Unrivaled
Women’s sports and the WNBA have made a lot of great progress over the years, especially with the surge in women’s college basketball which is translated into the professional game. But there is still one major issue. Players are still being forced to play overseas to get more money and sacrificing rest for their bodies. But, there is at least a new option to do that. Unrivaled is a new league that has been the brain child of current WNBA players and co-founders Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier for the last couple of years. It’s a two month long season (January 17th - March 17th) where players team up to play full court 3 on 3 and earn a salary higher than most of their WNBA salaries, 250,000 dollars. To put this into perspective, a supermax contract in the W is roughly 200,000 dollars and the base salary in 76,000. Caitlin Clark among others makes more money through investments than actually playing the games. Unrivaled is here to change that.
More Information
Here is what you need to know about Unrivaled:
The court is the same width, but it’s shorter.
Traditionally 3 on 3 has been played on a half court set up, as mentioned the players in this league play the full length. The positions are guard, wing, and forward.
The game is four quarters. The first three are seven minutes. The fourth is an untimed quarter with a target score. The team leading at the end of the third will have whatever their score is (60 for example) and will have 11 points tacked onto it, and whoever hit’s the target score first wins making sure every game has a game winning basket at the end.
You get a six personal foul limit like in every American pro league, but free throws are not worth one point. Instead of multiple attempts, there will only be one foul shot and it will be worth whatever the player was fouled trying to get. So if the player is fouled trying to get a layup, two point free throw. And it it’s a foul on a three, the free throw is worth three points. I’m not good at math but I can handle this one.
Players can still foul out but a team cannot be reduced to fewer than three players. If a team runs low on players due to injury, fouling out, or both, then a player with six fouls can stay in the game but fouls will be awarded as a one point technical free throw in that situation.
The shot clock is reduced to 18 seconds for the entire game, and will be the only clock running in the fourth quarter.
Each roster is six players with a captain, a head coach, and small number of assistants.
Players not a part of a team on a fulltime basis can be signed to a relief contract and those players can be reassigned.
The games are televised exclusively on TNT with streaming options. TNT owns stake in the league and the players will as well.
All games as of right now are being played in Miami at custom made Wayfair Arena, a top of the line facility for basketball, media, fitness and wellness, fashion, and provides child care. The league is planning on expanding to a touring model in the future with locations TBD for the time being.
Players and Teams
There are six teams right now. They include:
Laces - Kayla McBride, Jackie Young, Stefanie Dolson, Alyssa Thomas, Kate Martin, Tiffany Hayes
Mist - Courtney Vandersloot, DiJonai Carrington, Rickea Jackson, Jewell Loyd, Breanna Stewart, Aaliyah Edwards
Rose - Brittney Sykes, Angel Reese, Kahleah Copper, Chelsea Gray, Lexie Hull, Azura Stevens
Lunar Owls - Skylar Diggins-Smith, Allisha Gray, Napheesa Collier, Cameron Brink (who is recovering from injury), Courtney Williams, Shakira Austin
Phantom - Natasha Cloud, Satou Sabally, Marina Mabrey, Sabrina Ionescu, Katie Lou Samuelson, Brittney Griner
Vinyl - Dearcia Hamby, Rhyne Howard, Arike Ogunbowale, Jordin Canada, Rae Burrell, Aliyah Boston
The only head coach with experience as a WNBA head coach/head coaching experience as a whole is Vinyl’s coach, WNBA legend Teresa Weatherspoon. She was fired after one season as the Chicago Sky head coach last season and was not hired in the most recent cycle, thus making her available for this opportunity. The others have been assistant coaches in the NBA, WNBA, college, and the G-League. The games are played on Fridays, Saturdays, and Mondays. Here are the standings with the first two weeks officially in the books.
Laces and Lunar Owls, 4-0
Vinyl, 2-2
Phantom and Rose, 1-3
Mist, 0-4
It is inconceivable that Mist with all the talent they have headlined by Stewart, Loyd, and Vandersloot still do not have a win. They’ve been in all of the games, they just can’t finish the job. These players are good enough to win and there is plenty of big game experience up and down the roster. The moment is not too big for them. They just need to lock in and once they get hot, there isn’t a team that can stop them. I still like their chances but they have got to figure it out soon or this will get out of hand.