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    What Caitlin Clark’s Arrival Could Mean for WNBA’s Business

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    Clark’s arrival has many betting on the W.N.B.A.’s success. But certain structural disadvantages persist, including how much the players earn.The business of women’s basketball is booming. And the start of the 2024 W.N.B.A. season has many wondering if the sport is entering a new economic era.The arrival of stars like Caitlin Clark, the former University of Iowa phenom who is now a rookie with the Indiana Fever, has boosted interest and ticket sales. All the league’s teams will fly charter for the first time this season, team sponsorships are growing, and marquee players are racking up endorsement deals. A new TV deal could fill its coffers and further elevate the league’s profile.But there are still obstacles the league needs to overcome before attaining the kind of stature that other professional sports leagues have. The average W.N.B.A. salary is around $120,000, much lower than the N.B.A.’s, and the relatively low pay has traditionally prompted even the highest-earning players to play overseas during the league’s off-season in order to make extra money. The league has long had stars, but it has struggled to market their skills and personalities to a mass audience.How the W.N.B.A. capitalizes on the current moment — and approaches its more prominent place in the media landscape — could have a significant effect on the league’s future.A chance to capitalize.More than 18 million people, a record, watched the University of South Carolina beat Clark and Iowa in the women’s N.C.A.A. tournament final this year, up from the roughly 10 million who watched the title game in 2023, which was also a record. This year, for the first time, more people watched the women’s final than the men’s.Clark has had a unique effect. In her four years at Iowa, she broke the Division I scoring record for men and women and led the Hawkeyes to consecutive national title games. She also helped sell out arenas and boost TV ratings, and has become one of the most visible stars in all of college sports. According to a March poll conducted by Seton Hall University’s School of Business, Clark was the most well-known college basketball player in the country, with 44 percent of Americans saying they had heard of her.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Aliyah Boston of the Indiana Fever Has Officially Arrived

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      Boston, the Indiana Fever rookie forward and center, has already become a face of the W.N.B.A. just months into her professional career.Aliyah Boston said she usually keeps it cool when she faces the star basketball players she grew up watching on television. But her poker face slipped last month.Boston, a rookie power forward and center for the Indiana Fever, was in a close contest against the Las Vegas Aces and she was shoulder to shoulder with her childhood idol, Candace Parker.“It was unreal,” Boston said. “We’re standing on the free-throw line, cracking jokes. And I’m like: ‘Aliyah, don’t laugh. This is serious business.’”Fifteen years ago, when Boston was just 6 years old, Parker won the W.N.B.A.’s Rookie of the Year Award. Now Boston is on track to do the same.She was the first rookie to be named a starter for the W.N.B.A. All-Star Game in nine years and only the eighth rookie ever. The achievement added to what has been an impressive season for Boston, who is drawing comparisons to greats like Brittney Griner, A’ja Wilson and Elena Delle Donne just weeks into her professional career.“She’s going to be a great one,” said Aces Coach Becky Hammon, who also coached Boston in the All-Star Game in Las Vegas on Saturday. “Indiana has a centerpiece, literally a center piece to build around.”Aliyah Boston, second from left, started in the W.N.B.A. All-Star Game after leading the league in field-goal percentage.Jamie Squire/Jamie Squire/Getty ImagesBoston is averaging 15.4 points per game, the most of any first-year player, and she is shooting a league-leading 61 percent from the field. The No. 1 pick in this year’s draft, Boston has swept rookie of the month award honors so far this season.“I never thought I’d be an All-Star my rookie season,” Boston said on Saturday. “It’s just a blessing to be in this position right now.”Boston exudes confidence. As the All-Star lineups were announced, she danced out onto the stage to the delight of her veteran teammates. And she is poised on the court. With her Indiana Fever down 3 to the Liberty last week, Boston knocked down a 3-pointer at the buzzer to send the game into overtime. The Liberty eventually won, 95-87.“She is going through uncharted territory a little bit,” Liberty forward Breanna Stewart said, “but still making sure that she’s able to have an impact on the court and play her game.”Boston is known for having an impact. While playing for Coach Dawn Staley at South Carolina, Boston was a four-time all-American and set several team records, including in rebounds, double-doubles and triple-doubles. In 2021, she led the Gamecocks to their second N.C.A.A. Division I title in program history. Now she’s trying to make her mark on a Fever team that has struggled for years. Wins are still hard to come by, but Boston has already proved her value.