Lavender Scare is a weekly-ish column during the WNBA season from in and around the world of the Golden State Valkyries: expansive observations & provocative ideas about women’s basketball & its power to change everything, including you. Lavender Scare is available in full only for paid subscribers.

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• It’s another edition of Lavender Scare! I can’t believe we’re here. But as WNBA journalist Zena Keita recently reminded me: “Do it scared.” Like me, playing AAU basketball at age 12:

• Now let’s goooo!

Today in rivalries

• I’ve been going nuts over the poetics of Golden State rivalries. But who the Valkyries biggest rivals, at this exact moment? Here’s my ever-impermanent list:
  
  #1: Off-ball movement
  

  So far, the Valkyries’ half-court offense relies on seizing every opportunity to shoot from three and/or on a player like Gabby Williams to beat the defense through an isolation play (also called an ISO). Sometimes that totally works, especially when the Valkyries are shooting at or above their 38.1% season average for made three pointers.
  
  But what it leaves out is the robust ritual of off-ball movement (and I mean ‘ritual’ in an Artist’s Way sense, not that I’ve ever actually opened the free PDF version of it that a stranger sent me months ago.) In other words, rather than employing a regular practice of cutting, screening & slashing off-the-ball, meant to unblock passing lanes and attacks at the basket, the Valkyries sometimes fall into a trap of stagnation.

  you’ll get an excerpt of lavender scare here for free, but you won’t get the full post. upgrade to read it all:

  
  What’s tough is when Golden State’s offense takes the tone of tunnel vision, a kind of severe tight rope. I like the way my press room colleague & friend Conrado Pascual put it in his recent post: “When the team’s offense becomes one-dimensional by design (mainly due to the limitations of the roster’s personnel), the margin for error becomes increasingly slimmer as the game goes on.” And since Natalie Nakase has been preferring “small ball” rotations (aka lineups that favor more agile & sharpshooting types over tall + powerful players who stick to the paint), there’s more potential for off-ball movement than the Valkyries have manifest so far. Will this be a long term weakness that the Valks struggle to overcome? Here’s Conrado’s take again:

  

  I suggest my usual Laeticia Amihere agenda,’cuz that girl can move.

• #2: The Minnesota Lynx
  
  After nailing a heroic 8 three-pointers during the Lynx’s 87-84 victory over the Valkyries, you could say our main rival is Olivia Miles. But I think she’s just too much fun (and since people in the Bay Area have above-average taste in most things, we totally recognize this):

  

  Our issue is with the whole damn Lynx team: their now 7-game winning streak, the way Kayla McBride spreads the floor wider than 106.1 FM’s radio broadcast across the Bay, Cheryl Reeve in her sooo passé 1990’s Berkeley-themed tie die t-shirts, and the fact that this one team keeps breaking Cecilia Zandalasini’s heart (another rivalry, by the way = Ceci vs. what haunts Ceci.) All of this infuriates me! So you know what’s gonna happen when the Lynx come to town on June 19th?

  The Bay Area will show Minnesota a really good Juneteenth celebration, give Olivia Miles her flowers for breaking Caitlin Clark’s record (after coming into the game shooting 11% from three on the season so far, just a reminder), and then truly & meaningfully kick Lynx butt like a mob of dive-bombing and highly strategic ravens. And this time, Natalie Nakase, I dare you: put Laeiticia “couldn’t be less afraid of Natasha Howard” Amihere in there too ;)
  

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Press conferences as… scripture?

• Okay, maybe that goes too far but: I get a little sappy during post-game Valkyries press conferences. Because unlike Natalie Nakase, not every coach in the WNBA has words for seeing their players so clearly, or exprssing such warm particularity. Like this moment when Natalie Nakase described Veronica Burton after the Valkyries’ win over the Portland Fire:

“I think V just finds joy in making her teammates look amazing… I really do, it’s just the way she is even as a person. She told me the other day, ‘when I see someone maybe a little bit uncomfortable,’ she’s like, ‘I want to help them.’ And I think it’s almost the same thing, how she plays. If she knows she can get to the paint, or she knows she can get Ceci, Ja, Gabby an open three by basically trying to take two on and then distribute it… I think she just takes a lot of joy into it. And you need players like that.”

