Cal Basketball: Veteran Layshia Clarendon Waived by WNBA's New York Liberty

The 30-year-old was a prominent activist for racial justice and gender issues.

Cal alum Layshia Clarendon, a former WNBA all-star, has been waived by the New York Liberty.

Clarendon, 30, was a prominent voice in racial justice issues and was the WNBA’s first openly nonbinary and transgender player, using multiple pronouns.

Coming off a season where they averaged a career-best 11.5 points, Clarendon had played just three minutes in the Liberty’s first three games as second-year star Sabrina Ionescu begins to emerge as one of the league’s elite players.

Clarendon promises fans their basketball career is not over.

“I want to thank every person who reached out to me, our family has been flooded with an outpouring of love,” Clarendon said in a tweet on Friday. “I’m still pretty shocked and heartbroken to be in this moment. But don’t worry people have tried to bury me before they just keep forgetting I’m a seed I’ll be back.”

A point guard who helped Cal to the Final Four in 2013, Clarendon was a veteran presence on a Liberty team that featured seven rookies last season, including Ionescu, the former Oregon star. Clarendon was considered a mentor to those young players.

But after Ionescu was lost to a season-ending injury after three games, the team spiraled to a 2-20 record. The Liberty added depth this season and when guard Natasha Howard arrived after her season overseas ended there was no clear role for Clarendon.

“It was not a decision that we came to lightly,” second-year coach Walt Hopkins said. “It’s a lot of deliberation and, ultimately, we had to look at what we were building and maximizing the usage of the minutes that we have for our young players.

“So it ended up being a tough decision, but one that we think is the right one.”

The Liberty was off to a 3-1 start and Ionescu, the team’s clear floor leader, averaging 18.3 points, 6.8 rebounds and a league-best 8.0 assists. Last week the former East Bay prep star became the youngest WNBA player to record a triple-double.

Although Clarendon sounded determined to find a new home in the league, it’s unclear where his contract will allow that to happen. The nine-year pro signed a two-year protected contract at $120,000 per season before the 2020 campaign, which will make it tough for most teams to fit Clarendon within their salary cap limits.

Hopkins said Clarendon was an important piece for the franchise last season.

“Layshia absolutely had an impact last year, in a lot of ways,” Hopkins said.

Clarendon is vice president of the league’s player association and a member of the league’s first-ever Social Justice Council, which last year worked to advocate for justice for Breonna Taylor and other women of color who were victims of police brutality.

Clarendon talks in the video above, record earlier this month, about the George Floyd murder verdict and social changes on a variety of fronts.

He has called his identity as a Black, nonbinary person his “superpower.”

Clarendon quietly changed the pronouns on their Twitter bio last year 2020 and in January 2021 announced her decision to undergo gender-affirming top surgery. 

Cover photo of Layshia Clarendon by Stephen Gosling, NBAE via Getty Images

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo