New Jersey 5’s Reacquire Mari Humberg in MLP‘s Biggest Trade of 2025

This may be the most consequential MLP trade of the past two seasons. And potentially the most consequential since the Jackrabbits traded Jackie Kawamoto to the Ranchers in 2022!

Mari Humberg is returning to the New Jersey 5’s in exchange for Christa Gecheva and cash considerations. Unlike many MLP trades, often between struggling teams, this one could significantly impact the playoff landscape. The 5’s now have three legitimate starting-caliber women, a first in MLP history.

For those who don’t recall, the 5’s originally traded Humberg to DC (formerly Brooklyn) and then reacquired her after the draft. Per MLP rules, they could only retain three players and opted to let Humberg go. Notably, they made that trade before the league instituted a rule preventing top-15 PPA doubles players from being traded to Challenger.

There had been speculation that the 5’s would look to bring Humberg back post-draft. However, MLP amended its rules to prohibit reacquisition of a player traded during Trade Window #1 (Jan 22–Feb 15) until after Challenger-level waivers (moved from June 11 to June 18). This trade happened on June 19 – the first day Humberg was eligible to return.

The trade creates a unique situation. The 5’s now feature Anna Leigh Waters alongside two higher end female players, Humberg and Meghan Dizon, which will likely force match-to-match decisions on playing time.

At face value, this isn’t a great sign for the 5’s faith in Dizon. While Dizon has played well this year in stretches, most notably going 8-0 in Daytona and holding an 11-3 record with ALW in women’s doubles, there are lingering doubts about her ability to elevate this New Jersey roster to championship heights. By contrast, ALW and Humberg lost just one rally scoring game to 25 all of last season. While Humberg and Zane Navratil struggled in mixed, Dizon/Navratil are suddenly a more promising 6-8 this year after a strong 4-0 showing in Daytona.

That said, our concerns with Dizon have less to do with her doubles play and more with the mental side, along with her performance in Dreambreakers. 

Mari Humberg is one of the most confident players in all of pro pickleball. That is how she is wired. Interestingly, the 5’s chose two fliers in the 2024 draft who had that shooters shoot type of mentality to play with Anna Leigh Waters. That sometimes irrational confidence is sorely needed when playing with the best player in the world and feeling the pressure to win every time you are out on the court.

In 2024, the only time we saw Humberg visibly feel pressure was in the finals against the Dallas Flash.

Most players, including Meghan Dizon, are not wired the way Humberg and Howells are wired. They are not wired to rationally and irrationally believe in themselves the way that they do.

Still, there are legitimate questions about whether Humberg can replicate her dominance with ALW in 2025. Her results haven’t been trending upward. That could be due to opponents adjusting to her unorthodox style, a paddle change, or simply a temporary plateau before another surge.

Although, Humberg had a nice round of 16 win with new teammate Dizon against Pisnik/Fahey on Thursday.

Humberg is a better singles player than Dizon, but it’s not clear to us who the better doubles option is, particularly when you factor in that Humberg likely needs to play the left with Zane Navratil in mixed. It does not sound like the 5’s are going to be trading Dizon away and one of the bigger storylines for this 2nd half of the season will be what lineup the 5’s go with each match. 

We should talk about a couple of other factors that could be in play here. We understand that Christa Gecheva recently requested a trade to see more playing time and that could have been the impetus for the trade, rather than the 5’s being concerned about Dizon as their 2nd female. 

While we are very confident that Gecheva requested a trade, we are very skeptical that would be the main reason to make this move. In our view, the 5’s are not going to pay cash to risk upsetting their team dynamic if they didn’t have questions about winning with Dizon. 

One other question we have with this whole situation is whether the 5’s had this deal in place with DC (formerly Brooklyn) since the moment they traded Humberg to Challenger. This trade was made the first day after Humberg was eligible to be re-acquired by New Jersey and it is always possible that it was their plan (or hope?) all along to have Dizon and Humberg on their roster. That is pure speculation on our end, though. 

Ultimately, we don’t think this moves the needle significantly for New Jersey. They are still firmly in that #3 contender spot until we see how this shakes out. However, the move adds a different layer to their team now that they can optimize their matchups against opponents. There is no one in pickleball that should be trusted more than Leigh Waters to find the right matchups for Dizon and Humberg with ALW. 

The New Jersey 5’s are officially the most interesting team in MLP right now. 

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