• Sometimes I like to imagine these little fragments as having nothing to do with basketball at all. What if these words were actually a message in a bottle, a scrawled note tucked under your door? What if instead of talking about each other, the Valkyries are really talking about us? When Natalie speaks about Veronica, what I hear is an offering of new hints, like a discarded set of directions, a way to refold myself at the creases. Something to keep close to our hearts, along the way. Isn’t that a form of devotion, too?

• You can also just read Veronica’s, from the day of the Indiana Fever game, which seems to have worked, too:

Caption of the week

• I put out this photo on Instagram (which is actually so layered, peep the guy behind her) asking for captions, below is my favorite one. However due to the follies of technology, I can’t remember who submitted it. I will do better next time!

• Here’s the next amazing Valkyries photo for you, in need of a caption. Send in your submissions, and I’ll pick a fave (email me, or leave a comment, and I’ll also post on IG!)

WNBA ecosystems

• Gen Z has reminded me to get off screens and “go touch grass” regularly, a concept I recently applied to sports journalism (& kind of everything in life?) What I mean is that WNBA writers spend so much time surrounding each other while typing silently on our computers, which is weird when you recognize that the only way writers first experienced basketball games was through fandom (unless you were born into the basement of Chase Center.)

• So when I forgot to apply for a press credential in time for a game a few weeks ago and when a friend offered me a free seat next to her, I found myself suddenly… free.

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• Last week’s Golden State Valkyries game against the Indiana Fever felt so charged. Maybe it was because Bay Area fans had booed the WNBA’s current “chosen one” from the moment she touched the basketball, overtly rejecting the conservative agenda aura around her (and/or respecting her as an athlete?) Or maybe it was because the Valkyries, bruised from a loss in Indiana just a few days before, took the duel personally - just look at the 25 points and career-high 5 blocks from the matchup’s better point guard, Veronica Burton. Or maybe it was the fact that the game ended with a spellbinding back-and-forth, resulting in victory for the Valks amidst the gauntlet of Ballhalla.

• Just minutes after the game, journalist Ashmere Prasad (who is so great) asked Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase if she considered the matchup a rivalry. It was a perfectly-timed, intuitive question, the kind you can immediately feel will elicit emotion. Without hesitation, Natalie responded: “Everyone’s a rival in my eyes… We want all 14 rivals. Whether it’s Indiana, and now we have Vegas coming up — y’all keep coming, you know?” Then she added, definitively: “Give me 14 rivals.”

• Give us all 14! In that moment, Natalie Nakase pricked a hole in mainstream media’s fragile narrative: that games involving Caitlin Clark are the most important of all. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered: wait, had Natalie Nakase just described the Golden State Valkyries as basically… polyamorous?

• Traditional sports narratives love a binary. You pick a side, inherit a grudge, clutch onto the wins and lose sleep over the losses. In this configuration, rivalries rely on just two protagonists, almost like a pair of soulmates - oppositional and static. But the WNBA refuses to work that way.

• Before getting any closer to the polyamorous analogy, I gotta pause: no, I am not a multi-time reader of Polysecure, nor do I have a nesting partner or an online dating profile in which I am -married- and -vaxed.- I am a single queer woman who longs for a romantic relationship that makes me feel deeply seen (okay?!) So ~whatever~ you feel about polyamory is totally fine by me. Also, if you’re like, I don’t know any of these words, what is going on, that’s okay too - I’m basically just referencing a relationship model in which a person has multiple romantic connections at one time. Ok, moving on from section TMI.

