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      5 W.N.B.A. Draft Hopefuls to Watch

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      A deep run in the N.C.A.A. tournament isn’t required for a basketball player to become a star or make it to the pros. These five women aim to prove it.W.N.B.A. teams covet versatile, two-way play, and scores of players in the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball tournament displayed the skill, basketball I.Q. and strength to thrive in the professional ranks on both ends of the floor.Several players who hope to be picked in the W.N.B.A. draft on Thursday night made deep tournament runs and had the big stages of the later rounds to prove their readiness. The players whose teams made early exits, however, were left to hope that their individual performances were strong enough to be remembered — or that one subpar outing would not overshadow an otherwise impressive collegiate career.Here’s a look at five players who either didn’t make or didn’t last long in this year’s tournament but may still be one of the 36 drafted Thursday night. With the league’s 12 teams allowed just 12 roster spots each, an even slimmer number will make opening day rosters.Chelsea Dungee, ArkansasDungee set the Arkansas women’s career record for free throws made in just three seasons.Sean Rayford/Associated PressThe Razorbacks’ first-round exit from the tournament was not a reflection on the 5-foot-11 guard Chelsea Dungee. Her game-high 27 points mirrored her high-scoring collegiate career, but they came in a game in which the opposing team, Wright State, hit 50 percent of its 3-pointers (to the Razorbacks’ 31.8 percent) in a 66-62 win.During her 2020-21 senior season, Dungee scored in double figures in all 27 games. She scored 30 points or more in 12 games in her career, the most in team history. Free throws are an important part of her offensive repertoire; she exploits mismatches, draws fouls and makes 80.2 percent of her shots from the line.Against Wright State, she made 14 free throws on 18 attempts — fitting for the leading free-throw shooter in Arkansas history. That she set the record for made free throws (552) in just three seasons — Dungee sat out the 2017-18 season because of N.C.A.A. transfer rules — emphasized her sharpshooting game. The record had been 485, by Bettye Fiscus in the 1980s.N’dea Jones, Texas A&MJones averaged a double-double over her last three seasons at Texas A&M and helped her team reach the round of 16 in this year’s tournament.Dawson Powers/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIf a dogged defender who made a name for herself by gobbling up rebounds and otherwise converting defense into offense is what a W.N.B.A. team seeks, it should look no further than N’dea Jones.Setting aside a freshman season in which she averaged only about six minutes per game, Jones was Texas A&M’s biggest double-double threat, averaging 10.1 points and 11.1 rebounds a game in her final three seasons. Jones’s offensive production climbed year over year, including in the 2020-21 season that was shortened by the coronavirus pandemic. She pulled down her 1,026th career board as a senior, becoming the team’s career leader. She finished with 1,056, after just 33 as a freshman.Jones’s double-double effort against Troy to open this year’s tournament was followed by a 9-point, 14-rebound performance that helped the Aggies advance past Iowa State to the round of 16 in overtime. Texas A&M’s tournament run ended there, against a formidable opponent: Arizona, the eventual tournament runner-up, which was led by point guard Aari McDonald.Kasiyahna Kushkituah, TennesseeKushkituah reliably forced Tennessee’s opponents into sloppy possessions, leading to turnovers.Brianna Paciorka/Knoxville News Sentinel, via Associated PressSometimes the box score does not reveal the full truth, and so it goes for the 6-4 center Kasiyahna Kushkituah, who averaged 6.8 points and 6 rebounds per game as a senior at Tennessee.Even while starting just 23 of her 100 career games, Kushkituah began to carve out a niche for herself as an agile big. Her quickness was central to her ability to disrupt opponents’ offensive schemes; if she failed to record a steal or a block, she could reliably force opponents into sloppy possessions, leading to turnovers. And if the ball ended up in her hands, she could use her impressive speed to score on the break.The 3-point shot is not in her arsenal, but she made half of her field goals. If she can improve her 47.5 percent free-throw shooting and