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    With End of Griner’s Detention, a New Wave of WNBA Activism Begins

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    With their campaign to free Brittney Griner from prison in Russia over, W.N.B.A. players say they will help free others and focus on women’s health and pay equity.The W.N.B.A. is a trendsetter, a league of mostly Black women who have taken up major progressive causes: voting rights, stricter gun laws, equality for the L.G.B.T.Q. community. But this year’s push to free Brittney Griner, one of their own, from a geopolitical standoff in Russia — that was their toughest test yet.“This is what Black women do,” Natasha Cloud of the Washington Mystics said. “We carry the weight in our family, this country, and we always have, whether we get the acknowledgment or not from it.”Griner was released from a Russian penal colony on Thursday in a prisoner exchange after, the U.S. State Department said, she had been “wrongfully detained” on drug charges for nearly 10 months. Griner is home. Other imprisoned Americans who also may be in danger are not. The W.N.B.A.’s mission continues.“We also want those other prisoners over there to come home as well,” Isabelle Harrison of the Dallas Wings said. “We don’t want them to just be like, ‘Oh, we just got B.G. home, and we’re done.’ No, that’s not what the W does.”In recent years, W.N.B.A. members helped flip a Senate seat in Georgia by supporting the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, when Senator Kelly Loeffler, a Republican who owned the Atlanta Dream, spoke against the Black Lives Matter movement. They walked out of games to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man in Wisconsin, and dedicated a season to Breonna Taylor, a Black woman who was killed by Kentucky police. Their latest collective bargaining agreement set new benchmarks in pay and benefits for women in sports.Natasha Cloud of the Washington Mystics, center, marched to the M.L.K. Memorial in Washington to support the Black Lives Matter movement in June 2020.Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images“But, at the same time, they are mere mortals,” said Terri Jackson, the executive director of the W.N.B.A. players’ union. “Emotionally, this does take a toll. All of their advocacy and their work in the communities around so many issues — pick an issue, reproductive rights, voting rights, gun control — it wears on them.”More on Women and Girls in Sports‘We Have Fun All the Time’: Women’s college running programs can be rife with toxicity. At North Carolina State, Coach Laurie Henes is winning with a different approach.Pressure to Cut Body Fat: Collegiate athletic departments across the country require student-athletes to measure their body composition. Many female athletes have found the tests to be invasive and triggering for those who had eating disorders or were predisposed to them.New Endorsements Bring Up Old Debate: Female college athletes are making millions thanks to their large social media followings. But some who have fought for equity worry that their brand building is regressive.Pretty in Any Color: Women’s basketball players are styling themselves how they want, because they can. Their choices also can be lucrative.The plane returning Griner from Russia had not even touched down in the United States before Griner’s agent, Lindsay Kagawa Colas, pledged that the campaign to free Griner would transition into securing the release of wrongfully detained Americans around the world. W.N.B.A. players have been at the heart of that campaign and many others.“While I was fighting for B.G. this year, I was still fighting for sensible gun laws,” Cloud said. “While we were still fighting for B.G., we were still fighting for a woman’s right to her body and to the choice to her body and the choice to her life. We were still fighting and trying to get people out to vote, understanding how important these elections were in the trajectory of where our country was headed.”W.N.B.A. players went about their season while knowing their teammate and friend was imprisoned in Russia. “Honestly, I don’t think the W.N.B.A. ever takes a break from advocacy,” Harrison said. “I think we’re always at a point where we’re fighting and trying to get some type of justice, all whilst trying to build up our league and play basketball.”On Aug. 4, the day a Russian court sentenced Griner to nine years in a penal colony, her Phoenix Mercury teammates played a game.“Nobody even wanted to play today,” Mercury guard Skylar Diggins-Smith said afterward. “How are we even supposed to approach the game and approach the court with a clear mind when the whole group is crying before the game?”Napheesa Collier, of the Minnesota Lynx, said she didn’t go more than a day or two without talking about Griner, and her group chats with other W.N.B.A. players constantly included discussions of the situation in Russia.“They’ve advocated every single day, keeping her in the media, keep talking about her, making sure that no one’s forgetting, making sure that we’re doing everything that we can to bring her home,” Collier said.Isabelle Harrison of the Dallas Wings said Griner had been fun to play with and kind to her when she was a rookie.Tony Gutierrez/Associated PressW.N.B.A. players often proudly refer to themselves as “The 144,” referring to the total number of players in the league. Some, like the Seattle Storm’s Breanna Stewart, a former most valuable player, sent social media messages daily in support of Griner.“I was using my platform in all ways possible and really making sure that throughout this time, everybody was still keeping B.G. in their thoughts during her wrongful detention,” Stewart said. “To finally be at a moment where I don’t have to send that tweet is amazing.”She added: “Ever since I came into the W.N.B.A., we’ve always been at the forefront in speaking out against social injustices, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do. As a league full of women and majority Black women, there’s a lot that needs to be fought for, and we’re used to it and we’re used to speaking up on our own account and now for others.”Many players wore Griner-themed clothing designed by Isabella Escribano, a 14-year-old known as Jiggy Izzy, who is popular on social media for her basketball skills. The front of the design, seen on hoodies and T-shirts, features a smiling Griner in her Mercury jersey with a basketball that reads “WEAREBG” — the phrase that became the rallying cry for her release.Griner’s jersey number, 42, is wrapped around the left side, and on the back, her first and last name are printed in capital letters. With the help of her brothers, Escribano worked with Griner’s agent and the W.N.B.A. players’ union to get the clothing to players across the W.N.B.A. and the N.B.A. Escribano said it was “very empowering and rewarding” to see Griner freed.“Because just, like, for all we’ve done, and for her to be home now, it was for a purpose,” Escribano said, adding: “I hope one day I can meet her and tell her how I felt and how I wanted to help her in any situation possible.”Isabella Escribano, a 14-year-old hooper known as Jiggy Izzy, designed T-shirts and hoodies that helped raise awareness of Brittney Griner’s detention in Russia.Meg Oliphant for The New York TimesAmira Rose Davis, an assistant professor at Penn State University specializing in race, sports and gender, said that the W.N.B.A. had proved itself as a force for social justice, though she “would love for them to have the opportunity to develop advocacy on their terms.”“They meet the challenge every time, but wouldn’t it be great to not have to?” she said.Jackson, the union’s executive director, said Griner’s ordeal shoved to the forefront important issues like pay equity and W.N.B.A. investment. Griner had been in Russia during the W.N.B.A. off-season to play for a professional team there that reportedly paid her at least $1 million, more than four times what she made in the United States. Dozens of W.N.B.A. players compete internationally in the off-season to boost their incomes. But Griner’s detention led many players, fans and opinion columnists to wonder aloud whether more should be done to raise pay here so players do not feel the need to go abroad.“We are not honoring the players, we are not honoring B.G., if we don’t have those conversations,” Jackson said.This weekend, the W.N.B.A. players’ union plans to certify a new executive committee, whose members will set the agenda for the next wave of activism. Jackson and others expect the players to focus on women’s health and continue pushing for the freedom of those like the American Paul Whelan, who is also detained in Russia. Many people were disappointed that Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, had not been included in the prisoner exchange that freed Griner.“Instead of people hating and complaining for one American coming home who has won and has represented her country in the most respectful ways, we should harness that into fighting for Paul,” Cloud said.The league, for years now, has shown that it knows no other path. One issue is solved. Others remain.“They really understand the power of the collective voice, and so they can lean on each other — literally, sometimes — to continue to draw that strength and propel them forward,” Jackson said.Shauntel Lowe More

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      A Chaotic Sprint to the Finish for the W.N.B.A. Season