• I think the language of polyamory is useful here, if not just for a very Bay Area provocative jumping off point, but because it rejects the notion that relationship models must be legible to traditional sports fandom. In that sense, WNBA fandom promises no fealty to the masculinist sports culture from which it has so long been excluded. With the rising popularity of women’s sports, and this league in particular, we finally have the space to call our own shots, on our own terms.

• Plus, there’s the historical context: women’s basketball has been subject to men’s inconsistent investment - and levels of misogyny - ever since the sport was first professionalized. We’ve inherited the cultural legacy that here, nothing is guaranteed. What becomes more important than one fixed narrative is the chance for reinvention. The sense of possibility.

• Now in 2026, that potential is everywhere, with 15 teams in the WNBA — more than the league has had since 2002, and perhaps the first time that fans don’t face the possibility of ownership suddenly folding a franchise to double down on the MNBA (even when that WNBA remains the only one in pro basketball to bring a championship to the city of Sacramento, just for example…)

• If the NBA is a drawn-out winter of long term relationships, then the WNBA is a summer of hot dates in quick succession. Fewer franchises, a thicker schedule, and just a few chances to determine the power balance between teams before rosters slip-slide sideways again. With expansion teams from the Bay Area to Portland to Toronto, we’ve also got stadiums full of fans who, until the year 2026, did not necessarily give a single shit about pro sports. Last season here in the Bay, fewer than 5% of Valkyries season ticket holders were also season ticket holders for the Warriors.

• What’s most maddening to me about the space swallowed by Caitlin Clark-adjacent noise is that it obscures true diversity of the WNBA - and this emergent fandom. People have all kinds of reasons for being pulled to their love for the league. Maybe it’s catching wind of a model slash entrepreneur with five million followers who also happens to be one of the most dominant rebounders in the league’s history (Angel Reese, hunny), or following all the cute queer people on the bus wearing violet who happen to be going to same exact place, or feeling something unlocked about gender identity while looking at photos of Tiffany Hayes wearing various pairs of pants.

• Personally, while I was hyped before going to the Fever game (as a fan! I touched grass!), I was also wary. Did it mean I’d have to sit next to a Republican? (Turns out probably, though I actually earnestly enjoyed that particular cross-cultural exchange.) Would it feel 22% more transphobic inside Ballhalla? (Yes, and that joke I gotta credit to my friend Ariel Broshar, they are hella funny.)

• But going to Chase Center on Sunday for the Valkyries game against the Las Vegas Aces, I was all the way jazzed up. This rivalry is the real deal! I kept telling people. Finally, all season ticket holders were back in their seats (though I hope you made a few bucks from re-selling them at a jacked up price.) Also, with the Valks/Aces, there’s this air of nobility: Natalie Nakase’s new squad like a cleaved-off line of the original family tree, tasked with defeating their ancestral creators. I was so ready for the ultimate…

• Okay, fine, the game wasn’t even close; the Valkyries’ less-than-robust front court simply buckled under GOAT A’ja Wilson, and we lost. But look, there’s some epic potential here!

• I’ll give you one more example of my style of Valkyries rivalry: I’m internally screaming about the next time Golden State plays the Los Angeles Sparks, cuz that show is run by 37-points-in-our-first-Ballahalla-regular-season-home-game-but-she-ruined-it Kelsey Plum from freaking La Jolla Country Day School. Not only does KP have a prickly-ass relationship with Veronica Burton, but she’s now potentially taken charge of emotionally rehabilitating Kate Martin - our beloved glue kid gone overboard to the choppy seas of Southern California’s even worse freeways. You wanna know what’s gonna happen, L.A.? A DAWG CLASS you’re ‘bout to get kicked out of ‘cause we got wayyy better hiking and a 2026 All-Star point guard, thank you very much:

@brwsportsKelsey Plum and Veronica Burton got into it after Plum fouled her. KP’s foul was upgraded to a Flagrant 1. #kelseyplum #veronicaburton #wnba

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• All of this is to say: don’t let the basic headlines pull you into the boring men’s sports version of the “rivalry” trope. Let your appetite for the WNBA evolve on its own. Choose your own adventure. Sure, get heated, if you’d like ;) But most of all, I dare you: think about the most high-stakes, charged matchups in the WNBA, for you. Consider the profound possibilities of each new expansion franchise, now and in the future. What storylines matter most? Then picture Natalie Nakase saying “Give me 14,” consider the polymorphous nature of expansion, and share your answers.‘Cause these days you get more than one.

