Last Updated on February 28, 2026 by Drew Pierce
If you thought the keeper deadline was dramatic, the actual draft just turned the entire professional pickleball world upside down. We now have official answers to the questions everyone was asking: Would St. Louis get Anna Bright back? Would New Jersey steal Jorja Johnson? And most importantly, how much money would teams actually spend on these superstars?
The answers, respectively: Yes. Yes. And holy hell, way more than anyone predicted.
Friday’s 2026 MLP Free Agency Draft delivered record-breaking bids, shocking snubs, a youth movement that left veterans scrambling, and enough drama to fuel a Netflix series. Let’s break down everything that happened and what it means for the upcoming season.
Anna Bright Goes for $1.23 Million: A New MLP Record
Let’s start with the headline that’s got everyone talking: St. Louis Shock paid $1.23 million to get Anna Bright back.
Read that number again. One point two three million dollars. For a single player in Major League Pickleball. That’s not just a record for women’s players—that’s the highest amount ever spent on any player in MLP history, period.
St. Louis dropped Bright before the draft to avoid paying her $300K+ keeper fee. Their gamble was that they could get her back for less. Instead, they got into a bidding war with the New Jersey 5s and Columbus Sliders that escalated so far past any rational valuation that it makes NBA luxury tax penalties look reasonable.
Bright herself watched the bidding unfold live on her YouTube channel, reacting in real-time as teams drove the price higher and higher. Can you imagine? Watching multiple teams fight over you with million-dollar bids while you’re streaming to fans? That’s some next-level surreal experience.
Here’s the thing: St. Louis clearly decided that keeping their championship core intact was worth any price. They’ve got the financial backing—rumors suggest they fly players around on private jets—so what’s a few hundred thousand extra when you’re trying to win championships?
But this sets a dangerous precedent. If Anna Bright is worth $1.23M, what’s Anna Leigh Waters worth? What about Ben Johns? What about the next superstar who hits free agency? This draft just established a new ceiling for player valuations, and every future negotiation will reference this number.
Jorja Johnson to New Jersey for $800K: Instant Title Favorites
The second overall pick was Jorja Johnson to the New Jersey 5s for $800,000. That’s $430K less than Bright, but still an absolutely massive payday and the second-highest amount ever spent in an MLP draft.
New Jersey executed their plan perfectly. They dropped both their starting women (Meghan Dizon and Mari Humberg) to create maximum flexibility, then swung big and landed the reigning MLP Regular Season MVP. Now they have Anna Leigh Waters paired with Jorja Johnson in women’s doubles and mixed.
Let me be clear: this makes New Jersey the instant championship favorites. Anna Leigh is the #1 women’s player in the world. Jorja just won MVP. Put them together on the same team? That’s terrifying for everyone else.
Dallas, meanwhile, just watched their former MVP leave for a division rival. They kept Hurricane Tyra Black instead of Jorja, betting that Tyra’s chemistry with her husband JW Johnson was more valuable than Jorja’s pure talent. We’ll see if that gamble pays off, but right now it looks like Dallas traded away a championship piece to keep family dynamics happy.
The Youth Movement: Teenagers Dominate the Draft
Here’s where things get really interesting. The draft saw an unprecedented surge of teenage talent getting selected in the starter phase. We’re not talking about bench players or development prospects—these kids were drafted as day-one starters.
14-year-old Tama Shimabukuro went 9th overall to Utah Black Diamonds for $125K. Fourteenth. Years. Old. That’s ninth grade. This kid should be studying for algebra tests, not carrying a professional sports franchise.
17-year-old Kiora Kunimoto went 15th to California Black Bears for $45K. She’s the same Kunimoto who demolished top seeds at the Indoor Nationals in Lakeville, taking out the #9 and #2 players before falling in the semis. She’s legit.
14-year-old Cam Chaffin went 16th. Another teenager who made a quarterfinal run at a major PPA event, beating established pros along the way.
Will MacKinnon went 17th. Yet another young gun with proven results on the PPA Tour.
