Major League Pickleball Third 2026 Waiver Period Sees More Moves As Teams Search For Improvement

Casey Diamond, who made a splash in his MLP debut last week, gets officially picked up at the Waiver deadline.

MLP

This week saw Major League Pickleball’s third Waiver wire period of the season. Combined with a couple of additional trades ahead of the waiver period, we have enough transactions and player movement intrigue as to make it worth its own post.

So, here goes a quick recap of the moves made this week, with some analysis and some thoughts.

• Before the St. Pete event even ended, we got word of a weird move (broken by Erik Tice on twitter): Dallas traded their bench player Albie Huang and cash to Phoenix to acquire the well-traveled Alix Truong. Dallas clearly is rebuilding, but why send cash out the door to acquire a player to ride the pine? That is unless there’s more moves coming. Meanwhile, Huang moves to Phoenix where she may start over their youngster bench star Alexa Schull. Truong reunites with Danni-Elle Townsend in Dallas, with whom she played so well in MLP’s first event; could Truong be sending Brooke Buckner to the bench? Or, could Dallas be looking to make more moves?

• Coincidentally, here’s Alix Truong’s MLP season so far:
  • She started the season with Bay Area, who traded for her last March 2025.
  • Bay Area trades Truong to Miami for Mya Bui in a cost-cutting move in February 2026 ahead of the draft.
  • Miami then moves Truong to Columbus in a 3-way deal with Carolina that nets Miami cash and Isabella Dunlap in Mid-March 2026 just after the draft.
  • Columbus then moves Truong to Phoenix in late May 2026 after she stars for them in the opening weekend with Parris Todd absent.
  • Phoenix then flips her to Dallas to potentially ride the bench for Dallas in June 2026.
• On 6/23/26, a 3-teamer trade was announced:
  • Bay Area gets Blaine Hovenier from Las Vegas
  • Las Vegas gets Clayton Powell from Miami and Cash from Bay Area
  • Miami gets Luc Pham from Bay Area and Cash from Las Vegas
• Impact Analysis for each team
  • Bay Area definitely improves its starters, replacing the Pham/Yang platoon with high-energy Hovenier, who will rove on the left with lefty Tellez. Is this enough to propel the Breakers (currently 3-12 on the season and sitting 16th) into playoff territory? Probably not, but they’ll be better.
  • Miami may be cashing in on another asset by moving Powell and netting Cash. As we’re about to see, Pham is surplus to requirements and was immediately dropped for another player in the waiver period, so it sounds like Miami got cash for someone they were about to give away for nothing.
  • Las Vegas plugs in Powell for Hovenier, which is almost a like for like switch (Hovenier is ranked 54th for the season while Powell is ranked 56th) and nets a bit of cash for a treading water move.
  • I’d love to see a “Cash tracker” at some point; how much Cash has Miami netted with all these moves over the years? Just this year Miami has netted Cash in deals where they moved Roddy to Atlanta, where they moved Truong to Columbus in a 3-way deal, they got cash AND Frazier from Texas, and now they get cash from Las Vegas for the privilege of a player they were going to drop anyway.

• The latest waiver period hit on 6/23/26. Here’s the moves:
  • Palm Beach puts Greyson Goldin on the IR and officially picks up Casey Diamond. Apparently the expansion Palm Beach had one additional perk of being a new team this year, and that was first waivers selection. They re-claim Diamond, who subbed for them last weekend, and Goldin (who was alleged to have been “faking” his illness or injury last weekend) is now on the IR for presumably the rest of the season. Diamond will serve as a solid insurance policy for further injury to PB’s two male stars Bar and McGuffin. After the move, the team released a statement announcing in essence that the two sides agreed to this move to enable Goldin to go play some Challengers instead of sitting on their bench, which is what he really needs to prepare for the upcoming PPA season.
  • Florida’s owner Travis Rettenmaier dropped himself, picks up Connor Mogle. Mogle was rostered and traded around earlier this season but has yet to see any MLP action, and likely is a bench player for Florida. Is he an improvement? Possibly; Rettenmaier is a great example of a veteran player in a league going through a major youth movement, and he’s recognized the time has come. It’s too bad, b/c he played pretty well last weekend on his home court and energized the crowd each time.
  • Miami drops the just-acquired Luc Pham, picks up Zane Ford. Miami’s GM Goldberg strikes again, turning a player he was going to drop into a bit of cash that he can use going forward. Miami picks up a premier league starter from last season in Zane Ford (he was in the NY Hustler’s starting lineup) and improves their singles rotation.
  • Texas drops Matt Barlow, picks up Rafa Hewett. Barlow as Texas’ bench player has gotten very little playing time and made little impact while doing so, and the Ranchers pick up glue-guy Hewett, who may almost serve as a player-coach to the team.
  • Texas also drop their other bench player Marcela Aguila Ampon (aka Marcela Hones) and picks up Angie Walker. Ampon struggled greatly when pressed into action last week and Texas probably just used the opportunity to try to incrementally improve the bench.

Teams head back into action with their new players this weekend in New York for Week 6 of the MLP season. Play starts thursday 10am EDT from Randall’s Island.