Kelsey Plum has had a strange year. She missed time early with the Los Angeles Sparks and then ended up being traded to the Phoenix Mercury in a (failed) last-ditch effort to make a playoff push after the Sparks decided to move her while they still could. She was quickly injured again, and the Mercury fully fell out of contention.
Now, Plum is set to hit free agency again. Last time, she opted to join a fairly bad Sparks team because it gave her a chance to show that she could be a first option. What team might be join this time around?
Washington Mystics
In a perfect world where I was given control of personnel moves around the league, I would drop Plum onto the Washington Mystics roster and call it a day.
The trio of Sonia Citron, Shakira Austin and Kiki Iriafen has already made this into a playoff team, but what's missing is an on-ball guard who can create for herself and run the offense. And, well...that's Plum, essentially. Sure, she's not a pure point guard, but she has enough playmaking skill to play at the one in this roster, or you could move Citron to the three and play Plum in a combo guard role beside Georgia Amoore, or a different point guard that the team brings in this offseason.
Does Plum harm the Mystics defense a bit? Sure, but unlike Golden State, the Mystics defense isn't playing at some godly level where you can win a title with an offense that's playing as poorly as Washington's has at times. The trade off here is worth it, and the Mystics need to be on the phone with Plum the moment free agency opens.
Golden State Valkyries
This is a weird one, because whether or not the Golden State Valkyries will be interested in Plum is going to depend on how the postseason goes. This Valkyries team is built around defense, so while the team lacks a go-to scoring threat, there's currently a chance that the team doesn't need that.
But if we get to the postseason and it turns out that the combination of elite defense and mediocre offense isn't enough for Golden State, it might be time to change direction a bit, which is where Plum comes into play.
I trust this front office to calculate things correctly. It's going to come down to weighing how much Plum helps the offense against how much she hurts the defense to determine if she's someone worth going after. For my money, I think the rest of this roster is great enough defensively to hide Plum's issues on that end, and having someone you can trust to create her own shot would help this team level up.
Seattle Storm
Plum was a college star at the University of Washington, so a return to the Seattle Storm could be interesting. Yes, the team is arguably the worst in the league this season, but there's some — and I use that word hesitatingly, to be fair — reason to think Plum could jumpstart the rebuild. Dominique Malonga and Awa Fam are a really good, young frontcourt, and adding Plum as the backcourt scoring punch would instantly upgrade this team. I think you can make a very, very strong argument that no team gets better by a larger magnitude by adding her than the Storm.
The issue, of course, is it's unclear just how much better she would make them. Is this current Storm team with Plum a playoff team? Probably not, as you likely need at least another high-quality player on the wing, or you need Flau'jae Johnson to take a massive leap in the offseason.
But hey, we can't ignore the possibility here. Plum chose a team with a rough roster last time and she already has two rings from her time in Vegas, so maybe she'll just want to head back to Seattle to fire up shots on a young team that could become something. It's a similar situation to her signing with Los Angeles, right? It's definitely the more difficult path, but maybe that's what Plum will want.
Phoenix Mercury
The Mercury gave up a first-round pick for Plum, so it wouldn't be a surprise to see them go all out in trying to retain her for 2027. The issue is whether Plum sees a path forward with the team.
Seattle has the "place Plum went to college" advantage and the other two teams mentioned have championship upside. Re-signing with the Mercury is locking yourself on to an aging roster that just doesn't really have much upside. A trio of Alyssa Thomas, Kahleah Copper and Kelsey Plum could be a playoff team, but the ceiling probably isn't much higher than that barring a lot of changes at the margins this offseason.
Still, a chance to follow in the footsteps of Diana Taurasi while playing with Alyssa Thomas has to be super, super tempting for Plum, and the Mercury clearly value her based on that trade. If Plum wants to go somewhere where she knows she'll feel wanted by the coaching staff and front office, Phoenix has already given her reason to believe that it can be that place.
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