NOTE: This post was written on Tuesday evening, before the Fire made two trades this morning. I am tweaking the numbers, and obviously tweaking my predictions, but I’ll make a note of what I thought the roster would look like without Wednesday’s trades.

There are 22 hours left before the Portland Fire need to have an established roster of 12 active players (or 11), and up to 2 developmental players. Currently, they have 18. Who do they cut? Who do they offer developmental spots to? And, if you’re really in the weeds, which players who have already been cut from other teams should be in the Fire management’s minds right now?

Below are my predictions.

This morning, the Portland Fire made two trades that effectively cut two roster spots. That takes the math from 14 positions for 18 players to 14 positions for 16 players. This makes it much simpler to make predictions than it was 12 hours ago, but let’s let them rip anyways!

Let’s re-establish two roster moves that the Fire have already made/announced:

Frieda Buhner is taking a Developmental Roster spot. The team announced this a few days after drafting the German rookie. Buhner, who played in the Fire’s second pre-season game, will be allowed to be activated for up to 12 games in the regular season.

Nika Mühl is going to be waived but kept as part of the larger group. Mühl is literally a project player, and was taken with the Fire’s last draft pick in the expansion draft. GM Vanja Cernevic wants to bring Mühl “back to life”, and they don’t need a roster spot to do it.

Additionally, just this morning, the Fire traded Maya Caldwell and Chloe Bibby to Minnesota and Phoenix, respectively. Caldwell was swapped for a 3rd round draft pick, and Bibby was traded for the rights to Julia Ayrault, an undrafted rookie. “The rights” is important there, because Ayrault is not signed to a contract, which means that the Fire gain a roster spot in both of the trades.

Effectively, the Fire just cut two players. They got a low draft pick and rights to an unsigned rookie, which means they got some kind of return instead of outright cutting players. A savy move, though it likely won’t yield much. I’ll save my thoughts on the trades for another entry.

Ok, that leaves us at 12 roster spots, 1 development spot, and 15 players. Let’s clear out the next most obvious decisions:

Bridget Carleton and Carla Leite are making the team. They were the first two picks in the expansion draft, they are healthy, they are good, etc. These are easy.

10 roster spots, 1 dev spot, 13 players left. (2 cuts needed)

Luisa Geiselsöder and Emily Engstler are making the team. They were expansion picks three and four, and they both immediately and obviously fit the system that coach Sarama is implementing.

8 roster spots, 1 dev spot, 11 players left. (2 cuts needed)

Nyadiew Puoch and Megan Gustafson are making the team. The Australian forward seems like a great fit for a disruptive defense and a multifacted offense. Meg has histroy with the leadership, is the team’s biggest free agency signing, and fits the system.

6 roster spots, 1 dev spot, 9 players left. (2 cuts needed)

Sarah Ashlee Barker and Karlie Samuelson are making the team. They both fit the system well, they were added to the roster in higher priority ways than the other three players left, and their positional flexibility is key to how this roster is being built.

4 roster spots, 1 dev spot, 7 players left. (2 cuts needed)

Let’s take a look at who is left:

Sutton has been hurt, Williams is a third-round draft pick, and Harrison is an un-drafted rookie, but the tea leaves (or lack of any engagement in any channels) seem to be saying that Kamiah Smalls and Teja Oblak are going to be cut. We know nothing about their progress, and we know a good amount about the successes of the other three players so far.

Harrison has been a fighter and played above her experience level against All-Stars in the Sparks game. Williams has been genuinely productive in two pre-season games and is playing a role that the Fire need bodies in (bigs), and Sutton seems to enjoy and support the Fire offense, and would bring more veteran presence to the point guard position.

With that said, I think Sutton and Williams make the roster, and I think Harrison makes the development spot.

That would be a full roster. They could be done there.

Or, like today, they could make some moves.

The team is only required to roster 11 players by the end of business tomorrow, not including two developmental spots. They also aren’t required to have two developmental spots taken. They could leave one spot open in each group, if they wanted to. The trades today tell me two things:

1.) This front office isn’t shying away from trades and roster activity. They made a trade with Chicago before the expansion draft, they signed a foreign player to be added to the development roster, they traded for Williams on draft day; they are willing to be creative.

2.) They have a roster vision in mind already. Other teams have waived four or five players from training camp at this point; the Fire have given away two, while getting more than nothing back for it. Not only that, but the two players they moved off of were experienced in the league. That tells me they know what they’re looking for, and they could have waived any of the other players yet, but haven’t.

Of course, as more players get waived elsewhere, and other rosters take better shape, more players become available to the Fire, whether through waivers or through trades. There is value in open roster spots, and in a potentially developmentally focused season, that flexibility could be useful.

These are just my predictions. Tea leaves only tell us so much, as do two pre-season games. Who knows what other plans this front-office might have, or what other players they might be planning to sign off-of waivers after the chaos of all of the training camp players being waived.

As always, time will tell.

Please, send me your final roster predictions! Email, text, GroupMe, snail mail, whatever you like.

I’ll see you (hopefully) later tomorrow with some starting roster predictions after final cuts are made.