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      Six teams are fighting for the final three playoff spots with only one week left.The Chicago Sky, the reigning champions, are assured of one of the top two spots in the upcoming W.N.B.A. playoffs. The rebuilding Indiana Fever are the only team out of contention. Everything else is up for grabs.The final week of the W.N.B.A.’s regular season should be a showcase of the parity and chaos the league has seen all season. Six of the league’s 12 teams are battling for the final three playoff spots, and the teams that have already clinched are still jockeying for seeding.At the top of the standings, the Sky are 25-8 and hold a two-game lead in the race for the No. 1 seed. Chicago can fall no further than a No. 2 seed after a win Sunday over the Connecticut Sun, but it will still need to hold off the Las Vegas Aces, who spoiled Sue Bird’s final regular-season game at Climate Pledge Arena with a win over the Seattle Storm. Chicago and Las Vegas face off Thursday in their final regular-season meeting.The Sun are solidly in the third spot but could still overtake the Aces for the No. 2 seed. A bigger battle is brewing below them, though, as Seattle and the Washington Mystics fight for home-court advantage in what is nearly certain to be the playoff matchup between the No. 4 and No. 5 seeds. The Storm are at a scheduling disadvantage, with games on the road against Chicago and Las Vegas around a trip to Minneapolis. The Mystics, meanwhile, finish with two games against the last-place Fever and play their final regular-season game at home.The Chicago Sky have clinched one of the top two spots in the playoffs.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesOf the teams hoping to clinch one of the final playoff spots, the Dallas Wings were in the best shape entering Monday, holding a 16-16 record with four games remaining — all against teams that sit below them in the standings. Marina Mabrey’s 31 points helped Dallas clinch a berth with an 86-77 win Monday night against the Liberty.Below the Wings, though, the race is wide open. With three games left for each, the Atlanta Dream and Phoenix Mercury are tied at 14-19, though the Dream own the head-to-head tiebreaker. The Liberty are now 13-20 with three games left, and the Minnesota Lynx and Los Angeles Sparks are also hanging on at 13-20.The Dream, the Mercury and the Liberty have all been without key players down the stretch. Atlanta guard Tiffany Hayes has missed three games with an ankle injury, while Phoenix announced Monday that Diana Taurasi would miss the rest of the regular season with a quad injury. For Saturday’s game with Phoenix, the Liberty had finally gotten healthy as Betnijah Laney returned to action two months after knee surgery, but forward Natasha Howard went down with an ankle injury.Those injuries could leave the door open for the ninth-place Lynx: They hold the season tiebreakers over Phoenix and the Liberty, and they play the Mercury in a must-win game Wednesday. But the rest of Minnesota’s schedule is daunting, with games at home against Seattle and on the road against Connecticut. In its favor is the comeback of Napheesa Collier, who returned Sunday less than three months after giving birth. (A motivating factor for her was the chance to play again with Sylvia Fowles, who is retiring at the end of the season.)Finally, the Sparks may face the most difficult path to a playoff berth, for reasons on and off the court. Los Angeles had been in position for the No. 6 seed after a July 21 win over the Dream. But with drama swirling as the four-time All-Star Liz Cambage left the team, the Sparks dropped six games in a row to fall to 11th place.A win Sunday against the Mystics kept their hopes alive. But they must play back-to-back games this week against the third-place Sun before finishing up against the surging Wings. And making matters worse, the Sparks were caught up in a travel nightmare while trying to leave Washington.Dallas Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale going against Natasha Cloud of the Washington Mystics.Rebecca Slezak/The Dallas Morning News, via Associated PressAfter their flight was delayed and then canceled, some members of the Sparks spent the night in the airport when there weren’t enough hotel rooms for all players. Nneka Ogwumike, a former league M.V.P., said in a video posted on Twitter, “It’s the first time in my 11 seasons that I’ve ever had to sleep in the airport.” More

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      The Dream’s Clean-Slate Strategy Made Space for a Star: Rhyne Howard

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      Howard is a top candidate for the Rookie of the Year Award. Atlanta is rebuilding after a few rocky years, on and off the court.The Atlanta Dream were looking to start over.After a couple of rocky seasons — player suspensions, lots of losses, a revolt against a team owner — it was time to try something new.Nothing says clean slate like building a new roster.Atlanta kept only a few players from last year’s team: Monique Billings, Aari McDonald, Tiffany Hayes and Cheyenne Parker.Another piece fell into place when the Dream traded up for the first pick in this year’s draft and selected guard Rhyne Howard from the University of Kentucky. Howard made history as the only former Wildcat to be selected first overall by a W.N.B.A. franchise. Despite the power moves Atlanta made to ensure Howard was a part of their rebuild, she isn’t feeling any pressure to atone for the failings of past Atlanta teams.“I was aware of what has been going on, but we didn’t talk about that,” Howard said in a phone interview earlier this month. “We haven’t, and we didn’t even before the draft because it’s like, it’s in the past now. Everyone here is basically new, so we’re just looking to rebuild, which we have done so far.”Howard diving for the ball against the Phoenix Mercury. She is averaging 16.3 points, 4.3 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesThe Atlanta Dream are in playoff contention as the W.N.B.A. nears the All-Star break, but just barely. They are 8-8 after beating the Dallas Wings on Tuesday. Their 6-4 start under the first-time coach Tanisha Wright was promising for a franchise with fewer than 16 wins over the last two seasons.Promising, yes, but not satisfying.The Dream haven’t made it to postseason play since 2018, when Nicki Collen led Atlanta to a 23-11 record en route to winning the Coach of the Year Award. It looked as though the heyday of Dream basketball might have returned.After winning only four games as an expansion club in 2008, the Dream earned six consecutive postseason berths, including three trips to the W.N.B.A. finals.However, by 2019 the Dream were again scraping at the bottom of the standings and would not win more than eight games in three straight seasons. There was turmoil off the court as well.In 2020, the Dream caught the attention of the sports and political worlds when the team’s players publicly supported the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat in Georgia who was running for a Senate seat against the Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler, who co-owned the Dream.Then last season, the Dream suspended guard Chennedy Carter after 11 games for “conduct detrimental to the team.” That May, guards Courtney Williams and Crystal Bradford were involved in a fight outside of a club in Atlanta. It wasn’t until after the season, when video of the fight surfaced, that the W.N.B.A. suspended them. None are with Atlanta now.Neither is Loeffler, who sold the team in February 2021 after losing to Warnock. There are lots of new faces, including Wright, Howard and General Manager Dan Padover, who was hired away from the Las Vegas Aces in October. A month earlier, the Dream hired a new team president, Morgan Shaw Parker. With every move, the Atlanta Dream have made it clear that there is no looking back, only looking forward.“It really was a way to come into something at the ground floor that I’ve never been able to do,” Padover said. He added: “I viewed it as a challenge, and I also knew I was going to be with really good people, and we were going to bring in really good players.”Howard had averaged 20.5 points per game in the 2021-22 season at Kentucky and left as a two-time SEC player of the year. She was named to the Associated Press first team three of her four years in Lexington.Her transition to the professional ranks has been smooth. Through 16 games, Howard is averaging 16.3 points, 4.3 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game. She was named the W.N.B.A. rookie of the month for May.She leads the Dream in points and minutes (31) per game and is a top candidate for the league’s Rookie of the Year Award. So far, she has validated all that it took for Atlanta to get her.Five days before the draft, Atlanta traded its first-round (third overall) and second-round (14th overall) picks to the Washington Mystics for the No. 1 overall pick. Additionally, the Mystics can swap their 2023 first-round pick for the 2023 first-round pick the Dream acquired in a trade with the Los Angeles Sparks.“When we looked at the trade, we’ve known in the W that it’s really, really hard to get elite-level players,” Padover said. “And when you get an opportunity to get one, you have to really consider it.”He continued: “For us to get a player of Rhyne’s caliber to start this rebuilding process, we didn’t think we could pass it up. And I think the other thing that we looked at was not just the 2022 draft — we looked at the draft from 2020 to 2023, and there weren’t a lot of players that we could compare to Rhyne.”Although there is a lot of excitement for the path ahead, Padover is under no illusions that it will be an easy road. No one on the team has won a championship except for Wright, who won in 2010 with the Seattle Storm.“We do need to get to where we want to get from a competitive standpoint,” he said. “We want to be a consistent playoff team for years to come. We’ll see what happens this year, but I’m not sure we’re there yet.”Dream forward Cheyenne Parker is averaging 11.8 points per game. She leads the team with 1.3 blocks per game.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesAtlanta had dropped four straight games before beating Dallas on Tuesday. Opponents scored at least 90 points in three of the four losses. In the previous 11 games, only the top-seeded Las Vegas Aces had scored more than 80 points against the Dream.“Defensively, we need to get back to ourselves,” Wright said after a 105-92 loss to the Connecticut Sun last week. Atlanta averages a league-leading 17.7 turnovers per game. The Dream have conceded 15.1 points per game because of turnovers and another 9.3 points per game on fast breaks. But the defensive numbers aren’t all bad: Atlanta is just behind the Connecticut Sun with the third-fewest second-chance points allowed (9.2) per game.Nia Coffey leads the team with five defensive rebounds per game, but Parker and Billings are right behind her with 4.8 per game. Parker also leads the team with 1.3 blocks per game, and averages 11.8 points per game.“What we were dead set on was that we needed to make sure we brought in professionals who were going to be respectful of one another and also make the city and this franchise proud,” Padover said.What will that look like at the end of the regular season? Will a playoff berth or major league award show that Atlanta is moving in the right direction?“A goal of mine is to be rookie of the year,” Howard said, “but just being able to have an impact on this team continuously and consistently and just leading us to where everyone wants to go is enough for me. I’m not going to get any accomplishments without my team.”The Dream will have to fight to remain in playoff contention, but Howard leads all rookies in per-game averages for minutes, points, steals, and 3-pointers and field goals made. Early returns say she can be the elite player Padover and the Dream thought she would be. More

