a worthy cause in year one of a new franchise. Yes, I know Portland isn’t technically a new franchise, but the Fire also didn’t qualify for the playoffs a single time during their three-run as a team from 2000-02. I don’t anticipate they’ll go into full-on ‘fire sale’ (sorry, I couldn’t resist), but getting something for a player entering unrestricted free agency makes sense for the Fire, and getting some bench scoring in a few-month rental makes sense for the Lynx.
Didn’t I tell ya there would be nothing too exciting in there? I sure did. Sorry to not feed more juice into the trade deadline hype train, but you can’t trade for DiJonai Carrington every year.
Or can you…