• P.S. there’s new news with Benjy :)

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• Here we goooo, into the second volume of Lavender Scare, a weekly-ish column about the Golden State Valkyries (and so much more) that’s as unafraid as Gabby Williams casually dropping 10 points in the 1st quarter. That’s exactly what she did last night to start out the Valkyries’ 97-70 victory over the Connecticut Sun.

• The Valks are now 4-2; somehow, that’s the same number of victories as reigning champion Las Vegas Aces and brand-new team Portland Fire, and twice the wins of original WNBA franchise Phoenix Mercury. What the heck could happen next?!

• By the way: if you’re new to Lavender Scare, read last week’s first column to get a sense of the layout + the vibe here.

Justė the Pro

• Valkyries fans waited 406 days to see Justė Jocytė (her name is pronounced YOU-steh Yo-CHEE-teh) compete in a violet uniform after being chosen as Golden State’s first-ever draft selection and the 5th overall pick on April 14, 2025. By the 4th quarter of the Valkyries game on Memorial Day of 2026, after the entire bench and also developmental player Ashten Prechtel had already checked in, Justė finally leapt from her seat and onto the court. And then, instantly, she scored her first WNBA points:

• So yes: Justė is real. While she may appear to be a 20 year-old rookie, she actually became a professional basketball player in Europe at age 13, and could give advice about meditation-inspired game strategy by age 15. Back then, Justė apparently idolized Marine Johannès; in 2026, she’s now teammates with Marine’s “partner,” Gabby Williams, and determined to beat the Liberty again at any cost (we can only hope). More on Marine & Gabby in a minute.

Split ends…

• The Valks won & lost a game on the road, splitting their first East Coast trip with a “dominant” victory over the New York Liberty (87-70) & a bloating loss to the Indiana Fever (90-82). To me, the Indiana game felt rushing through a meal only to find that by the entree, you can no longer chew. On their second night of back-to-back road trip matchups (calling Indianapolis the “East Coast” is absurd to me, by the way), Golden State just lost their bite a little bit.

• Problematically, this happened during the very first time Caitlin Clark actually shot well against the Bay Area’s first WNBA team, hitting 4 of 9 shots from three point range, which is exactly double the number of total threes she’d previously made against the Valkyries. Compared with a dismal shooting night for Janelle Salaün, who clearly does not speak entitled-barely-left-Iowa-whiny-white-girl, the Valkyries flatlined a bit. Which is all to say: I can’t wait for Indiana to show up in the fortress of Ballhalla on Thursday (which, for this particular game, I think should be closed to fans in Fever red traveling from the northeast suburbs of Sacramento, thank you very much.)

• On the other hand, the Valkyries’ victory over the New York Liberty told a terrifying story of GSV’s potential, and also an important lesson, according to my mom: “We’re more afraid of our coach than they are of their coach.” I tend to agree.

The biggest victory? These Gabby & Marine candids.

• If you didn’t already know, then you need to learn: the Valkyries’ Gabby “obviously I’m not straight” Williams is engaged to the Liberty’s Marine Johannès (longtime teammates on the French Women’s National Basketball Team.) You might think Gabby is from Reno, Nevada, but she’s actually multidimensional, with French-American dual-citizenship and a fluency in flirting by being both mischievous and understated at the same time (so European!)