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      W.N.B.A. Season Preview: New Talent Is Here, but an Absence Looms

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      The league will honor Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner, who remains in custody in Russia, as its new season begins Friday.The longest W.N.B.A. season in league history will begin on Friday. For the first time, teams will each play 36 regular-season games as the next step in the league’s plan for incremental growth — a plan stifled for the past two seasons by the coronavirus pandemic.As the league enters its 26th season, new sponsors and some increased engagement from team ownership is inspiring some optimism about the state of the W.N.B.A. Growth in viewership at the college level means more buzz for graduating players aiming to become professionals, while new broadcast deals and a heavier emphasis from the league’s primary partner, ESPN, have made games more accessible.Looming over all that optimism, though, is the continued absence of one of the league’s best players, Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner, who has been detained in Russia — where she also plays professionally — since February on drug charges. An image of Griner and her jersey number No. 42 will be on each team’s court throughout the season.“We are keeping Brittney at the forefront of what we do through the game of basketball,” W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in a statement.Here’s what to expect from the 12 W.N.B.A. teams this season.Seattle StormThis could be Sue Bird’s final season. The Seattle Storm drafted her No. 1 overall in 2002. She turns 42 in October.Matt York/Associated PressNo matter what happens, this season will likely mark the end of an era for the Storm and for women’s basketball. After contemplating retirement last season, Sue Bird announced in January that she would return and with the hashtag #1moreyear suggested this season would be her last. When she was drafted No. 1 overall by Seattle in 2002, the franchise had played only two seasons; four championships later, won in part by Bird’s consistency, the Storm have become one of the most dominant teams in W.N.B.A. history.The 41-year-old’s farewell tour will inevitably include many teary tributes and gaudy highlight reels, but the Storm will aim for its final stop to be a champions’ parade. The team is playing its first season in the new Climate Pledge Arena, which the Storm are sharing with the N.H.L.’s Kraken. The Storm will still have Breanna Stewart, who met with the Liberty in the off-season before signing a one-year deal, and Jewell Loyd, who also met with the Liberty before re-signing for two years. Bird, Stewart and Loyd form the team’s core, and the likelihood of playing without them in the near future makes the team’s quest for a league-leading fifth title more urgent than ever.Los Angeles SparksNneka Ogwumike will have some offensive reinforcements on the Sparks this season with the additions of Liz Cambage, Jordin Canada and Chennedy Carter.Michael Conroy/Associated PressA host of new faces crowd the Sparks roster, as Los Angeles looks to reignite this season. The team struggled last year in the wake of Candace Parker’s departure and the fallout from a legal battle with Penny Toler, the team’s former general manager.The Sparks had an excellent season defensively in 2021 but fell short of the playoffs for the first time since 2011 because of their woeful offense. This year, they’ve added starpower designed to boost their scoring with the flashy young guards Chennedy Carter and Jordin Canada and center Liz Cambage, who owns the single-game scoring record and is looking for a fresh start after promising seasons in Las Vegas that still ended short of titles. The question is how all those talents will fit together under Coach Derek Fisher: There aren’t many role players on this Los Angeles team, so sorting out responsibilities could prove challenging.Those players will join Nneka Ogwumike, still the team’s best chance at filling that Parker-size hole, as well as the veterans Brittney Sykes and Kristi Toliver as they chase a new kind of chemistry befitting the franchise’s storied legacy.Indiana FeverNaLyssa Smith, a rookie out of Baylor, could be the difference-maker for the Indiana Fever, as it rebuilds.Adam Hunger/Associated PressFor the sixth year in a row, the Fever will try to return to the playoffs — or at least not be the worst team in the league yet again. Without a modicum of success to show for years of high draft picks, Indiana was compelled to nearly start from scratch this year. The team amassed four picks in the first round alone after cutting Kysre Gondrezick, their top pick in the 2021 draft at No. 4 overall.A gaggle of rookies, then, will join the veterans Danielle Robinson, Bria Hartley, Tiffany Mitchell and Kelsey Mitchell, as Lin Dunn, the interim general manager, tries to right the ship.NaLyssa Smith, Indiana’s top 2022 draft pick at No. 2 overall, was dominant at Baylor and enters the W.N.B.A. with something to prove after an underwhelming senior postseason. She’s been clamoring to compete at the professional level and, at 6-foot-4 with impressive athleticism, Smith could well prove to be the difference-maker the Fever desperately need.Dallas WingsArike Ogunbowale, the sharpshooting All-Star, has been the center of Dallas’s offense.Tom Pennington/Getty ImagesLast season, the Wings had one of the youngest rosters in the league. Though they seem to have found some stability, having made only one non-draft addition, the 6-foot-7 center Teaira McCowan, there’s still some uncertainty about how the team will balance all that potential. Dallas has a lot of depth but few clear front-runners who can define the team’s core.Arike Ogunbowale is one exception to that rule. The sharpshooting All-Star has been the centerpiece of Dallas’s offense, and she signed a multiyear extension in the off-season. She had help from guard Marina Mabrey, her former Notre Dame teammate; they work together so well they have earned the moniker Marike.This season, the second-year Wings Coach Vickie Johnson, will try to take the team past the first round in the playoffs for the first time since 2015 by finding consistency in the frontcourt. Forward Satou Sabally, with her refined footwork inside and ability to find high-percentage shots, seems like the perfect balance for Ogunbowale’s pull-up-from-anywhere mentality — the Wings just have to make sure she’s touching the ball.Minnesota LynxLynx center Sylvia Fowles won the Defensive Player of the Year Award in 2021. She has said this will be her last season.Andy Clayton-King/Associated PressThe four-time champion Lynx will lose the final piece of their last two title-winning squads at the end of this season with the retirement of the 6-foot-6 center Sylvia Fowles, who was playing at a near-M.V.P. level last season despite being 35 years old then.Fowles’s continuing dominance could push Minnesota back into position to win in the postseason. However, she and Coach Cheryl Reeve will face the added challenge of competing without forward Napheesa Collier, the team’s leading scorer last season, who is pregnant and likely to miss most or all of the season.The five-time All-Star Angel McCoughtry, who injured her knee last season, will join Fowles in the effort to push the Lynx back to the playoffs for the 12th consecutive year. The veterans Kayla McBride and Aerial Powers round out a Lynx roster that could, once again, outperform expectations, thanks to Reeve’s consistent coaching and the team’s experience.Las Vegas AcesA’ja Wilson led the Aces to the brink of the championship series last season.Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesThe story of the Aces centers on one crucial off-season move: the introduction of Becky Hammon as the highest-paid head coach in the W.N.B.A. Combined with the construction of a shiny, new Aces-specific practice facility in Henderson, Nev., Hammon’s hiring was part of owner Mark Davis’s efforts to flaunt his investments in the team so far. All that’s left is for the team to finally win its first title.Hammon will undoubtedly be in the spotlight — perhaps even more so than her players — after returning to the W.N.B.A., where she first flourished as a player, and passing up what many saw as a likely shot to become the first female head coach in N.B.A. history.In her first head coaching role, the longtime San Antonio Spurs assistant will try to retool the Aces following the departure of center Liz Cambage and forward Angel McCoughtry, veteran talents who accounted for much of the team’s production. Last season ended with an ugly upset loss to the Mercury in the playoffs, one game away from the championship series. This year, Hammon will work with A’ja Wilson, the 2020 M.V.P., to take the talented team to the next level, relying on guards Chelsea Gray and Kelsey Plum to amp up the Aces’ offense.New York LibertyBetnijah Laney made her first All-Star team in 2021, helping lead the Liberty to the playoffs.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesThe Liberty’s 2021 season was a surprise: It was Betnijah Laney who took the reins to lead the team back to the playoffs for the first time since 2017 and not Natasha Howard, the former defensive player of the year who missed most of the season with a knee injury or the highly-touted guard Sabrina Ionescu.This season, they’ve added Stefanie Dolson from the reigning champion Sky and hired a new coach, Sandy Brondello, to put all the pieces together. The team is full of potential but a complete mystery as far as chemistry. Despite losing 10 of their last 12 games at the end of the 2021 regular season, the Liberty were two points shy of upsetting the Phoenix Mercury in the first round of the playoffs — a confusing outcome consistent with their unpredictability last season.If Brondello, who led the Mercury to a championship in 2014, can find consistency among a group of veterans who have found a lot of success on other teams, the Liberty might be able to make a deeper run in the playoffs.Phoenix MercuryThe Mercury will try to claim the franchise’s fourth title behind veterans like Skylar Diggins-Smith, right, and Tina Charles, center.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesThe Mercury begin the season under a particularly large shadow: the continued detention of their star center, Brittney Griner, in Russia, where she has been held since February. Her indefinite absence leaves a huge hole in the team and league, on and off the court. Until she returns, the Mercury will have to figure out how to play without one of the most dominant centers in W.N.B.A. history for the first extended period in nearly a decade.An esteemed group of veterans will also be fighting for another title. Skylar Diggins-Smith and Diana Taurasi were joined by Tina Charles in the off-season, sparking much discussion about so-called superteams in the W.N.B.A. Coach Vanessa Nygaard, in her first year, has been charged with getting the team into shape to try to claim the franchise’s fourth championship. Phoenix made it to last season’s championship series before losing in four games to the underdog Chicago Sky.Taurasi, who will turn 40 years old in June, insists that she’s not planning on retiring anytime soon. But she — the league’s career leading scorer — has had nagging injuries over the past few seasons, making the Mercury’s pursuit of another deep postseason run even more pressing than usual.Connecticut SunJonquel Jones is back for Connecticut after winning the league’s Most Valuable Player Award last season.Sean D. Elliot/The Day, via Associated PressThe Sun have been nothing if not consistent over the past few seasons, both in their regular season dominance and in their inability to finally secure the franchise’s first championship. If they were ever in win-now mode, though, this would be the time, having re-signed Jonquel Jones, last season’s M.V.P., in the off-season.Jones rejoins Alyssa Thomas, Jasmine Thomas, DeWanna Bonner and Brionna Jones — one of the league’s most consistent core groups. While other teams around the league are working out their rotations, the Sun and their longtime coach, Curt Miller, will look to refine a long-established dynamic. Even their biggest move of the off-season — securing the return of guard Courtney Williams — was to bring a team veteran back into the fold after her brief stint with the Atlanta Dream.Connecticut can nearly take for granted the fact that this group will reprise one of the better defenses in the W.N.B.A., with its veterans who seem to summon unfathomable energy to stifle opponents year after year. The trouble comes when the shots stop falling for the physical team. Williams, and perhaps some offense-minded young players coming off the bench, will have to close that gap.Atlanta DreamAtlanta Dream guard Rhyne Howard, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 draft, fights for the ball during a preseason game against the Sun.Sean D. Elliot/The Day, via Associated PressThe Dream seem like they have been in rebuilding mode for several seasons now, winning single-digit games in each of their past three seasons and facing turnover at the coaching and ownership tiers.But this season, Atlanta will attempt to actually start fresh, with the first-year head coach, Tanisha Wright, and a slew of young talent joining Tiffany Hayes and Monique Billings, who have stuck with the Dream through all those losses. Aari McDonald, whom the Dream drafted with the third overall pick last year, will be joined by the No. 1 pick in the 2022 draft, Rhyne Howard — whom Atlanta traded up to snag — and Kristy Wallace, who spent the past few years honing her skills in an Australian professional league. The veterans Erica Wheeler and Nia Coffey, both of whom last played for the Sparks, round out the upstart group, which will aim to outperform expectations and make it to the playoffs for the first time since 2018.Chicago SkyKahleah Copper had a breakout season with the Sky in 2021 and was named M.V.P. of the finals.Paul Beaty/Associated PressAfter winning their first championship as underdogs in 2021, the Sky return as contenders to become the first W.N.B.A. team to win repeat titles in two decades. Many core members of last season’s team are back, including Candace Parker; Kahleah Copper, last year’s finals M.V.P.; and the veteran guards Allie Quigley and Courtney Vandersloot. The team added center Emma Meesseman, who was the finals M.V.P. when the Mystics won the 2019 championship.The Sky must have been certain that this group would be enough when they traded away all of their 2022 draft picks, relying instead on their veteran squad and the talents of Coach James Wade to lead them to another deep postseason run. Copper in particular, who stuffed her 2021 finals highlight reels with circus shots and tough layups, will look to continue her breakout run this season.Washington MysticsThe Mystics’ season could hinge on whether Elena Delle Donne has fully recovered from a back injury.Nick Wass/Associated PressSince winning the W.N.B.A. championship in 2019, the Mystics’ fate has revolved around one variable: whether Elena Delle Donne, who has played just three games in the past two seasons, can get and stay healthy. Delle Donne sustained a back injury in the 2019 W.N.B.A. finals that required multiple surgeries, left her with lingering back issues and has taken extensive therapy and conditioning work to overcome.If Delle Donne and Alysha Clark, who missed last season with a foot injury, can stay on the court, Washington’s roster suddenly looks a lot more solid. Ariel Atkins, Natasha Cloud and Myisha Hines-Allen are all settled well into Coach Mike Thibault’s system, and Elizabeth Williams, a new addition, can provide support in the post if Delle Donne isn’t ready to go. More

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      W.N.B.A. Draft: Kentucky’s Rhyne Howard Goes No. 1 to Dream

