Chicago Slice
Finished 12 · 33 pts · Round 1
Chicago Slice finished 12 in the 2026 regular season on 33 standings points and made the 12-team playoff. Here is the roster as the season ended, the draft class that built it, and every trade and waiver move in between — reconciled from the league’s own transaction logs.
How the season ended
Lost in Round 1 to Palm Beach, 2–0.
Roster at season’s end
| Player | Tour ranking | 2026 season |
|---|---|---|
| John Lucian Goins | Outside the top 100 | 60.0% from 60 matches gender doubles 12-8 · mixed 3-7 · singles 21-9 |
| AJ Koller | Men’s doubles #75 · 1677 | 39.1% from 23 matches gender doubles 7-7 · mixed 2-4 · singles 0-3 |
| Emma Nelson | Outside the top 100 | 33.3% from 27 matches gender doubles 3-6 · mixed 2-6 · singles 4-6 |
| Zane Navratil | Men’s doubles #23 · 1850 | 32.3% from 31 matches gender doubles 7-8 · mixed 2-8 · singles 1-5 |
| Elsie Hendershot | Outside the top 100 | 29.4% from 34 matches gender doubles 3-8 · mixed 4-8 · singles 3-8 |
| Jamie Wei | Outside the top 100 | — |
How a matchup is played
Every MLP match is four games in a fixed order — women’s doubles, men’s doubles, then two mixed doubles — each to 11, win by two, and all four are played even when the match is already decided, because point differential decides seeding. New for 2026: there are no starters and subs. A team may use all six players in one match, and may field a different man for men’s doubles than for mixed. Doubles lineups are submitted the night before. At 2–2 it goes to a DreamBreaker — singles, any four from the roster, two men and two women, chosen only after the fourth game, with the home team declaring first.
Pairing-by-pairing records are not published by the league for every team. We would rather leave this blank than guess — the 2026 full-roster rule makes lineups genuinely fluid, and an invented pairing would be obvious to anyone who watched the season.
Where these numbers come from. Rankings and ELO are PickleWave’s per-discipline model, captured 4 September 2026 — an independent rating built from professional match results, not an official tour ranking, and its leaderboards run 100 deep per discipline. Mixed doubles is a single combined pool of men and women, so a rank there is not a rank among men or among women. Season records cover all professional play in 2026 — PPA, APP and MLP combined — not MLP alone. Pairing records, where shown, were published by The Kitchen in August 2026 with statistics credited to PickleKey.com. The roster reconciliation is our own work from the league’s draft results and transaction logs. Pickleball Insiders is not affiliated with Major League Pickleball.
How the roster was built
MLP’s 2026 draft was a live auction — teams bid for each selection slot, so there was no preset pick order. Teams could protect up to five players at the keeper deadline on 15 February; 54 players were kept across the league, and the remaining 66 slots were filled at the draft on 27 February.
Kept (2): Hunter Johnson · Zane Navratil
Drafted (4):
| Pick | Player | Reported bid |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Jamie Wei | — |
| 6 | Mari Humberg | — |
| 32 | Jalina Ingram | — |
| 41 | Tom Protzek | — |
Transactions
| Date | In | Out | From / to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 2 | AJ Koller | waiver claim | |
| Jun 2 | Tom Protzek | waived | |
| Jun 24 | John Lucian Goins | St. Louis Shock | |
| Jun 24 | Elsie Hendershot | St. Louis Shock | |
| Jun 24 | Hunter Johnson | St. Louis Shock | |
| Jun 24 | Mari Humberg | Atlanta Bouncers | |
| Jul 13 | Emma Nelson | California Black Bears | |
| Jul 13 | Jalina Ingram | California Black Bears |
February post-draft roster: Jamie Wei · Mari Humberg · Jalina Ingram · Hunter Johnson · Zane Navratil · Tom Protzek
More: all 20 team rosters · the 2026 draft · season and calendar · pro coverage
About this page. Pickleball Insiders is an independent publication, not affiliated with, endorsed by or authorised by Major League Pickleball or any team or player named here. The roster is reconstructed from the league’s published draft, trade and waiver records applied in date order; where those records do not balance we say so rather than smoothing it over. A best reading of the public record, not an official roster document. Corrections welcome and made in place. Contact · How we work