This isn’t a couple teams taking flyers on young talent. This is a league-wide strategic shift toward building around teenagers. Teams are looking at players who are 14-17 years old and thinking “if we lock them in now for three years at bargain prices, they’ll be 17-20 when the contracts expire and we’ll have a superstar at a fraction of what we’d pay in free agency.”
It’s the same logic NBA teams use when drafting 19-year-olds straight out of college. Get them young, develop them, and hope they become stars before they hit their prime earning years.
The Veteran Purge: Big Names Left Undrafted
The flip side of the youth movement? A bunch of established pros got absolutely shafted.
Colin Johns, AJ Koller, Anderson Scarpa, and Rafa Hewett all went undrafted in the starter phase. These are players with years of pro experience, proven results, and established careers. And they couldn’t even get selected as starters.
Tyler Loong—a player who was in the top 10 men’s rankings not that long ago—went in the bench phase to Utah for $2,000. Two thousand dollars. That’s what you pay a decent amateur player, not a former elite pro.
The message from MLP teams is clear: we want young, athletic, high-upside players who can grow with the league. Veterans are only valuable if they’re elite (like Ben Johns or Gabe Tardio) or if they come at bargain prices as bench depth.
One pro posted after the draft that they felt “pressure to play like GOD” now that they’d been passed over for teenagers. That’s the reality of professional sports. Perform or get replaced by someone younger, cheaper, and hungrier.
Palm Beach Royals Assemble Their Inaugural Roster
The expansion team Palm Beach Royals had their first-ever draft, and they made some smart picks.
Tyson McGuffin at #12 for $65K is a steal. McGuffin is a veteran presence who’s been around the pro circuit for years. He’s not in his prime anymore, but at $65K he’s a value pick who brings experience and leadership to a brand-new franchise.
They paired him with Dekel Bar (who they’d acquired earlier through trades), giving them a solid men’s doubles pairing right out of the gate. For an expansion team, that’s smart roster construction—get a veteran anchor and build around him.
Palm Beach also focused on balance, mixing veterans with younger players to create a roster that can compete immediately while also developing for the future. It’s the opposite strategy from teams like Phoenix (who went full youth movement) or St. Louis (who spent everything on proven stars).
Will it work? We’ll find out when the season starts in May. But for their first draft ever, Palm Beach did a competent job of not mortgaging their future while also giving themselves a chance to be competitive now.
The 12-Year-Old on St. Louis: Elsie Hendershot
Speaking of youth movement, let’s talk about Elsie Hendershot. St. Louis used a bench pick on a 12-year-old. Twelve. Years. Old.
Is she talented? Absolutely. Hendershot has been making waves in junior tournaments and has shown she can hang with much older players. But she’s also twelve, which means she’s probably not going to see significant playing time this season.
This is a pure development pick. St. Louis is betting that in 2-3 years, Hendershot develops into a legitimate pro-level player, and they’ll have her locked in at a bench player salary. If it works out, they’ve found a future star for pennies on the dollar. If it doesn’t, they’ve wasted a roster spot on someone who can’t contribute immediately.
It’s a high-risk, high-reward gamble. And given that St. Louis just spent $1.23M on Anna Bright, they clearly have the financial cushion to take that risk.
What This Draft Reveals About MLP’s Future
Let me zoom out for a second and talk about what this draft tells us about where Major League Pickleball is heading.
1. The money is getting real. When teams are spending eight figures collectively on a single draft, this is no longer a startup league. This is a professional sports league with serious financial backing and serious stakes.
2. Youth is being valued over experience. The NBA went through this same evolution. Teams realized that young, athletic players with upside are more valuable than aging veterans, even if the veterans have better current stats. MLP just had that same revelation.
3. Women’s talent is the scarcest resource. Notice that the two highest picks were both women (Bright and Johnson). Notice that teams overpaid for female talent and went bargain-hunting on the men’s side. The talent pool on the women’s side is shallower, which means elite female players command premium prices.
4. Teams are thinking long-term. By drafting teenagers and locking them into three-year deals, teams are building for sustained success rather than win-now desperation. That’s a sign of league maturity.