“It’s a smooth transition for her,” Staley said. “She makes it look easy. And I know it’s not.”Boston became known for her multicolored braids in college and has continued the style in the pros.Steph Chambers/Getty ImagesThat transition from college to the W.N.B.A. includes myriad challenges, from the pace of play to the constant travel to the increased physicality, said Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu, the No. 1 draft pick in 2020.“It’s hard, and hats off to her and the entire Indiana organization for helping her do what she does,” Ionescu said. “That’s why they drafted her at 1, because they know what she’s capable of doing.”Boston said her basketball I.Q. is the main skill that has translated from college to the pros. Staley agreed.“She makes the right basketball decisions,” Staley said. “And when you’ve played that way your entire life, nothing changes. It’s only the people that change.”One of the new people Boston has faced is Delle Donne, who was named the rookie of the year in 2013. Delle Donne said that one of the trickier aspects of joining the league is how quickly players need to get used to a new program, new coach and new teammates, but said that none of that seems to have slowed down Boston. Last month, against Delle Donne’s Washington Mystics, Boston scored 23 points and grabbed 14 rebounds in the Fever’s 87-66 win.Boston with her Indiana teammates.Steph Chambers/Getty Images“She’s so dominant,” Delle Donne said. “I mean, she crushed us the other game. She’s a rookie that requires veteran defensive schemes.”Delle Donne added that it can be hard to manage the pressure of coming in as the No. 1 overall pick. Last season, the Fever finished at the bottom of the 12-team league with a 5-31 record.“To know the expectation that you’re supposed to come and completely change a team is hard, but you can do it,” Delle Donne said. “Coming into the league, there’s always so much excitement about a new player who’s going to continue to raise our game and make it even better. So night in and night out, people are watching what you’re doing.”For now, Boston seems unfazed by the attention.“Something that I always take with me is, never get too high with the highs and too low with the lows,” Boston said. “Stay levelheaded.” More

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      WNBA Draft: Aliyah Boston Goes No. 1 to Indiana Fever

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      Boston, a senior forward from the University of South Carolina, was the second-ever top pick from her college.When Aliyah Boston was 12 years old, she took a 1,700-mile journey with her sister to their aunt’s home in Massachusetts from the U.S. Virgin Islands, hoping to become a good enough basketball player to go to college for free and maybe one day make it to the W.N.B.A.Boston fulfilled that dream on Monday night at Spring Studios in New York when the Indiana Fever selected her with the first pick in the W.N.B.A. draft. Boston is the University of South Carolina’s second-ever No. 1 pick in the draft; A’ja Wilson was the first, in 2018.The Minnesota Lynx selected Diamond Miller, a guard from the University of Maryland, with the No. 2 overall pick. At No. 3, the Dallas Wings chose Maddy Siegrist, a forward from Villanova University.The Wings, who also had the fifth pick, shook up the night by trading future draft selections to the Washington Mystics for the fourth pick, Iowa State center Stephanie Soares. They took Connecticut guard Lou Lopez Sénéchal with the next pick.Boston’s selection didn’t come as a surprise. She had been linked with the Fever since they landed the first pick at the draft lottery in November. Boston, a forward, will join a former South Carolina teammate, guard Destanni Henderson, in Indiana.Henderson was in the audience recording on a phone and before Boston headed into a news conference they embraced and celebrated loudly.“She was like, ‘We’re reunited and we’re teammates again,’ and I was like, ‘And it feels so good,’ you know that song?” Boston said before singing her version of the song “Reunited” by the group Peaches & Herb.South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley, center, poses with Gamecocks players who were drafted on Monday, left to right: Laeticia Amihere, Aliyah Boston, Zia Cooke and Brea Beal.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesWith Henderson in 2021-22, Boston had the best statistical season of her college career, ending it with a national championship win over Connecticut. Boston and Henderson will look to recreate that winning chemistry for the Fever, who have been something of a punching bag for the rest of the league.Indiana has not made the playoffs since 2016 and has finished with the league’s worst record in the past two seasons. Last season, the Fever finished with five wins; the second-worst team, the Los Angeles Sparks, had 13.