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      Howard, a senior guard, was the top pick after Atlanta made a deal with the Washington Mystics to move up in the draft.The Atlanta Dream, looking for a versatile player to help rebuild their roster, selected guard Rhyne Howard from the University of Kentucky as the No. 1 pick in the W.N.B.A. draft on Monday at Spring Studios in New York.Ahead of the draft, Dream General Manager Dan Padover said the team was looking for a player who brought “fresh energy and sparks something underneath our franchise.”The Indiana Fever selected NaLyssa Smith, a senior forward from Baylor University, with the No. 2 overall pick. At No. 3, the Washington Mystics chose Shakira Austin, a center from the University of Mississippi.Howard said she planned to bring to the Dream the same “competitive spirit” she had with Kentucky, where she made sure to stay “calm, cool and collected.”“I think that’s what really helped me to become successful, and I just really want to have an impact on the team,” Howard said, adding that she will “continue to make everyone better” in Atlanta.There is very little Howard can’t do. She is in the top 10 of almost every statistical category at Kentucky, and has scored the second-most points in program history for women and men. Last month, Howard led Kentucky to its first Southeastern Conference tournament title since 1982 when the team handed South Carolina, the 2022 national champion, its second and final loss of the season. Howard, who is from Chattanooga, Tenn., finished her senior year at Kentucky averaging 20.5 points and 7.4 rebounds per game.Kentucky, a No. 6 seed in this year’s N.C.A.A. Division I women’s basketball tournament, lost to No. 11 Princeton in the round of 64. But Howard’s career at Kentucky has helped draw attention to the women’s basketball program at a university best known for its powerhouse men’s team.“I’m very versatile, so whatever position I’m playing, I like to match for those positions,” Howard said.The Washington Mystics, who traded the No. 1 pick to the Atlanta Dream, used the third overall pick to select Shakira Austin, a center from the University of Mississippi.Adam Hunger/Associated PressTo be able to select her, the Dream shook up the draft last week by acquiring the No. 1 pick in a trade with the Washington Mystics. In return, the Mystics received the Dream’s No. 3 and No. 14 overall picks. The Mystics also have the right to swap first-round picks in the 2023 draft, which is expected to draw deep talent from around the country.Atlanta finished last season 8-24, the second-worst record in the W.N.B.A., and has missed the playoffs for the past three seasons. Adding Howard to the Dream’s roster immediately bolsters their perimeter game, which should help after the team traded guard Chennedy Carter to the Los Angeles Sparks in the off-season.“Some drafts are top-heavy; some are deep,” Padover said. “This one is probably the most deep more than anything.” He added that this year’s draft offered the best talent since 2018 or 2019.The Liberty selected Nyara Sabally, a 6-foot-5 forward from University of Oregon, at No. 5 overall. Sabally, who is from Berlin, scored a career high 31 points in Oregon’s final game of the season, a first-round loss in the N.C.A.A. tournament. She averaged 15.4 points and 7.8 rebounds per game in the 2021-22 season.“It’s amazing to be drafted by New York. It’s very surreal,” said Sabally, who joins the league two years after Dallas drafted her sister and college teammate, Satou. “I love that women’s basketball is growing and people recognize it, especially in such a big city like New York. I’m just happy that I get to play on a team like that.”Nyara Sabally, a 6-foot-5 forward from the University of Oregon, was the first pick for the Liberty, at No. 5 overall.Adam Hunger/Associated PressNyara Sabally averaged 15.4 points per game for Oregon during the 2021-22 season.Wade Payne/Associated PressThis year, 108 college players renounced their remaining N.C.A.A. eligibility to be considered for the draft, more than double than in 2021. International players and those who are no longer eligible to play in the N.C.A.A. will also be considered. But the chances of getting a spot on a roster are slim: There are 36 draft slots for the W.N.B.A.’s 12 teams, which have just 12 roster spots each. With only 144 roster spots in all, many players and fans are calling for bigger rosters and more teams, wishes the W.N.B.A. has resisted.One reason for the increase in college-eligible draft prospects may be the pandemic. College athletes are normally eligible to play four seasons over the course of five years. After the pandemic disrupted schedules, the N.C.A.A. added a special bonus year of eligibility for any athlete who lost playing time during the 2019-20 season.Should they not make it to the W.N.B.A. this year and still have a season of eligibility, athletes can return to their college (assuming there is still a place for them on the roster).Julie Roe Lach, the commissioner of the Horizon League, said this year’s draft class mimics the parity seen in the 2022 N.C.A.A. women’s basketball tournament, which saw six double-digit-seeded teams make it to the round of 16. None of the three top draft picks advanced beyond the round of 16.“You’ve got some of the names you would expect to see, but we’re seeing more schools with players that look like strong draft prospects,” she said. “That speaks to the increase of talent we’re seeing across the country of these great women basketball players.”Kierstan Bell, a guard from Florida Gulf Coast University, was drafted No. 11 overall by the Las Vegas Aces.Adam Hunger/Associated PressW.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert opened the draft by acknowledging Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner, who has been held in Russia since mid-February on drug charges that could carry a sentence of up to 10 years if she is convicted. “Getting her home is a top priority,” Engelbert said.This was the first in-person draft since 2019, and players and guests did not hold back from celebrating. Colorful pantsuits, rhinestone jackets and plenty of high heels and sneakers alike filled the TriBeCa event space. The Hall of Famers Dawn Staley, the South Carolina head coach, and Lisa Leslie posed with draft prospects before the ESPN coverage began. Oregon’s Sedona Prince lived up to her TikTok fame and was capturing scenes throughout the night.The draft capped a weekend of W.N.B.A. events across New York City, including shoot-arounds at neighborhood playgrounds and a visit to one of the city’s top sneaker shops. As the W.N.B.A. tries to increase its visibility, the league got the strongest New York City boost of all: The Empire State Building lit up Monday night in orange, the signature color of the W.N.B.A.The 2022 season starts May 6 with eight teams in action, including the reigning champion Chicago Sky. More

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      W.N.B.A. Preview: The Mystics Get Their Stars Back in the East