• So while some people were watching the Valkyries and Liberty play each other last Friday, others were watching Gabby & Marine, who rarely are assigned to guard one another directly. When they do, it is the stuff of shooting stars - a moment that cameras caught during the game… but failed to get what came afterwards, which you are now seeing, exclusively, right here:

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• Welcome to the first edition of Lavender Scare! It’s a new style for my weekly-ish Valkyries + WNBA column, an attempt to lasso up a gazillion daily thoughts about women’s basketball and its power to change everything. Which means that yes, I’ve been terrified about actually publishing it (pssst: all writers are scared, most of the time.)

• I’m also a bit nervous because I want to cover the WNBA using a range of styles, from investigative reporting to documentary-making to what you’re reading now, aka experimental ‘rough notes’ that break the rules of traditional journalism… but I’m never sure if this approach is institutionally accepted, or acceptable. What I know is that I really believe the bold & unapologetic original ethos of this website, and I think that many of you do, too.

• So far, Lavender Scare includes three sections, open to feedback & editorially malleable. These are:
  

  • Elevated Vantages - That’s where purple ravens & their friends hang out (that’s you, get it) for the best views of the Bay + the Golden State Valkyries;

  • Sorry I Wasn’t Paying Attention I Was Thinking About the WNBA - a section devoted to provocative ideas I’m obsessing over & still kind of working out;

  • Room for Expansion - a round-up of juicy recommendations + content across the women’s basketball universe.

So yes, the Valks are looking pretty damn good.

• If you’re a Valkyries fan, you probably had this thought sometime in the last two weeks, particularly after the Valks hammered the Phoenix Mercury on May 10, 95-79. And yes, that’s the word on the street: everyone thinks the Valkyries could have a “higher ceiling” this year - especially with the addition of Gabby Williams (who did sorta take Kate Martin’s job, hoo boy.)

• Speaking of, I know that preseason has been a rollercoaster, sometimes emotional and spiky with change - but I think that’s also par for the course of this (sensitive!) emerging fan base, and a Largely-Excellent-At-Their-Jobs front office encountering a fresh CBA & surprising “learning moments” that they may never admit.

• But the Valkyries’ ability to bring back the vast majority of last season’s team is, in many ways, a victory. Especially for Natalie Nakase, who seems beyond excited to be in a long term relationship with this group. Just read this pre-season quote she gave the press: “Have you been in a relationship for more than a year before?” *looks pointedly at reporters* “Because if you guys have, then you understand - you can go at your partner a lot more after year one… you get to have deeper conversations. You get to have brutal, dark conversations… And that’s what I’m excited about.”

• For the Valkyries, season two may be exactly Natalie Nakase’s love language: intimate, grueling, kinda emo, and all about winning even more.

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• Of course, there’s also Mr. Joe’s decree: for the team to win a WNBA championship in 5 years or less. I personally have ~zero idea~ whether that’s possible (my dad Benjy thinks no), but given the returning lineup, the staff’s mind-meld with Gabby Williams, Veronica Burton’s continued ascendance, and the team’s tremendously effective style of “harassment” (what Natalie Nakase calls their defense pressure), I think it will be a pretty fun ride… at least this season.

• Also, think of it this way: Janelle Salaün - voted by WNBA General Managers as the second-best international player in the whole ass league - took almost a full season to smile last year. In 2026, it took just one home game for Janelle to show us all of her teeth, once again:

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• I wanted to celebrate the WNBA’s return to our lives with a project I’ve been working on for the last few weeks — a comprehensive map of where Golden State Valkyries fans can find one another, far beyond the walls of Chase Center: The Ultimate Map of Valkyries Fandom! (Note: the map is best viewed on a non-phone device. You can also scroll down to the bottom of this post to see the selections from the map broken down in cute listicle form, only for paid subscribers.)