“She’s going to have an immediate impact on this league,” Fever General Manager Lin Dunn said at a predraft news conference on Thursday. “And I’m just thankful — I think we all are — that she opted to come into the draft.”It was a South Carolina-laden first round as forward Laeticia Amihere was selected eighth by the Atlanta Dream, and guard Zia Cooke was taken 10th by the Sparks. Brea Beal, who anchored South Carolina’s perimeter defense, was selected by the Minnesota Lynx at No. 24. Alexis Morris, the star Louisiana State guard who helped the Tigers win their first championship just over a week ago, was selected by the Connecticut Sun with the 22nd pick.Boston had been a top player in college basketball since she arrived in South Carolina in 2019. She is a post-scoring, shot-blocking forward who anchored the Gamecocks as they amassed a 129-9 record over her four seasons. Boston was the consensus national player of the year in 2022 and won the Naismith Award for the defensive player of the year in each of her final two seasons.Alexis Morris, who won the N.C.A.A. championship with Louisiana State this month, was drafted by the Connecticut Sun in the second round.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesIn her final year, Boston led South Carolina to its first undefeated regular season in program history. Boston’s numbers were down, partly because of South Carolina’s depth and a defensive strategy used by many opponents that made it difficult for her to get loose. The Gamecocks averaged the most bench points per game in Division I in the 2022-23 season with 36.1, almost 5 points per game more than the next closest team.With Henderson gone, South Carolina never found a reliable scoring guard next to Cooke. So all season, teams sagged off the other guards, daring them to shoot and helping in the paint to deny Boston the ball.That’s a strategy teams can’t employ in the W.N.B.A., because of both the scoring ability of professional guards and the league’s defensive three-second rule, which forbids defenders from standing in the paint for longer than three seconds unless they are within an arm’s length of an offensive player they’re guarding. So Boston will likely see much more one-on-one defense and space to roam than she had over her college career.“I’m really excited for that type of spacing,” Boston said in a recent interview. “Because I think it just shows everyone how they’re able to, you know, just use their talent and go to work.”For that reason, South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley encouraged Boston to enter the draft this year, after the team lost to Iowa in the Final Four.“There are defenses that are played against her that won’t allow her to play her game. And then it’s hard to officiate that,” Staley said.Staley added: “She’s meant everything to our program. She has been the cornerstone of our program for the past four years. She elevated us. She raised the standard of how to approach basketball. She’s never had a bad day.”Boston still had a year of eligibility remaining, the extra year granted to athletes by the N.C.A.A. due to the coronavirus pandemic. She likely would have been in the conversation for player of the year again, and South Carolina would have been a favorite to win the national title with her back.But perhaps the most significant incentives to stay were the earnings she could have made in college, thanks to rules that allow athletes to make money from their name, image and likeness.Maryland’s Diamond Miller was the No. 2 draft pick, by the Minnesota Lynx.Adam Hunger/Associated PressMany women’s basketball players, like Boston, can make more money from collectives and endorsements as college athletes than they can earn from W.N.B.A. salaries alone; the base pay for rookies this season will range from $62,285 to $74,305, depending on the draft round.That earning potential likely played a role in the decisions of the stars who weren’t at the draft this year. Several eligible players who may have been first-round picks opted to return to college, such as UConn’s Paige Bueckers, Stanford’s Cameron Brink, Virginia Tech’s Elizabeth Kitley, Indiana’s Mackenzie Holmes and U.C.L.A.’s Charisma Osborne. (The W.N.B.A. requires players from the United States to turn 22 years old in the calendar year of the draft.)That makes next year’s draft all the more exciting. It could be loaded with talent: L.S.U.’s Angel Reese and Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, the two stars who headlined the Division I women’s tournament with their scoring and showmanship, will be eligible. (For her part, Reese said on a podcast that she is in “no rush” to go to the W.N.B.A. because she is making more than some top players in the pro league.)Still, there are only 12 teams and 144 roster spots in the W.N.B.A. Only 36 players are picked in the draft, and only about half of those players typically make an opening day roster. And without a developmental league like the N.B.A.’s G League, some of the best basketball players end up going overseas to play professionally.“Our top players will not make a pro team,” Arizona Coach Adia Barnes said, adding: “You’re competing against, like, 30-year-old women. It’s hard. It’s competitive.”Expansion seems like it could be an easy fix to this issue, but W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has cited financial concerns for why it’s not possible right now. Engelbert said in February that the league was not in a rush to add new teams but would like to see at least two new teams added in two to four years.“I’m not going to give a timetable,” Engelbert said on Monday night, adding: “The last thing we want to do is bring new owners in that are going to fail.”One of the league’s biggest issues has been how teams travel. W.N.B.A. players fly commercial, while most major college programs fly charter. Ahead of Monday night’s draft, the league announced it would offer charter flights for all postseason games and select regular-season games where teams have back-to-back games.“We intend to do more,” Engelbert said, adding: “We do need some patience and time to build it so that we feel comfortable funding something more substantial as we get into our ensuing years.” More