maintain an appetite for offensive rebounds — which accounted for more than a third of her total career rebounds — she could become an important paint presence for any W.N.B.A. team seeking depth at center. In Tennessee’s first-round win against Middle Tennessee, Kushkituah scored 10 points and grabbed eight boards, five of them off the offensive glass.Lindsey Pulliam, NorthwesternPulliam finished her college career averaging 16.5 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2 assists per game.Ronald Cortes/Associated PressCommonly referred to as Pull-Up Pulliam because of her smooth and reliable midrange shot, Lindsey Pulliam was the fastest player to reach 1,000 points in Northwestern women’s basketball history. A 5-10 guard, she finished her college career averaging a well-rounded 16.5 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2 assists per game. Her career shooting averages of 37.9 percent from the field, 26.6 percent from 3-point range and 75.6 from the free-throw line may not be the best in her draft class, but she has increasingly demonstrated that she can sizzle in the biggest moments, in whichever way her team needs:With a game- and season-high 28 points, Pulliam carried the Wildcats to a double-digit win on Jan. 21; one week later, in a road game against Iowa, she helped Northwestern to a 7-point victory by converting 12 of her 16 free-throw attempts.On defense, Pulliam secured 10 rebounds in early February against Ohio State (to go with 15 points) to help power Northwestern to a 12-point win. Her four steals against Eastern Kentucky in December helped the Wildcats score 40 points off turnovers and 28 on fast breaks on the way to a 29-point victory.Unique Thompson, AuburnThompson grabbed 43 percent of her rebounds on the offensive side of the floor.Butch Dill/Associated PressOvercoming an 18-point deficit but ultimately losing to Florida in the first round of the Southeastern Conference tournament kept Auburn from being invited to the N.C.A.A. tournament, denying the 6-3 forward Unique Thompson a national stage.Despite the loss, Thompson, with 14 points and 10 rebounds, made her standard double-double contribution in her final collegiate outing. In 2020-21, she was one of two players in the nation to record two games of 20-plus points and 20-plus rebounds. As a junior in the 2019-20 season, she tallied her 21st double-double of the season and the 41st of her career, surpassing the three-time W.N.B.A. All-Star DeWanna Bonner for the most in team history.If Thompson can improve her 66.3 percent free-throw shooting, she will solidify an otherwise stalwart game that features 52.8 percent shooting from the field. With a proficiency for cleaning the offensive glass — Thompson gathers 43 percent of her rebounds on the offensive side of the floor — she is ready to contend in the most competitive league in the world. Even without a national tournament run, Thompson seems poised for a first-round draft selection. More

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      Arella Guirantes' Killer Sidestep Is Clearing a Path to the WNBA

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      Arella Guirantes, the star Rutgers guard, hopes to be drafted by her hometown team, the Liberty, this week. But no matter where she ends up, she said she’ll be ready.Arella Guirantes has seemed destined for the W.N.B.A. ever since she stood 4 feet 7 inches tall as a fifth-grader on the varsity team in summer league at Bellport High School on Long Island. Her basketball skills have always been steps ahead of her peers’, and her ambition to be the best against any level of competition has pushed her to the next level.Guirantes, 23, remembers a game from her senior year at Bellport, not for scoring 58 points, but for what she didn’t do. She was alerted with around 2 minutes left that she had scored 50 points, but she wanted 60. She’d missed her team’s first blowout loss against that day’s opponent, Kings Park High School, for showing up 20 minutes late to school.“I just like mentally took a note,” Guirantes said. “When I play them again, I’m going to kill them.”Guirantes brought that competitive fire to Rutgers, where she led the Big Ten in scoring as a redshirt junior during the 2019-20 season with 20.6 points per game and topped that number in the 2020-21 season with 21.3 points per game. Now she appears on the brink of her W.N.B.A. destiny, with the draft on Thursday and Guirantes projected to be one of the top picks.