The Ultimate Map of Valkyries Fandom

• There are two big inspirations for this map: first, being part of the People’s Watch Party - a collective that brings women’s basketball fans together in the East Bay (including for Valkyries away game watch parties this season), all about lowering the cost of entry to WNBA fandom and bringing community together, rooted in Oakland. Often, this is the space where I feel MOST connected to other women’s basketball fans, something I wrote about in this Guide To WNBA Watch Parties from last season:

• Then there was a more recent piece of inspiration - or should I say, anti-inspiration? That was the announcement of the Valkyries Bar Network - a list of some bars I’m familiar with (Rikki’s & the White Horse, for example!) that are big hits with Valks fans, others I’d never heard of (that can also be a good thing), and also bars I’m actually really familiar with - but NOT for playing Valkyries games. That puzzled me. I was also confused that some of the spots I was sure would be there - Xingones, George & Walts (where they already make Valks-themed cocktails, by the way) - couldn’t be found. How did the Valks marketing team come up with this list? I’m not sure, but in my humble & candid opinion, it’s lacking.

• And it got me thinking: where can you Golden State Valkyries fans + community, spread across the Bay (& beyond!) I went asking in the FB groups, digging through Reddit threads, and doing my own research. And with some inspiration from my friend Aimee Espiritu, I wrote down the qualities that really shape this map:

  

• I also included a range of locations, from ones that are well-known already to others that seem rife with potential. Along with these selections, I included humble/candid opinions in each description, so you can get the real Rough Notes lowdown + my personal perspective.

• What would be really dope is if we could keep adding to this map - with your own experiences, reflections & DIY creations, too. And again, to see selections from the list - check them out in listicle form below - just for paid subscribers :)

• Finally, a housekeeping note: It’s just the start of the WNBA’s regular season and I am in it, y’all. My brain is a constellation of big story ideas, tiny moments & a lot of freelance hustle: sometimes, it can be hard to know where to focus. So I’ve decided that this season, instead of doing Game Notes recapping each Valkyries home game, I’m gonna write a weekly column called “Lavender Scare” - featuring rabbit holes, hot takes, historical clues, queer theories & personal groundings (all of these being takes on the classic ‘rough notes,’ of course) from in and around the world of the Golden State Valkyries. Get ready for the first installment later this week :) Upgrade your subscription to make sure you have full access to it!

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• Yesterday, I spent the afternoon in a corner of the Sephora Performance Center (aka the Valks’ practice facility) with enough journalists to fill a small wedding reception. The afternoon started with a bang: a much-anticipated appearance by General Manager Ohemaa Nyanin, during which I thought to myself: “okay, let everyone else write about this, there will be so much more to come.” But truthfully, it was that first interview that stuck with me — and for the rest of the day, I mulled through it like a puzzle, including for an hour over coffee with one of my absolute favorite journalists, (his work is an essential read for all Valkyries fans, for real.) All of this is to say, here are three major interpretations from the day that I settled on, and wanted to share with you:

  #1: The Golden State Valkyries roster was nearly impossible to make this year…

  • … if you hadn’t already spent time playing with the team last year, or you aren’t Gabby Williams/Kiah Stokes, the two non-Valks players signed during free agency. But in terms of earning a spot on the roster through training camp, including for any newly drafted (or traded-for) rookies, that seems to have been something of a mirage. I think the writing has been on the wall for a while, especially since - as Ohemaa Nyanin just told press again at media day - Golden State made “sure to sign as many returners as possible.”

  • The identity of the Valkyries in year two is clear: it’s all about deepening pre-existing relationships born from year one, which on the flip side also kinda means: “no new friends” (or maybe: “just two new friends.”) During this era of the WNBA, when preseason is heightened by media coverage, rookies carry a higher profile, and more money is at stake than ever before, that strategy can have a particular stinging effect, especially when the Valkyries chopped 6 players at once last Saturday, including top 2026 draft pick Marta Suárez. But in many ways, that just reflects their blueprint already in place.

#2: Which can help explain *some* of the confusion lingering from draft night:

• There’s been a ton of chat across WNBA social media trying to make sense of General Manager Ohemaa Nyanin’s decision on draft night to give up Flau’jae Johnson (Golden State’s #8 overall pick) in exchange for Marta Suarez (Seattle’s #16 pick) - especially after Ohemaa’s non-answers to the press afterwards exacerbated confusion and critique.