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      Pretty in Any Color: Women in Basketball Make the Style Rules

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      Angel Reese considers herself “a pink kind of girl.”Pink nails, pink hair tie, pink shoes, sometimes even “a little bit of pink in my lashes,” Reese said of the eyelash extensions she applies before basketball games. “Everything’s pink.”It’s all part of the pregame routine for Reese, who in May transferred to Louisiana State after a breakout season on Maryland’s women’s basketball team. Before Reese hits the court, she swipes on lip gloss and gels down her edges — her hairline — to prevent flyaways.“Grandma would always emphasize, ‘Don’t let anybody make your makeup sweat,’” Reese said.Reese’s devotion to her appearance for games expresses who she is as much as her playing style. Players in women’s basketball freely mix a traditionally feminine beauty standard with finishing touches that are popular in Black and Latina culture, like gelled edges. It’s a freedom that some say is an advancement in a sport whose athletes have historically been pressured to fit a mass-market ideal that has long benefited straight, white women. Reese is Black.But the introduction of name, image and likeness deals in college sports and an influx of marketing money in professional women’s basketball have added dollars-and-cents stakes to female players’ decisions to glam up. In interviews with a dozen college and professional players, women talked about how the decision on how to express themselves through their appearance has been changing.“I’ve never really felt the pressure until the N.I.L. thing started,” said Reese, whose endorsement deals include Xfinity, Amazon, Wingstop and a Washington, D.C.-area supermarket chain.Camille Lenain for The New York Times‘There is a pressure for me to look a certain way.’Stanford forward Cameron Brink usually applies concealer, eyebrow gel, mascara and maybe a little blush before she heads out for a game, but she scoffed at the idea of in-game touch-ups. “I look like this when I was playing, I’m going to live with it,” she said.Her shot-blocking was a key piece of Stanford’s run to the 2022 Final Four, where the team lost to Connecticut in front of 3.23 million TV viewers, a 19 percent increase over the previous season and a 49 percent bump from 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic. But there’s also a swelling fan base that follows Brink on social media. She posts makeup tutorials, which she loves because she views makeup as art. “It’s really relaxing to me,” she said. Brink has had deals with ThirdLove, Visible Mobile, the energy drink Celsius and Portland Gear.She acknowledged that her following — 203,000 on Instagram and 62,800 on TikTok — had built up at least in part “because I do play into that role of being feminine and dressing femininely.”“There is a pressure for me to look a certain way,” said Brink, who is white. “Sometimes it’s refreshing to go out and play sports and not worry about it.”Stanford’s Cameron Brink said that she felt some pressure to conform to traditionally feminine beauty standards but that her beauty routine was also something she enjoyed.Rikkí D. Wright for The New York TimesRikkí D. Wright for The New York TimesLast year, the N.C.A.A. changed its rules to allow college athletes to profit from their names, images and likenesses in marketing deals. Women’s college basketball players quickly began out-earning athletes in every other sport besides football, according to the marketing company Opendorse. Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers, who is white, signed with Gatorade for an estimated $1 million.Blake Lawrence, a co-founder of Opendorse, said female college basketball players had outshined their male counterparts in the N.I.L. marketplace in part because of how they distinguish themselves through their appearance.“They’re willing to create content; they’re willing to create a character that you want to follow and cheer for while on the court, while on the track, while on the grass,” Lawrence said. “That may be through hairstyle changes; that may be through makeup changes; that may be through the accessories that you bring to the field.”But with that can come tremendous pressure to fit traditional notions of attractiveness, adding another layer of competition to college basketball.“Comparing yourself to other people — oh, this girl is really pretty; oh, she looks really pretty — it’s hard,” Oklahoma guard Kelbie Washington said.Washington enjoys spraying on perfume as part of her pregame routine (Jimmy Choo is her favorite), and she pays for eyelash extensions, which can cost more than $130 a set.