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      Also: Much has changed for the Atlanta Dream since last season, and Candace Parker brings championship hopes to the Chicago Sky.The W.N.B.A. begins its 25th season on Friday with the returns of some big-name veterans and the debuts of promising rookies.“Rosters are stacked with incredibly talented veterans, and the last few rookie classes are bringing a whole new element to the fierce competition within the league,” W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told The New York Times.Below, our reporters tell you what to expect this season in the Eastern Conference. (And here’s what to expect in the West.)Washington MysticsNatasha Cloud opted out of the 2020 season to focus on social justice.Jessica Hill/Associated PressThe Mystics are hoping to rebound from a forgettable 9-13 season, which they played without Elena Delle Donne, who won her second Most Valuable Player Award in 2019 as she led the team to a championship, and Natasha Cloud, who sat out to focus on social justice.This year, Delle Donne and Cloud are back and they will finally get to play alongside another former M.V.P. in Tina Charles, who went to Washington in a trade from the Liberty but opted out of last season for health reasons.“Even though we have some people out, we’ve lost some people to injury, we still have a really scary team on paper,” Cloud said during media day, adding: “I think we’re going to shock a lot of people in this league. You know me, that’s the underdog mentality, so we’re ready.”One positive from last season’s short-handed squad was the emergence of Myisha Hines-Allen, who averaged 17 points per game and shot 42.6 percent from 3-point range. She might not be relied upon as much this season, with a healthy Delle Donne and Charles in the lineup, but she is another reliable option on defense after averaging 8.9 rebounds per game last season.Hines-Allen could also fill in a gap in outside shooting: Alysha Clark, who signed with Washington as a free agent after winning a championship with Seattle last year, is out for the season after injuring her foot while playing overseas. Clark shot 52.2 percent from 3-point range last season.Atlanta DreamChennedy Carter missed time with injuries during her rookie season but could have a bounce-back second year.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press“I’ve got no idea what positions you play,” Mike Petersen, the Dream’s interim head coach, said he told his players. “But if I don’t know, the other team’s got no chance.”Atlanta’s off-season has been marked by change. Pressured by players, the Dream’s previous owners sold the team to a group that included Renee Montgomery, a former Dream player. Gone are Chris Sienko, the team’s former president and general manager who was fired in April, and Nicki Collen, the former head coach who left for a job at Baylor earlier this month. Now Petersen will exchange convention for creativity to get the best out of an eclectic roster.Calling it “silly” to follow the practice of assigning players numbered positions, Petersen said he will form lineups with the five best players, regardless of position. “Basketball players are basketball players,” he said. “Everybody has to be able to pass, dribble and shoot. And everybody has to play defense.”On the Dream, those bodies are small: Aari McDonald, the No. 3 overall pick in this year’s draft, is 5-foot-6; the veterans Odyssey Sims and Courtney Williams are both 5-foot-8; and Chennedy Carter, picked fourth overall in the 2020 draft, and Shatori Walker-Kimbrough, in her first season with the Dream, each stand 5-foot-9.Petersen did not hesitate to play three guards during the team’s lone preseason matchup on May 5. And if these smaller players with big games execute what he envisions, perimeter shooting will spread the floor for the 6-foot-7 center Kalani Brown and the 6-foot-4 forward Cheyenne Parker, a free-agency acquisition, to operate in the paint.New York LibertyNew York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu underwent surgery for an injured ankle and is ready to return this season.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressAll eyes are on the Liberty this season for many reasons. Chief among them is the return of last year’s No. 1 overall pick, Sabrina Ionescu.Ionescu’s much-anticipated rookie season was cut short when she suffered a Grade 3 ankle sprain during the first half of the Liberty’s third game.Her season over before it began, Ionescu underwent surgery but is back and ready to go.“I’m excited for this season,” Ionescu said in a call with reporters. “I’m taking it one day and one step at a time.”Along with managing Ionescu’s return, the second-year head coach Walt Hopkins will have to handle the unexpected loss of guard/forward Jocelyn Willoughby, who is out for the season after tearing her left Achilles’ tendon. In 2020, her rookie year, Willoughby averaged 5.8 points and 2.4 rebounds per game while shooting a team-best 40.5 percent from 3-point range in 22 games, five of which she started.But here’s what should help: the off-season acquisitions of the three-time champion Natasha Howard and the two-time champion Sami Whitcomb from the Seattle Storm, and Betnijah Laney, who won last year’s Most Improved Player Award and was named to the All-Defensive team after a breakout season with the Atlanta Dream.The Liberty finished 2020 in last place with a 2-20 record and are still searching for an identity and footing.“Everyone wants to be here, they want to win, they want to support one another,” Hopkins said. “If we learned anything from last year it’s how to bounce back from a loss.”Indiana FeverIndiana Fever forward Lauren Cox, right, missed the beginning of last season after testing positive for the coronavirus.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressThe Fever finished last season with the lowest-ranked defense (111.8 points allowed per 100 possessions) and missed the playoffs for the fourth consecutive year. This season, the second-year Coach Marianne Stanley’s goal is to have a stronger defensive identity.“Each and every player on this team needs to buy in to the defensive end of the floor and make sure they’re doing everything they can to improve and make us a team that is stingy on defense,” Stanley said during her media day news conference.Indiana gets a shot in the arm with a healthy Lauren Cox, who missed the beginning of last season after testing positive for the coronavirus, and a positive outlook for Victoria Vivians, who last played a full season in 2018. Stanley said Vivians had been an early standout during training camp.Add to that the growing star power of Kysre Gondrezick, drafted fourth over all this year out of West Virginia, and the Fever are on the cusp of having not just a stronger defensive identity, but a concrete team identity as well.“She’s shooting the ball well,” Stanley said of Gondrezick. “She’s fitting in with her teammates. Just getting adjusted to the rigors. Just about as we expected. She’s a pretty well-rounded guard, and we really like what we’re seeing in her.”The Fever lost Candice Dupree to Seattle in free agency but added Danielle Robinson and the bigs Jantel Lavender and Jessica Breland.Chicago SkyChicago Sky guard Courtney Vandersloot set a single-game assist record last year with 18.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressArguably no other team had a better off-season than the Sky, who landed Candace Parker, the top free agent, champion and winner of last season’s Defense Player of the Year Award.Parker, who had spent her entire career with the Los Angeles Sparks, will add veteran experience to Chicago, a team two years removed from an unexpected playoff run and coach of the year honors for James Wade.The Sky’s star power continues with shooting guard Diamond DeShields and forward/center Azura Stevens, who are both returning from injury, and Courtney Vandersloot, who set a single-game assist record last year with 18.With a stellar roster headlined by Parker, and a high-scoring offense (ranked fourth last season) expectations for the Sky are, well, sky-high.“I think it creates expectations from outside,” Wade said. “My goal is to just get us better, that’s it. We’ll end up where we are going to end up.“Having the players we have, it puts us in a conversation where people think we can do better than a lot of other teams. I just try to get us in situations where we can win games and build some confidence around what we want to do.”Connecticut SunConnecticut Sun forward Jonquel Jones, left, battling for the ball against Washington Mystics center Emma Meesseman.Nick Wass/Associated PressIn 2020, the Connecticut Sun once again overperformed. Without the 6-foot-6 forward Jonquel Jones, who sat out the season, the Sun still managed to nearly knock off the top-seeded Las Vegas Aces in the playoffs. Their upset-filled run to the semifinals was fueled in large part by Alyssa Thomas’s tireless defense and consistent scoring; even after she dislocated her shoulder early in the Sun’s second game against the Aces, Thomas led the team to victory two days later with a double-double.Thomas won’t be with the Sun this season, though, meaning they once again will be short-staffed. She injured her Achilles’ tendon while playing overseas, and isn’t slated to return until 2022. Jones is back, though, and together with the veteran star DeWanna Bonner — 6 feet 4 inches — creates an unenviable matchup for even the league’s most elite bigs.The Sun have favored a slower, grind-it-out pace, averaging the third-least points per game in the W.N.B.A. last season. But without the defensive might of Thomas and with two forwards who can shoot 3s in Bonner and Jones, it seems possible they might favor a more offense-oriented style in 2021.Forward Brionna Jones reached a new level in 2020, more than tripling her points per game and becoming an important contributor on defense as well; now, she adds to the size and overall athleticism of the Sun. The veteran guards Briann January and Jasmine Thomas round out the starting lineup. More

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      W.N.B.A. Braces for ‘Fierce Competition’ in New Season

