MIAMI — Natasha Cloud is happy to have an escape from New York’s brutal winters.
The wind tunnels and snow won’t find her in Miami, where she returned for the second WNBA offseason to play in Unrivaled.
Cloud can wear her cropped Phantom tee without needing to layer up on the walk from one building on Unrivaled’s campus to another.
“It’s been great,” Cloud told The Post on Saturday after shootaround. “We have a really good team. We have good chemistry and energy in our locker room.”
Cloud is fully back after having what she described as a “little … cleanup” procedure on her left knee.
“It wasn’t something that affected my playing,” Cloud said. But she decided to have the arthroscopy procedure to address pain — the result of years of wear and tear on her body from playing and training — that had been bothering her.
Cloud, 33, spent the early parts of the WNBA offseason rehabbing in New York, where she also played tourist with her partner and Liberty teammate Isabelle Harrison.
She received the thumbs up from trainers last month to play at Unrivaled, though she said she’s being mindful of her body while adjusting to the speedy pace and stop-and-go nature of Unrivaled’s style of play.
“It’s just been building up my muscles,” Cloud said.
Overall, though, Cloud welcomed the change of scenery and a return to a schedule centered on basketball, especially in light of the uncertainty that surrounds the 2026 WNBA season as contentious negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement continue.
She doesn’t want to spend too much energy or time thinking about what the future holds.
How can she? Everything remains in flux until a new CBA is done.
“I just want the CBA negotiated so we can even get there,” Cloud said. “That’s the annoying part is people ask us, like, ‘Oh, what are your plans? And it’s like, ‘We can’t even plan.’”
The entire WNBA landscape could change with well over 100 free agents, including Cloud, set to become available.
But players are standing firm in what they’re asking for. The third deadline came and went midnight Saturday without a deal having been made.
The WNBA is operating in “status quo,” or essentially business as usual, for the time being, as the two sides plan to negotiate in good faith.
A free agency moratorium seems likely, and a historic player strike is not out of the question.
One of the biggest sticking points revolves around revenue share. Players are asking for 30 percent of gross revenue, while the league has offered 70 percent of net revenue.
“We’re not asking for too much,” Cloud said. “I know they’re gonna keep saying that. We are asking for our value, our worth and just for equity in something that continues to grow, that we grow … I just wish that to be valued.
“We have the leverage. We have the support of our fans, we have support of ownership a lot of our ownership and that’s why sometimes I just wish we could sit down and meet with our owners and bypass the league because we would get more work done.”
In the meantime, Cloud is thankful for Unrivaled, which provides Cloud and 53 other WNBA players a sense of normalcy.
“We have a place here that will keep us, will house us year-round, we have facilities year round, we have, in a lot of ways, more resources,” Cloud said. “If anything, I think Unrivaled puts good pressure on the W to make a decision because if not, we have other leagues that are willing to invest in us and pay us damn near what you are paying us.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