“Everyone is human,” she said of the urge to compare herself with others. “Everyone has those emotions, whether they say it out loud or not.”‘Women have to be so much more marketable than men.’TV ratings for college and W.N.B.A. games are rising, and the profiles of the players — among the most vocal and visible social justice activists in sports — are exploding.Within that explosion, Victoria Jackson, a sports historian at Arizona State, sees the players driving a generational shift, a reframing of norms. “Athletes themselves are pushing back against historical ideas of what it means to be a female athlete and what’s acceptable to be performed as a female athlete,” Jackson said, adding that the W.N.B.A. is “a good example” of that.Nefertiti A. Walker, an associate professor in sports management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a former college basketball player, said players didn’t necessarily feel as if they had to fit the usual standards.“What you’re seeing is certainly athletes now who, because of the changes we’ve seen in college sport — they all have pride nights, there’s gay marriage now — all these changes that have happened in their lifetime that signal it might be OK to perform their gender in a different way,” she said.That may be true on the court, but a recent swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated suggested a narrower view of sex appeal, which can be an important factor in marketing. The magazine included five W.N.B.A. players in bikinis and one-piece swimsuits with cutouts.Courtney Williams, an All-Star guard on the Connecticut Sun, said on Twitter that the shoot would have been better if it had included a player in a sports bra and baggy shorts. “There’s more than one way to look sexy, and I hope in the future we can tap into that,” she said.Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York TimesCamille Lenain for The New York TimesRikkí D Wright for The New York TimesGabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York TimesJonquel Jones was the W.N.B.A.’s most valuable player in 2021. “If u don’t fit into the normal stereotype of what feminine is or what it ‘should be’ you lose opportunities,” Jones said in an August 2020 Twitter post. “Women have to be so much more marketable than men.”W.N.B.A. players, with a maximum base salary of about $230,000, earn far less than their millionaire counterparts in the N.B.A., making marketing dollars even more important. The W.N.B.A. has a pool of $1 million that it must spend on marketing deals for players, and each team has to spend between $50,000 and $100,000 per year on player marketing deals. Any unspent amount carries over to the next season on top of the minimum.The league said it selects players to participate in marketing efforts based on a variety of factors: on-court performance, an established personal brand with an active fan base, and the willingness to travel and participate in league events.“Ideas about bodies play out most explicitly on the bodies of athletes — harmful ideas and also positive ideas,” Jackson said. “That’s another way in which this can be a space of conflict and a space of harm, too, depending on the way those ideas are packaged and sold.”‘They have no idea about what a Black woman goes through, let alone an athlete.’Tiffany Mitchell likes to feel the swing of her ponytail as she runs the court.Mitchell, who is Black, has often worn her hair in long, braided styles past her waist since she starred at South Carolina from 2012 to 2016. This kind of protective hairstyling allows her to go longer between restyling and can prevent breakage during the grind of the season with the W.N.B.A.’s Indiana Fever.Those swinging braids became an issue during the W.N.B.A. off-season in December, when she was competing with the Melbourne Boomers, a professional women’s team in Australia. Basketball Australia, the sport’s governing body, said the league’s players had to tie their hair back or up, mistakenly attributing the policy to a FIBA rule that was no longer in effect. Mitchell, one of just three Black players on the Boomers’ roster, felt targeted, since she had never had to change her hair for other international competitions. Basketball Australia later apologized and rescinded what it called a “discriminatory” policy.“They have no idea about what a Black woman goes through, let alone an athlete,” Mitchell said. “So I think that me bringing it to their attention called out the ignorance because there have been players in this league that have had braids before me, and it was never an issue.”Tiffany Mitchell loves playing basketball while wearing long braids. But that became an issue when she was competing in Australia.Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times‘When I look good, I feel good, I play good.’As early as fifth grade, Deja Kelly’s mother encouraged her to create a signature hairstyle.“She would call it a ‘D-I do’: If you want to go D-I, you have to look like you play D-I,” Kelly said.She adopted a slicked-back ponytail or a bun as her preferred hairstyles. Her glam routine now — eyelash extensions, a tight bun and detailed edges — “has never affected my performance” as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s leading scorer last season. Kelly has had endorsement deals with Dunkin’, Beats by Dre, Forever 21 and the sports drink Barcode, among others.“For me, when I look good, I feel good, I play good,” Kelly said. “That’s something I always prided myself in.”Walker, the sports management professor, said her studies on women’s sports pointed to a trend: Women in basketball are showcasing greater agency and self-determination by glamming.Video by Gabriella Angotti-JonesDiJonai Carrington of the W.N.B.A.’s Connecticut Sun said she felt that she played better after she had gone through her glam routine.Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York TimesGabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times“A lot of women’s basketball players feel free to express themselves, to perform in a way aesthetically that accomplishes whatever they want to accomplish,” Walker said. “Sometimes we underestimate how business savvy they are, particularly in this day and age.”Connecticut Sun guard DiJonai Carrington has had an endorsement deal with Savage X Fenty, Rihanna’s lingerie brand. She makes sure she has on her 20-millimeter mink eyelash extensions before every game. Her nails, typically coated with some sort of bright polish, are usually done with acrylic extensions. She’s grown so accustomed to applying gel to her hairline that it takes her only about 30 seconds.“I feel like I play better. I don’t know if I do or I don’t, but I just feel like I do,” Carrington said. “And I never have wanted to compromise one thing or another, whether that’s being a hooper and being a dog on the court and still being able to look a certain way.” 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. 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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      Tamika Catchings Is Taking Her ‘Superpower’ to the Hall of Fame

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      Catchings, a 10-time W.N.B.A. All-Star, said her hearing loss helped her have greater court awareness and better anticipate her opponents’ moves.Over time, Tamika Catchings reached an understanding about her lifelong hearing impairment. If it had once led to childhood taunts and later to some communication breakdowns with her college basketball coach, Tennessee’s Pat Summitt, Catchings came to realize that her impairment wasn’t an impairment at all.Rather, it was her “superpower,” as she put it.She is certain she compensated for her “moderate to severe” hearing loss with a court awareness that was second to none — that she was more capable of discerning all that was happening around her and, crucially, more apt to anticipate what was about to happen. That was particularly true on defense, she believed, and who’s to argue? While her other career numbers — 16.1 points, 7.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game — reflect all-around excellence, she won the W.N.B.A.’s Defensive Player of the Year Award five times in her 15 seasons with the Indiana Fever. Five years after her retirement, as she prepares to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame on Saturday, she still holds the league’s career record for steals.So, yes, a superpower.Scientists have a name for it when a person deficient in one of the five senses sees the others sharpen: cross-modal plasticity. It happens automatically, not through any conscious effort. The body understands there’s a need, and adapts.In her 2016 book, “Catch a Star,” Catchings recounted a time in elementary school when she and her sister, Tauja, were engaged in a one-on-one game in the driveway of the family’s Illinois home. Things grew heated, as they often did.“He still drives me crazy, every once in a while,” Catchings said of her father, Harvey, who played 11 years in the N.B.A. “But you know what? That’s my dad.”Wade Payne/Associated PressThat’s when their father, Harvey, not far removed from an 11-year N.B.A. career, emerged from the house and demanded that the girls relinquish the ball. While Tauja repaired to her room, Tamika remained in the driveway, dribbling and shooting an imaginary ball — just going through “a silent drill in her head,” her mother, Wanda, said.Harvey was incredulous. Tamika, he says now, “took it to a whole different level.”She would, in time, lead two different high schools to state championships. She would win a national title early in her college career and a W.N.B.A. title late in her professional career. She would win four Olympic gold medals. As a pro, she would win the awards for rookie of the year and most valuable player and be named to 12 all-league first or second teams.This weekend, in a ceremony postponed from last August because of the coronavirus pandemic, Catchings, now 41 and an Indiana Fever executive, will be inducted into the Hall of Fame as part of a heavyweight class that also includes the N.B.A.’s Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant.She is the first women’s player from the University of Tennessee to be enshrined, news that gave her pause. Surely, she figured, another Lady Vol had made it, given Summitt’s success over a 38-year run that ended in 2012, four years before her death.But no. Maybe that shouldn’t be as big a surprise as it might seem.“I just had ‘it,’” Catchings told reporters after she learned of her induction in April 2020. “I had the drive, the passion, the determination, the focus, the attitude, the will.”Her story is a family story. It started with Harvey Catchings, a journeyman center who played for the 76ers, Nets, Bucks and Clippers before spending a season overseas.Harvey and Wanda Catchings’s children arrived early in Harvey’s career — a son, Kenyon, in 1975, Tauja two years later and Tamika not quite two years after that. Harvey taught them the game at a young age, regularly convening no-nonsense workouts. Kenyon and Tamika took to this approach. Tauja, not so much.“They tease me,” she said, adding, “Mika and our brother absolutely loved basketball, and I was kind of eh — I could take it or leave it.”Tamika was, in fact, “like an addict” when it came to the game, as her father once told The New York Times.She didn’t always appreciate her dad’s tutelage. As she put it in her book:For a lot of years, I couldn’t get Dad to hear me. His “coaching” made me feel, once again, like I didn’t fit in, that I wasn’t acceptable. I felt silenced. For a long time, I just took it all in and stuffed it, all the hurt and frustration and confusion about how to get him to see I could play the game well my own way.Ancient history now, in her eyes.“Yeah, it was a little crazy at times,” she says now, and laughs. “He still drives me crazy, every once in a while. But you know what? That’s my dad.”Catchings won four Olympic gold medals and the W.N.B.A. awards for rookie of the year and most valuable player.Tom Pennington/Getty ImagesLooking back, she said he might have pushed her to “a level that I might not have been able to get to on my own.” When she was in seventh grade, she scrawled on a piece of paper that it was her intention to play in the N.B.A. — not the W.N.B.A., as it did not yet exist — and taped it to her bedroom mirror.As a sophomore, she combined with Tauja to lead Stevenson High School, in Lincolnshire, Ill., to a state title. But the next year the family reached a crossroads. Harvey and Wanda divorced after 22 years of marriage, and Wanda decided to move to Texas, where the family lived when Tamika was in elementary school. Kenyon was at Northern Illinois University, his promising basketball career having ended in high school because of a health issue.But what of the girls?“As much as we’d already moved, it’s my senior year — I’m not moving,” said Tauja, who later played at the University of Illinois and overseas. “And I wanted to stay with my dad, too.”It was another matter for Tamika, who reluctantly headed to Texas with her mother. She won her second state title, at Duncanville High School, near Dallas, in 1996-97, a tribute not only to her growth, but also to her burgeoning superpower.When she was young, she watched TV with the sound off to learn how to lip-read. But elementary school bullies targeted her because of her clunky hearing aids, and in third grade, she chucked them into a field, never to be found.It wasn’t until she arrived at Tennessee in 1997 that she resumed wearing hearing aids regularly. Summitt noticed early in Catchings’s freshman year that she wasn’t immediately picking up on instructions and recommended the devices — smaller ones this time.Catchings, right, with Coach Pat Summitt in 2000, is the first woman who played at the University of Tennessee to be enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame.Delores Delvin/The Nashville Tennessean, via IMAGNThat was the year Catchings helped deliver an undefeated 1997-98 season and the sixth of Summitt’s eight national titles. Two years later, Tamika was named Naismith College Player of the Year, setting the stage for all that followed: the Olympic golds, the individual honors and a W.N.B.A. championship in 2012.Her drive was like that of Bryant, whom she met in Italy when their fathers, once teammates on the Sixers, played there. But she was most like her father. After each of her professional seasons, she asked for his advice. He told her something he had been acutely aware during his career: that somebody is always gunning for your job, so it’s vital to stay hungry, to just keep pushing.In August 2019, the roles were reversed. Harvey Catchings was the one in need of support, and Tamika was the one offering it. By then, he was 68, had settled near Houston and had just undergone a heart transplant.At his bedside, Tamika Catchings said, she challenged him in much the same way he once challenged her.“I told him, ‘This is God giving you another opportunity to live life, so what are you going to do with it?’” she said.Harvey Catchings, who lost nearly 70 pounds during his hospital stay, soon regained most of the weight — and with it, his stamina. He’ll be at his daughter’s side when she is inducted into the Hall this weekend.Yet she wasn’t certain this day would come. She went for a drive the afternoon of April 3, 2020, the day the finalists for the Hall of Fame would find out if they were selected, “just to get all this angst out.”Then the call came from John Doleva, the Hall of Fame’s president and chief executive.“I started to scream,” she said. “I took my hands off and was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m driving.’”She quickly regained her composure, once again aware of where she was — and, as always, where she was heading. More