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      A wave of talented rookies could make for tense battles as new faces like Aari McDonald and Charli Collier take on perennial All-Stars like Diana Taurasi and Candace Parker.Buzzy rookies, reshuffled stars and new interest in women’s basketball after a thrilling N.C.A.A. tournament have positioned the W.N.B.A. to open its 25th season this week with a captive audience as it continues to lead in social justice efforts among professional sports leagues.Put it all together, W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told The New York Times, and “the future of the game is bright.”“Rosters are stacked with incredibly talented veterans, and the last few rookie classes are bringing a whole new element to the fierce competition within the league,” she said.Fresh off N.C.A.A. tournament highs and lows, Charli Collier, Kiana Williams and Aari McDonald are among a class of rookies who are set to make waves against longtime contenders like Sue Bird, Breanna Stewart and Candace Parker. And they are hungry for it.McDonald, who led the Arizona women’s basketball program to its first N.C.A.A. title game appearance last month, will make her W.N.B.A. debut with the Atlanta Dream on Friday night against the Connecticut Sun. Her eyes are on the W.N.B.A.’s career leading scorer.“Diana,” McDonald said of the Phoenix Mercury’s Diana Taurasi. “I can’t wait to play against her.”Taurasi has spent her entire career with one team, and until this season Parker could have said the same. But her move from the Los Angeles Sparks to the Chicago Sky as a free agent in the off-season is one of the biggest story lines of the new season.Another is the transformation of McDonald’s team, the Dream.Chennedy Carter and the rest of the Atlanta Dream are under new management this season.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressMike Petersen, the interim coach who took the helm when Nicki Collen left for Baylor this month, said McDonald was “a part of what will allow this team to play in a very nontraditional way and have some success.”The Dream are also under new management, with players having spent last season protesting against the team’s previous owner, the former Georgia senator Kelly Loeffler, after she spoke out against the Black Lives Matter movement. The team was sold in February.That protest was one of several that defined the 2020 season in a bubble environment — known as the “wubble” — at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The season was dedicated to Breonna Taylor, a Black woman who was killed by the police in Louisville, Ky., in March 2020. Players wore shirts bearing her name as part of the Say Her Name campaign, which focuses on police violence against Black women and girls, and the league launched its Social Justice Council, which coordinated cross-league initiatives.The W.N.B.A. is continuing its social justice efforts from last season, when it focused on Breonna Taylor.Chris O’Meara/Associated Press“I think they’ll take the themes that they’re going to be focused on, around health equity and civic engagement and voting rights, into their communities and feel a little more connected to it this year,” Engelbert told reporters recently, “whereas last year being in Florida in one place they might not have felt connected to the community as closely as they would have liked to.”Players and officials said that the emphasis on social justice would carry over to this season, with a particular focus on health equity, L.G.B.T. issues and voting rights.“Similar to the Say Her Name campaign, these issues directly affect literally who we are,” Layshia Clarendon, a Liberty guard who is one of the leaders of the league’s Social Justice Council, said this week. “We’ve been young Black girls who grew up, who are often underrepresented in our communities.”Seattle’s Breanna Stewart, left, and the Liberty’s Layshia Clarendon, right, were two of the more vocal players last year on social justice issues. Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressClarendon said the health focus encompasses vaccines and public health and safety topics like policing. “All of these issues overlap because they’re all intersectional,” they said.Allison Barber, president of the Indiana Fever, said teams were trying to help players be both “amplifiers of a message” and “advocates of a mission.”“You need both things to change the world,” she said. “But our players want to both be amplifiers of messaging around social justice and also really roll their sleeves up and dig in deep and take action to be advocates for the mission.”Among those messages will be inequities between men’s and women’s sports, a topic recently highlighted by differences between the setups of the men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments. The men initially had significantly better weight rooms, meals and facilities than the women, and more advanced coronavirus testing.Coverage of the tournament drew a wide audience, something that players expect to continue through to the professional league. The W.N.B.A. draft was one of the most viewed in the past 15 years, and the N.C.A.A. women’s championship game between Arizona and Stanford, which was played on Easter Sunday, garnered the most viewers since 2014.Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu said she was looking forward to playing in front of fans this season. She missed all but three games last year with an ankle injury.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressTeams will play 32 games this season, 16 at home and 16 away, in front of a limited number of fans, depending on guidance from local health officials. The league will also go on hiatus from July 15 to Aug. 11 for the Tokyo Olympics. The season begins Friday when the Liberty host the Fever at Barclays Center, in front of a reduced-capacity crowd.Whether they were returning to defend their titles or new to the league, players said they were looking forward to real fan noise.“It definitely feels different being in New York and playing in front of fans or families being in attendance,” said Sabrina Ionescu, the Liberty guard whose rookie season last year was cut short because of a severe ankle sprain in her third game. “It kind of feels like my first season — it basically is.”And all in new uniforms that center on stories from teams’ home states, including a “Stranger Things” theme for Indiana and a glass-ceiling shattering Space Needle for Seattle.“It was fun to see how a uniform could really draw in a whole new group of fans,” Barber said. “Even our governor was like: ‘I want my jersey. I love this show, and this jersey is awesome.’”For the Storm, this season is also about trying to repeat as champions. They have a rematch at home on Saturday with the Las Vegas Aces, whom they beat in three games for the 2020 title. Bird and Stewart will be up against A’ja Wilson, who won the Most Valuable Player Award in 2020.“We have the same expectations that we always have,” Stewart told reporters this week. More

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      LeBron James Leads a Generation of Athletes Into Ownership

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      James is now an owner of the Boston Red Sox and recently helped a W.N.B.A. player, Renee Montgomery, with her group’s bid to purchase the Atlanta Dream.In an age marked by kneeling protests and cross-league walkouts in sports, which gained new traction in 2020, it’s easy to put too much faith in the ability of professional athletes to make social change.True empowerment will only come when more players cross the longstanding divide between management and labor and enter the ranks of team ownership, where the real influence lies. That’s why the latest off-court move from LeBron James, largely overlooked amid the whirling excitement of the N.C.A.A. tournaments, is so intriguing.James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, announced his small but significant stake in the Fenway Sports Group last week. As you might have guessed because of the conglomerate’s name, that makes him a part owner in the Boston Red Sox and gives him entree into baseball’s inner sanctum. The investment also adds to James’s shares in Liverpool of the Premier League and his foothold with NASCAR’s Roush Fenway Racing team, which he bought into in 2011.It is a preview of things to come. Today’s athletes are beginning to realize that true strength lies not only in grass-roots activism and the chase for championships, but also in having a seat in team boardrooms. By doing that, they can sway leagues that remain halfhearted about transformation. Would the N.F.L. have blackballed Colin Kaepernick if a significant number of former Black players were at the owners’ table? Unlikely.Athlete involvement in team ownership isn’t an entirely new phenomenon. Mario Lemieux bought the Pittsburgh Penguins out of bankruptcy in 1999. Eleven years later, Michael Jordan became the first former N.B.A. player to control a majority interest in one of the league’s teams when he purchased the Charlotte Bobcats. (One of his first big moves was to rename his team the Hornets.) Those actions allowed Lemieux and Jordan to reap financial returns that their labor alone could not have produced.But James’s increasing involvement in the corridors of power shows that today’s sports stars — more outspoken than Jordan and Lemieux, more inclined to push against entrenched wealth — are ready to use ownership as a means to push for more than personal gain.With a boost from James, Renee Montgomery announced her retirement at age 32 to become the first W.N.B.A. player to own a part of one of the league’s teams, the Atlanta Dream, after its players rallied against a team co-owner, Kelly Loeffler, the firebrand Republican senator who angered the basketball world when she denounced the Black Lives Matter movement. The outspoken tennis stars Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams have signed up as team owners in the National Women’s Soccer League, as have a number of retired women’s soccer stars, in the wake of the U.S. women’s national soccer team’s fight for pay equity.Renee Montgomery sat out the Atlanta Dream’s 2020 season to work for social justice. In 2021, she retired from playing in the W.N.B.A. and became part owner of the team.Gregory Payan/Associated PressExpect more to come, with this generation’s athletes deeply aware of team owners’ direct power. Buying into the Fenway group allows James a chance to learn the ropes as he draws closer to one of his most cherished goals. I’m not talking about equaling or even surpassing Jordan’s haul of six N.B.A. titles. I’m talking about taking a majority financial stake in an N.B.A. team. For now, James must wait. League rules bar active players from joining ownership.When the time comes, he’ll be ready. Now 36, he’s long been a business mogul, backed by a cadre of high-gloss, well-heeled advisers. If he needs wealthy investors to form a partnership and come along for the ride, he has more than a few options on speed dial. Not that he would need much help. James is said to be a billionaire, or nearly so.Of all of today’s sports stars, James possesses the heaviest clout. He is the one most adept at standing up and speaking out — both inside the boardroom and, through his social activism, at street level.That’s why he offered advice and connections to help Montgomery’s successful bid to purchase a part of the Dream. Montgomery, a two-time W.N.B.A champion, sat out last year’s truncated season to work as a grass-roots activist. After the players called for Loeffler’s ouster from her Senate seat, Loeffler lost a runoff election in January, an outcome that allowed James to flex.“Stick to Sports,” James said in a Twitter post aimed at Loeffler in the wake of the sale to a group that included Montgomery. The barb turned the tables on what James and others have been told for years after they have spoken up on political matters.The two basketball stars know that joining ownership offers them a new and important way to make their voices heard.It’s one thing to kneel during the national anthem, attend marches or even lead teams on walkouts and work stoppages. Such moves are key. They enlighten, draw attention and energize passion. But in sports they are also not enough.The limits athletes face became clear during the protest movement that swept through last summer. Team owners in the major North American men’s sports talked a good game and contributed millions of dollars to causes backed by players. But many of the same owners gave lavishly to President Donald J. Trump, who stood in direct opposition to everything the players were pushing for. Such double-dealing showed that the players might have had a megaphone, but money remains the language that packs the biggest punch.Real transformation isn’t likely to happen unless enlightened athletes continue to cross the divide, enter the ranks of ownership and have their say on everything from the hiring of head coaches to an effort in sports to push for more accountability in policing. It’ll take time to get enough in place to make a consistent difference. Thankfully, owner-activists like LeBron James and Renee Montgomery are creating a road map. More