“I mean, every day in practice, she was always that one player that you knew that was just going to compete,” said Kelley Gibson, a former recruiter and assistant coach at Rutgers. “You know, players show up and just sometimes work hard in practice, but Arella competed.”Guirantes is foremost a scorer, and an efficient one at that. In her redshirt senior season, she shot 41.6 percent from the field and 37.8 percent from 3-point range on 4.3 attempts per game. She also had per-game career highs in assists (5.2) and steals (2.2) steals. She was named first team All-Big Ten for the second consecutive year and awarded All-Big Ten Defensive Team honors.No. 11-seeded Brigham Young upset Guirantes and No. 6-seeded Rutgers in the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament with a 69-66 victory.Chuck Burton/Associated PressOne of Guirantes’s signature plays is the jaw-dropping sidestep she uses to create space away from her defender off the dribble. She absorbs contact with her strong frame to fade away and shoot off either foot, moving in either direction using constant changes in speed.“You know what, now that you mention that, she did hit me with a couple of those,” said Dennis Smith Jr., a point guard with the N.B.A.’s Detroit Pistons, who has trained with Guirantes.Guirantes’s individual moves are stellar, and her series of jabs, in-and-outs and spins led her to finish in the 86th percentile of all scorers in isolation situations, according to Synergy Sports. But W.N.B.A. front offices are just as excited by her success in pick-and-roll situations. She ranked in the 90th percentile of all players as the ballhandler during the 2020-21 season, according to Synergy Sports.Scoring isn’t the only reason Guirantes’s name has shot up draft boards. Defensively, she’s a hawk, plucking passes and stripping ballhandlers. She’s also a bully down low, afraid of no one. “Oh, yeah, one thing I can tell you for sure,” Smith said. “She ain’t ducking no smoke. That’s a promise. She ain’t ducking no smoke.”Despite standing six inches shorter than the 6-foot-5 Charli Collier of Texas, who some think could be drafted first over all, Guirantes recorded more blocks per game. She credits many of her defensive instincts to her time playing middle blocker in volleyball. “I think I have a good just I.Q. for the game to understand where people on offense are going, when they’re going to put the ball up,” she said. “I have good timing.”The W.N.B.A.’s 2021 draft class isn’t heralded as a strong one, but an experienced scorer like the 5-foot-11 Guirantes could be an immediate-impact player for a contender. She’ll be up against the likes of Aari McDonald from Arizona, Dana Evans from Louisville and Rennia Davis from Tennessee to be the first guard taken off the board. Unlike those three, her team, a No. 6 seed in the N.C.A.A. tournament, was upset in the first round, by No. 11-seeded Brigham Young, 69-66. Fortunately for her, scouts have had five years to assess her talent.“I don’t know if she’s separated herself,” said James Wade, head coach and general manager of the Chicago Sky. “I think when you talk about big guards, you can mention Davis in the same breath. I think it’s more of what you’re looking for and how they kind of fit into your team and the players that you have.”He continued: “I do think that she is a high-quality guard because of all the things that she can do — her strength, the fact that she can create her own shot. I think she has certain qualities that separate her from the bunch, but at the same time it depends on what you’re looking for, versatility defensively or versatility offensively, which I think she has a lot of offensively.”Detroit Pistons guard Dennis Smith Jr., who has trained with Guirantes, said she’s not afraid to challenge anyone. “She ain’t ducking no smoke.”Kenneth Ferriera/Lincoln Journal Star, via Associated PressWade said he believed Guirantes would be selected within the first six picks, three of which belong to the Dallas Wings. Mock drafts place Guirantes as high as No. 3 to the Atlanta Dream. Guirantes said she will be happy no matter where she lands, but the Long Island native is making it no secret that she’d love to play for the Liberty, who hold the No. 6 pick.“That would be a dream come true,” said Guirantes, who grew up going to Liberty and Knicks games at Madison Square Garden with her family and friends from the Boys and Girls Club. The Liberty now play at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.“The Garden has a special feel, but the transition to the Barclays I can’t say is a bad transition,” Guirantes said. “I’d really love to play at the Barclays Center.”The W.N.B.A. draft will be held virtually for a second straight year because of the coronavirus pandemic on Thursday, and Guirantes will be lying low until then, working on her game and training. She plans to watch the draft with her family and sweat out the moments until her name is called. In the meantime, she’ll try to avoid looking at mock drafts and people critiquing her game on social media. Maybe playing with Donkey Kong in the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate video game on her Nintendo Switch against Smith will pass the time.Wherever Guirantes lands on Thursday night, she’s going to be ready.“My short-term goal is to really come in and make a quick transition,” Guirantes said. “I know it’s a lot easier said than done. But I want to make a huge impact and be in the running for rookie of the year. I think if you’re not going for rookie of the year, then you’re not really trying to help your team as much as you think you are.”She knows about starting strong: In only the second game of her college career, with Texas Tech before she transferred to Rutgers, she sank a buzzer-beating shot to force overtime against Texas A&M.“I really want to make a strong first impression in the W.N.B.A. because the way you start your career is important,” Guirantes said, adding: “That translates to overseas, too. They’re watching. A strong first year in the W.N.B.A is important.” 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

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      Raiders Owner Mark Davis Is Set to Buy W.N.B.A.’s Las Vegas Aces

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRaiders Owner Mark Davis Is Set to Buy W.N.B.A.’s Las Vegas AcesIf the deal is approved by the league’s board of directors, Davis is expected to upgrade facilities for the team.The owner of the Las Vegas Raiders and perhaps soon the Aces, Mark Davis (in the white shirt) has often sat courtside at the W.N.B.A. team’s home games.Credit…Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesJan. 14, 2021, 9:31 p.m. ETMark Davis has agreed to buy the Las Vegas Aces of the W.N.B.A. from MGM Resorts International, a move that may raise the visibility of the team, which arrived in the city three years ago. Davis is also the owner of the N.F.L.’s Raiders, who just finished their first season in Las Vegas after relocating from Oakland.The terms of the deal were not announced by the two sides, and the transaction must be reviewed by the W.N.B.A. and approved by the league’s board of governors, a process that could take weeks.The Aces, led by A’ja Wilson, the league’s reigning most valuable player, lost to the Seattle Storm in the 2020 W.N.B.A. finals, which were contested in a bubble environment in Bradenton, Fla.Davis is an Aces season-ticket holder and has often sat courtside at home games at Mandalay Bay Events Center, which is owned by MGM, since the team arrived in Las Vegas in 2018. On a conference call with players Thursday, Davis gave out his cellphone number and said he wanted to hear their ideas for how to best design a training facility, according to Jim Murren, the former chief executive of MGM Resorts International.“He’s passionate, he’s going to invest in the team, practice facilities, training facilities and propel the team further,” Murren said.The Aces, who are coached by the former N.B.A. star Bill Laimbeer, arrived in Las Vegas after MGM bought the team in 2017 and moved it from San Antonio, where the team had played since 2003 as the Silver Stars and the Stars.A spokesman for the team declined to say how much MGM had paid for the franchise. Murren said that W.N.B.A team transactions often include a mix of cash and a note, the value of which is based on various performance metrics.Calls to Davis’s spokesman with the Raiders were not returned.In a statement, George Kliavkoff, the president of Entertainment and Sports at MGM Resorts International, said that “Mark is a longtime champion of women’s basketball, and we believe he is the right person to lead the Aces into a new era.”Davis appears to be the first N.F.L. owner to buy a major stake in the W.N.B.A. Several other teams share a principal owner with the N.B.A. team in their market, including the Liberty with the Brooklyn Nets, and the Minnesota Lynx with the Timberwolves.The Aces are just the latest professional sports team to have arrived in Las Vegas in recent years. The Vegas Golden Knights of the N.H.L. began playing on The Strip in 2017 and went to the Stanley Cup finals in their inaugural season. The Raiders were lured from Oakland, in part by $750 million that Clark County provided to help pay for Allegiant Stadium.The N.B.A. has held a summer league in Las Vegas for more than a decade.At a news conference in December, N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver stopped short of saying that expansion was looming but acknowledged that his 30-team league had begun to “dust off some of the analyses on the economic and competitive impacts of expansion” after a difficult year financially for all sports leagues.Seattle is widely regarded as the N.B.A.’s No. 1 target for either expansion or the relocation of a current franchise, with Las Vegas in the next tier of candidates. To join the league, a new franchise would have to pay an expansion fee that could reach $2 billion.Marc Stein contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Elizabeth Williams of the Atlanta Dream Continues to Embrace Activism

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionliveLatest UpdatesHouse Moves to Remove TrumpHow Impeachment Might WorkBiden Focuses on CrisesCabinet PicksAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySPORTS OF THE TIMESFor Pro Athlete Leading Social Justice Push, a Victory and UncertaintyElizabeth Williams of the Atlanta Dream helped galvanize opposition to one of her team’s owners, Senator Kelly Loeffler, who has criticized Black Lives Matter. But the Capitol riot underscored the work ahead.Elizabeth Williams of the Atlanta Dream.Credit…Ned Dishman/NBAE, via Getty ImagesJan. 11, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETThe challenge seemed simple and direct.Rebuke Senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia for her race-baiting derision of Black Lives Matter. Help remove her from her post. Make her continued ownership stake of the Atlanta Dream feel increasingly unbearable.But the searing events of last week provided yet another reminder to the W.N.B.A. and its ubiquitous athlete activists that there is always more to be done.Nobody knows this better than the Dream’s Elizabeth Williams.Unless you are a serious fan of women’s basketball, you probably do not know of Williams. In an era in which athletes are taking star turns for speaking up for justice, she should be a household name.Once uneasy with making her feelings known, she found her voice amid the pain and protest of last summer. She ended up at the center of a unique moment in the annals of American sports: the mutiny by a group of professional players against their team’s prominent and powerful owner.Williams led the Dream’s decision to denounce Loeffler, who controls a 49 percent stake in the team.Then, in her role with the league’s union, she helped guide the move by W.N.B.A. players to endorse the Rev. Raphael Warnock — a political newcomer and decided underdog, as he bid to unseat Loeffler from the Senate.That race, of course, came down to a tense runoff vote. “Just because somebody owns the team, that doesn’t mean they own you, or own your voices,” Warnock said, days before the election, as he thanked the league for its stand.Where was Williams when Warnock beat Loeffler last week?In Turkey, where she has been playing in a women’s league since October — typical of the off-season, overseas grind W.N.B.A. players endure to boost earnings that are a pittance compared with their male colleagues’.She barely had time to savor Warnock’s victory when on Wednesday she watched in horror as a mob of Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol.“An act of terror,” she called it, as we spoke over the phone.“Seeing the faces of those people as they were in the Capitol, seeing their hubris, that’s what pained me,” she said. “They looked so confident that they were not going to face any consequences. That was a reminder of the systemic issues we face. The depth and complexity.”She continued: “For us in the W.N.B.A., it started with this election, but unfortunately, what happened in D.C. reminded us that there are still people out there who feel emboldened to stand against the ideals we believe in.”I could hear the irritation in her voice as she discussed the absence of a clampdown by law enforcement at the Capitol. In June, after the death of George Floyd, she attended a protest in downtown Atlanta. It was her first. Until that day, she had been hesitant to speak out about social justice. She tended to stand back, and let others do the talking.But the demonstration in Atlanta changed her. She recounted the stern and overwhelming police presence. She said she was not alone in having to gird against intimidation. The entire crowd felt wary.And yet she said she had never felt so strong, so connected to a cause. The march changed her. Standing back was no longer an option. Little did she know that days later, Loeffler would attempt to score political points by ripping a page from the Trump playbook and trying to pick a fight with Black athletes.The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesUpdated Jan. 11, 2021, 9:50 a.m. ETBiden will receive his second vaccine shot today.How a string of failures led to the attack on the Capitol.Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and others pause their political contributions.In a letter to the league commissioner, Cathy Engelbert, Loeffler denounced Black Lives Matter — which the W.N.B.A., in keeping with its history of activism, had embraced. Loeffler called B.L.M. a political movement and unspooled a string of false claims, including that it promotes “violence and destruction across the country.”To say that players in a league that is 70 percent Black did not take kindly to such words is putting it mildly.Williams sprang to action.Williams read a statement in the wake of Jacob Blake’s shooting in August when the W.N.B.A. elected not to play.Credit…Ned Dishman/NBAE, via Getty ImagesOnce the W.N.B.A. began its pandemic-shortened 2020 season in July, she brought her team together and helped write a sharp rebuke.“We would have been lost without Elizabeth,” Dream guard Blake Dietrick said. She praised Williams, a 6-foot-3 center and the team’s longest tenured player at age 27, for her steady wisdom and understated leadership. “Without her, I’m not sure we come up with such an eloquent, firm response.”When Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back in August by a police officer in Kenosha, Wis., the team chose Williams to respond.Suddenly there she was, live on national television, hesitancy shed as she announced that her team and the league would protest by not playing, even if only for a few nights.“We all hurt for Jacob and his community,” she said, speaking to the camera. “We also have an opportunity to keep the focus on the issues and demand change.”She implored fans: “Don’t wait. If we wait, we don’t make change. It matters. Your voice matters. Your vote matters. Do all you can to demand that your leaders stop with the empty words and do something.”Fast forward to last week, and its vivid displays of American hope and American horror.Williams reeled at the developments from afar.The news that no charges would be filed against the officer who shot Blake.The restless, sleep-deprived election night on Tuesday.The predawn group text Williams received from Sue Bird, the 40-year-old Seattle Storm guard who has become a league sage.“Soooo we helped turn a Senate seat,” the text read.Warnock had won. Williams sat in her darkened bedroom, alone, beaming.A few hours later, news came that Georgia’s other Senate race was over: Jon Ossoff had defeated the incumbent, David Perdue, a Republican, tipping control in Washington toward the Democrats.Not long afterward, Williams found herself on her phone again. Only this time, she was doomscrolling through video clips of chaos in Washington.She is the only American on her Turkish team. Few ask about her activism. But an inquiring teammate saw Williams’s sadness and had questions.“This is the United States Capitol?” the teammate asked, in halting English. “Where is the security?”Williams had no good answers, only strong emotions. Anger at the strife in America. Embarrassment. And more than anything, a firm resolve to continue speaking out.“I see it as my duty,” she told me, “to help keep up the fight.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      In Georgia, Pro Teams Dive Into Senate Races With Different Playbooks

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      in Basket

      Endeavor Expands N.B.A. Talent Reach With Stake in BDA Sports