5. Volatility is the new normal. Defending champion Columbus let Lea Jansen walk. Dallas lost their MVP. St. Louis paid $1.23M to keep their core intact. Every season is going to see massive roster turnover because of these keeper rules and financial pressures.
Trade Window #2 Opens Today: More Drama Incoming
Here’s the kicker: Trade Window #2 opened February 28th. Teams that don’t like how the draft went can immediately start making moves.
Expect teams like Dallas (who lost Jorja), Phoenix (who have a roster full of teenagers), and any team that struck out on their top targets to be active. Cash-for-player trades are allowed. Teams can swap picks, restructure rosters, and pivot strategies.
We could see another round of headline-grabbing moves before the season even starts. The MLP offseason is starting to feel like the NBA or NFL—constant movement, endless speculation, and fans obsessively tracking every transaction.
The Injury Epidemic: A Growing Concern
Switching gears from draft drama to health concerns: pickleball injuries are skyrocketing</a>.
A new report highlights that injuries are up across all age groups, and the culprits are predictable: lack of warm-ups, improper footwear, poor technique, and people going too hard too fast because they think pickleball is “just a fun backyard game.”
The most common injuries are joint strains (especially knees and shoulders), ankle rolls, and impact injuries from falls. For a sport that prides itself on being accessible to older adults, sending people to the ER with torn ACLs is a bad look.
The professional tours need to take this seriously. If recreational players are getting hurt because they’re mimicking pro-level play without pro-level conditioning, that’s a problem the sport needs to address with better education, injury prevention programs, and realistic expectations about what “recreational” actually means.
New Facilities: Indoor Courts Everywhere
On a more positive note, pickleball facilities are opening at record pace.
A former Bed Bath & Beyond in Goleta, California is being converted into The Picklr with multiple indoor courts (opening late April). Pickleball Kingdom in Walker, Louisiana just opened with 16 courts and lessons. ACE Pickleball Club in Fort Myers is another new indoor facility focused on community building.
This solves one of pickleball’s biggest problems: weather dependency. Outdoor courts are great until it rains, snows, or hits 105 degrees. Indoor facilities provide year-round access and consistent playing conditions.
Expect this trend to accelerate. As the sport grows, dedicated pickleball venues (rather than tennis courts with temporary nets) will become the standard. That’s good for the sport’s long-term health.
My Predictions for the 2026 Season
Now that the draft is done and rosters are set (mostly), here are my bold predictions:
New Jersey wins the championship. Anna Leigh Waters plus Jorja Johnson is too much firepower. Unless injuries derail them, they’re the team to beat.
St. Louis finishes top 3 but doesn’t win it all. They overpaid for Bright and the pressure to justify that $1.23M will be crushing. Plus, every team will be gunning for them.
Dallas misses the playoffs. They let their MVP walk and kept chemistry over talent. That’s going to bite them.
Palm Beach exceeds expectations. For an expansion team, they built a smart, balanced roster. They won’t win it all, but they’ll be competitive.
Phoenix is terrible but builds for the future. Full youth movement means growing pains in year one. Check back in 2027-2028.
At least three veterans retire or leave the tour. The draft made it clear: if you’re over 30 and not elite, MLP doesn’t want you. Expect some players to hang it up rather than accept bench roles for poverty wages.
Final Thoughts: MLP Just Grew Up
The 2026 MLP Draft was a watershed moment. The league went from “fun startup with some money behind it” to “legitimate professional sports league with serious financial stakes and cutthroat roster management.”
Teams spent over $4 million collectively. Teenagers got selected as franchise cornerstones. Established veterans got left behind. An expansion team joined the fold. And St. Louis set a record that will be referenced for years.
This is what maturity looks like in professional sports. It’s messy, it’s expensive, and it forces everyone—players, teams, and fans—to recalibrate their expectations.
The season starts May 22nd in Dallas. Between now and then, expect more trades, more drama, and probably a few more surprises. Because if this draft taught us anything, it’s that MLP is fully committed to chaos.