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      Atlanta Dream, WNBA Team Co-owned by Kelly Loeffler, Is Sold

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAtlanta Dream Are Sold After Players’ Revolt Against Kelly LoefflerRenee Montgomery, a former Dream guard, is part of a group buying the W.N.B.A. team from Loeffler, the former Georgia senator who upset players by attacking the Black Lives Matter movement.Over the summer, the Atlanta Dream’s players criticized former Senator Kelly Loeffler, who co-owned the team, over comments she made about the Black Lives Matter movement.Credit…Octavio Jones for The New York TimesSopan Deb and Feb. 26, 2021Updated 5:50 p.m. ETThe Atlanta Dream, the W.N.B.A. team whose players revolted against a co-owner, Kelly Loeffler, and campaigned against her in a Georgia Senate race she lost, are being sold to an ownership group led by two real estate executives and a former star player for the team.Larry Gottesdiener, the chairman of the real estate equity firm Northland; Suzanne Abair, the firm’s chief operating officer; and the former W.N.B.A. star Renee Montgomery are the leading figures in the new ownership group.The team had long been on the market, but talks to sell ramped up in recent months. The Dream had been in the spotlight over the past year after its players, most of whom are Black, publicly denounced Loeffler, a Republican, for attacking the Black Lives Matter movement. The players’ union called for Loeffler’s ouster, and players across the league campaigned for the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat who was running for her Senate seat.Their efforts — including wearing “Vote Warnock” shirts before games — were seen as helping Warnock become the leading Democrat in the multicandidate race. When Warnock beat Loeffler in a runoff election last month, he became the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate from the South, and his victory helped Democrats secure control of the Senate.Gottesdiener, who will be the majority owner of the Dream, hailed the players’ activism.“I think the Dream has always been an Atlanta asset, but they really solidified their place in the city, in the community and in history last year,” Gottesdiener told reporters on a conference call Friday afternoon. “That’s why I said this team, in this city, in this time. The women of the Dream showed incredible character last year. They were brave in speaking out for what they believed in and we want to solidify that connection.”The clash between Loeffler and her team’s players came after she criticized the W.N.B.A. for dedicating last year’s season to social justice. Despite the blowback, Loeffler repeatedly said that she would not sell her stake in the team. She attributed the criticism of her to “cancel culture,” though her efforts to sell the franchise were essentially an open secret.Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said over the summer that the league would not force Loeffler to sell her stake, but also said that her comments did not align with the league’s progressive values.On Friday, Engelbert said that the sale marked “a new beginning for the Atlanta Dream organization.” She also said that in her conversations with Gottesdiener and Abair, they discussed “what this league represents, the importance of having an ownership group who carries the values of the W and what we stand for.”“I was pleased with what I heard from them,” Engelbert said.The group declined to release terms of the sale or the ownership breakdown, other than Gottesdiener’s majority stake.Terri Jackson, the executive director of the players’ union, also released a statement lauding the sale. “May it send a strong reminder that the players of the W are bigger than basketball, and that together they stand for equity, justice, diversity, inclusion, fairness and respect,” she said.Gottesdiener, who had previously been linked to trying to bring an N.H.L. team to Hartford, Conn., more than a decade ago, cited the team’s activism as a draw for him to invest. He said that he first looked at purchasing a W.N.B.A. team in 2002. He has also frequently written checks to Democratic politicians.“The players of the Dream refused to just shut up and dribble,” he said. “They found their collective voice and the world listened. We are inspired by these brave women.”Mary Brock, who had owned a majority of the team since 2011, stayed silent about Loeffler’s Black Lives Matter comments and the backlash from players over the summer. In January, LeBron James, the N.B.A. star, suggested that he might put together an ownership group for the team. Other athletes, like the former N.B.A. star Baron Davis and Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts, had also been linked to sale talks.For Montgomery, a former Dream star who opted out of the 2019-20 season to focus on social justice efforts and recently announced her retirement, this is a homecoming. She said she still felt as if she had the ability to take the court in the W.N.B.A., but had opted instead to become the first former W.N.B.A. player to take an ownership stake in a W.N.B.A. team.“Larry and Suzanne have just been incredible already making it known how they feel,” Montgomery said. “He’s already mentioned women empowerment, social justice. I’m like, ‘Oh my god, that’s my life!’”Loeffler wrote a letter to the W.N.B.A. commissioner last year saying, “I adamantly oppose the Black Lives Matter political movement, which has advocated for the defunding of police.”Credit…Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesMontgomery, who is also a studio analyst for Atlanta Hawks games on behalf of Fox Sports, described her role as one of a community ambassador and as someone who would be involved in the marketing of the Dream, both in promoting the team in Atlanta and in luring prospective free agents.“It’s hard to turn down coming to the Dream,” Montgomery said. “That’s my goal.”Loeffler’s relationship with the team she owned was not always so contentious. A high school basketball player, she would sit courtside at games and invite players to her home. She may have had different politics than many of the players — though she had donated to Democrats in the past — but the team still did things like celebrate L.G.B.T.Q. Pride nights and honor Stacey Abrams, the former Democratic candidate for governor.“I thought the Dream was so cool,” one of the team’s former players, Layshia Clarendon, told ESPN. “That’s the first team I played for that was that liberal.”But the relationship changed in 2019, when Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Loeffler to the Senate seat vacated by Johnny Isakson, who retired. She called herself the most conservative member of the Senate and sought to tie herself to former President Donald J. Trump, adopting and mimicking much of his incendiary language.In response, the Dream’s players refused to say her name and helped raise money for Warnock, who was polling only in the high single digits when Dream players began campaigning for him.Loeffler, who lost to Warnock by two percentage points in the runoff, said this week that she was considering running for the seat again in 2022, when Isakson’s original term expires.While the sale price of the Dream was not disclosed, financial advisers in the sports industry say that W.N.B.A. teams typically sell for single-digit or low double-digit millions, a far cry from the $1.66 billion that the Utah Jazz of the N.B.A. were valued at in a recent sale. Most W.N.B.A. teams also lose money, a shortfall that must be covered annually by their owners.In addition, because of the pandemic, the W.N.B.A., like many other sports leagues, lost a significant chunk of revenue as a result of shortened seasons and not having fans at games.“I think if you’re buying a sports team this year, it can be a little bit of a challenge, but you really have to look through the pandemic and beyond the pandemic,” Gottesdiener said. “Our business philosophy is long term. We’re thinking out decades and generations instead of this year. We know that this is going to be a tough year financially.”But there is some reason to believe the W.N.B.A.’s fortunes are trending upward. The Dream are the third W.N.B.A. team to be sold in the last two years, joining the New York Liberty and the Las Vegas Aces, bringing the hope that more committed and deep-pocketed investors will push the league forward.Television ratings for the W.N.B.A. finals in 2020 were up 15 percent, while ratings for the regular season were down just 16 percent, in a year when most other leagues saw much bigger drops.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More