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyEndeavor Expands N.B.A. Talent Reach With Stake in BDA SportsBill Duffy, who founded BDA Sports Management more than two decades ago, represents rising basketball stars like the N.B.A.’s Luka Doncic and the W.N.B.A.’s Sabrina Ionescu.Bill Duffy, who represents stars like the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic, center, is selling a stake in his agency, BDA Sports, to Endeavor.Credit…Ashley Landis-Pool/Getty ImagesDec. 15, 2020, 9:01 a.m. ETEndeavor, the entertainment and sports conglomerate, expanded its sports representation business Tuesday by purchasing a stake in BDA Sports Management, the firm led by the influential N.B.A. agent Bill Duffy.The partnership calls for Duffy, who represents the rising basketball stars Luka Doncic and Sabrina Ionescu, to become an adviser in the sports division of William Morris Endeavor, one of Hollywood’s major talent agencies. Duffy will continue to serve as chairman and chief executive of BDA Sports, which will retain its own branding and represents an estimated 130 players in the N.B.A., W.N.B.A. and professional leagues internationally.“We don’t really have an uber-N.B.A.-agent in our company,” Mark Shapiro, Endeavor’s president, said in an interview. “I’m certain this will accelerate our growth plan as it relates to representing more N.B.A. players both on and off the court.”Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but Shapiro described Endeavor’s stake as a “meaningful, strategic investment.” WME Sports has provided full-service representation for several tennis and golf clients, including the tennis stars Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, but the sports division’s co-head, Karen Brodkin, said the alliance with Duffy was part of a broader strategy to work with “more clients earlier in their career trajectory” in sports where they haven’t historically. Duffy said the union with WME would position BDA Sports “to build something even bigger and better than what we’ve been able to do.”“The modern athlete has a high expectation for off-the-court opportunities,” Duffy said. “They want to get into gaming, into fashion, into entrepreneurial endeavors. WME has a history of doing that at the highest level, so with this partnership, it’s like we’re expanding our menu from one page to four.”Duffy, who turns 61 in January, oversees a team of six agents domestically and seven internationally. He has represented Hall of Fame N.B.A. players like Yao Ming and Steve Nash, now the head coach of the Nets. Duffy’s current clients include Ionescu of the W.N.B.A.’s Liberty and the N.B.A. players Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix’s Deandre Ayton, Chicago’s Zach LaVine, Miami’s Goran Dragic and the Knicks’ RJ Barrett.A fifth-round draft pick by the Denver Nuggets in 1982 after playing in college at Minnesota and Santa Clara, Duffy began his agent career by representing the former Cleveland Browns wide receiver Webster Slaughter in 1985. Duffy was connected to Slaughter by his boyhood friend Ronnie Lott, the former San Francisco 49ers star and Hall of Famer, and soon moved into basketball representation. He founded BDA Sports in 1996.Endeavor, which is led by Ari Emanuel and represents entertainers like Denzel Washington and Selena Gomez, has been making other sports moves. The agency’s recent hires include Bret Just, who represents pro and college basketball coaches and N.B.A. front-office executives, and the N.F.L. player agents Brian Ayrault and Ben Renzin, who were lured away from the rival Creative Artists Agency to launch a football group for WME Sports.The arrangement between WME and BDA Sports is the latest in a string of partnerships between top Hollywood agencies and player-representation companies in both basketball and soccer — the team sports with the most global reach. In July 2019, the prominent N.B.A. agent Rich Paul sold what the buyer United Talent Agency called a “significant stake” in Paul’s Klutch Sports Group to establish Klutch as UTA’s sports division.Even before their partnership was formalized Tuesday, Duffy’s BDA Sports had enlisted WME Sports’ help with off-the-court pursuits for various clients. Nash’s forays into soccer and basketball broadcasting after he retired as player in 2015 were largely arranged by WME. BDA and WME also each signed Ionescu as a client in the spring, for on- and off-court representation, after the Liberty selected the former Oregon star with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 W.N.B.A. draft.“I’m an ex-athlete and I understand the importance of stability and support during that transition in life when the ball stops bouncing,” Duffy said. “I have to be thinking about longevity for them and their careers always.”Shapiro said the deal with Duffy’s BDA “would have been done a lot sooner” if not for the coronavirus pandemic. Like other agencies in Hollywood, Endeavor instituted a round of layoffs, furloughs and pay cuts earlier this year. Public events in many of its specialty areas — like Broadway, stand-up comedy, music and fashion — remain “primarily closed,” Shapiro said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More