The last-place Connecticut Sun waived Hailey Van Lith on Thursday in order to clear space for French guard Leïla Lacan. Lacan, the No. 10 overall pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft, recently concluded her overseas commitments with Basket Landes, which she led to a championship in her native France.
Lacan's return will be a major boost for the Sun, who have been the worst team in the league by a wide margin. The 21-year-old point guard averaged 10.4 points, 3.7 assists and 2.2 steals on 47.7% shooting in 26.6 minutes a game as a rookie and is already one of the WNBA's best perimeter defenders.
Lacan's return spells the end for Van Lith, the former college star who was waived before the start of the season by the Chicago Sky, the team that chose her with the No. 11 pick in the 2025 Draft. She was later picked up by the Sun, who have a minus-17.6 net rating (no other team has a net rating worse than minus-6.0) and are 1-8. Last season, the Sun had a minus-0.5 net rating in 665 minutes with Lacan on the floor and a minus-18.1 net rating in 500 minutes without her.
Van Lith, 24, is reportedly "grateful to the Sun for their transparency and the opportunity," per ESPN. As Van Lith looks for a new team for the second time this month, here's a closer look at her situation.
Van Lith's résumé
Van Lith was a high school prodigy in Washington. She once recorded a quadruple-double, earned the respect of Kobe Bryant, who asked her to mentor his daughter, Gianna, helped Team USA win gold at the U17 and U19 World Cups and was ranked the No. 7 recruit in her class.
She spent the first three seasons of her college career at Louisville, where she was named to the All-ACC First Team as a sophomore and junior. But after leading the Cardinals to the Elite Eight in 2023, she decided to transfer to LSU. Van Lith's lone season in Baton Rouge did not go to plan. She struggled in a significantly reduced role next to Angel Reese and Flau'jae Johnson, and got embarrassed by Caitlin Clark in the Elite Eight.
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Instead of entering the WNBA Draft, she used her extra year of eligibility to transfer again, this time to TCU. In Fort Worth, Van Lith enjoyed tremendous success. She grew as a point guard in the Horned Frogs' spread pick-and-roll system and led the team to the Elite Eight for the first time in program history while boosting her draft stock.
In 172 career games at the college level -- tied for the most in Division I history -- Van Lith averaged 15.2 points, 4.1 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 1.3 steals, and earned the following honors:
- AP Third-Team All-American (2025)
- Big 12 Player of the Year (2025)
- All-Big-12 First-Team (2025)
- All-ACC First Team (2022, 2023)
- AP All-American Honorable Mention (2023)
Why has Van Lith struggled to stick on a roster?
Van Lith's rookie season in Chicago was marred by injuries and inconsistent playing time. And when she did get on the floor, she had a tough time on both sides of the ball. In 29 appearances last season, she averaged 3.5 points and 1.6 assists on 33.9/16.1/74.2 shooting splits. It was no surprise that Chicago waived her given their crowded backcourt.
Likewise, it was no surprise that another team took a chance on Van Lith given her age and pedigree, and she got off to a very strong start for the Sun. Van Lith averaged 11.2 points and 3.2 assists on 57.5% shooting, including 53.8% from 3-point range, in her first five games with the team. However, a sizeable chunk of her production came in garbage time -- overall, 10 of her 30 baskets with the Sun came when the team was down double digits in the fourth quarter -- and she struggled to maintain her fast start. Over the last four games, she averaged 4.3 points and one assist on 33.3% shooting overall, including 25% from 3-point range, and her playing time was cut to 13.8 minutes per night.
As good as Van Lith looked at times with Connecticut, she's still a small guard (she's listed at 5-foot-9, which is probably a bit generous) with an inconsistent jump shot who struggles to defend. She can't do anything about her size or general lack of athleticism compared to other perimeter players. Unless she becomes a much better shooter and/or defender, her opportunities are always going to be limited.
Plus, now that Van Lith has been waived multiple times and is signing unprotected minimum contracts, it doesn't cost teams anything to cut her, which only makes her more expendable.
What's next for Van Lith?
Van Lith is still only 24 and has fewer than four years of service, so she's eligible for a developmental roster spot, either with the Sun or another team. That seems to be her most likely path now that teams are required to use all 12 roster spots under the new collective bargaining agreement, meaning no team has an open spot. Additionally, Van Lith could wait until a team needs to sign someone to a hardship contract, though that would only be a temporary gig.
Van Lith showed enough with the Sun that another team is going to give her a chance, especially given her age, status as a former first-round pick and her popularity. But when and where is hard to say.
The Atlanta Dream, Sun, Las Vegas Aces, Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo are the only teams with developmental spots open, but that can change quickly.
It would make a lot of sense for the Sun to keep Van Lith around with their open developmental spot, but we haven't heard any buzz about that, which suggests it's unlikely. The expansion Fire or Tempo could be other landing spots on a developmental deal. One team that might want to take a look is the Washington Mystics, who have not gotten good guard play this season, but they would have to make a corresponding move to open up space for Van Lith.
For now, Van Lith may have to bide her time and continue to work on her craft.
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