• Media day was the first time the press once again addressed the Valks’ General Manager about her draft night strategy — though, not the first time the press could have asked a follow-up question because, as Ohemaa pointed out, she was present at Gabby Williams’ introductory presser on April 25 — but would she really have given an answer to someone interrupting that all-time celebratory flow? (C’mon now.)

• This time around, Ohemaa offered a bit more explanation, which I didn’t find completely not-entirely a little bit and not exactly confusing (you know what I mean?) But after dissecting it all, here’s what I think happened: First, the Valkyries were interested in a potential trade before draft night began, but the trade was not yet finalized when the selections began. (This comes from: “It wasn’t decided before, but there was the option to execute the trade should both teams have wanted to execute the trade at the time.”)

• Which means by the #8 pick, the Valks were not interested in selecting any of the remaining athletes, due in part to the guaranteed salary that comes with being a first round draft pick (thank you, Eric, for pointing this out!) as well as the presence of another mystery athlete the Valks were interested in signing, though it never panned out (This comes from: “The decision-making around the draft had a lot to do with cap flexibility… We had the opportunity, or we thought we had the opportunity, to potentially sign another athlete.”)

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• Which implies that, upon evaluating whether to bring Flau’jae Johnson to training camp as the #8 pick on the night of the draft, the Valkyries indeed decided they weren’t interested (This comes from: “No athlete was considered at that moment in terms of us trading an athlete, at number 8, and then… does that make sense?”)

• Which, finally, resulted in Golden State’s decision to follow through with the potential trade on the table — taking Flau’jae at #8, as instructed by Seattle, in return for Seattle drafting Marta at #16, as instructed by Golden State.

• What’s kind of getting muddled up here is that while yes, the Valkyries were simply executing Seattle’s selection of Flau’jae according to their trade agreement, they weren’t doing so blindly. They had just decided, in that moment before Flau’jae stood proudly wearing Valkyries violet, that she was not a fit for Golden State. And they had likely also determined that trading out of the first round would give them more of a leeway to eventually cut the second round draft pick during a training camp that was impossible to survive in the first place (see takeaway #1!) But that’s not something I think we’ll ever hear anyone in the front office say out loud.

  

  #3: Most importantly: Strategy is one thing, but communication is another.

  • Whatever Golden State’s strategy may be, there was this felt tension between Ohemaa Nyanin and the press today when it came to understanding those decisions. Maybe tension isn’t the right word, perhaps it’s strain - for journalists, to get answers to burning questions the public will want to ask (as in, basically, “did you trade the #8 pick knowing it was Flau’jae?”) and for the Valkyries, to protect their strategic process and most especially, their image. As Eric pointed out, if Ohemaa had just come out and said, “We really didn’t want Flau’jae,” there would have been hell to pay for. It’s just not the decorum of front offices to admit such a thing. And it’s part of what makes sports press conferences, to me, feel endlessly unstable - even though their coverage by traditional news outlets becomes easily quoted as fact, or objective reporting.

    

  

  • It’s really just a dance, an interaction that requires some kind of bridge-building, wherein General Managers have to respond to questions from the outside, across that divide. I’ve noticed that Natalie Nakase is really good at recognizing that, and she’ll even put herself in the shoes of the press corps, significantly easing the strain. Like at media day, when emphasized the need to construct a roster with chemistry, or else: “You guys know, if you’re ever in a bad relationship, or you’re ever in a wrong relationship, that’s tough!” It’s a point of comparison, a way of reaching out — even if she wasn’t directly answering the question (in this case, about her approach to filling the final two roster spots), as Eric pointed out to me. It still gives the press something satisfying to use, and a way of making people feel seen.

  • Ohemaa doesn’t really do that, at least not in her rhetoric. She’s clearly an obsessive thinker, an incredibly hard worker, the colleague most likely to be up at all hours of the night still strategizing. What’s interesting is that she also forefronts this language of humanity - or a “human-first attitude,” as she said at media day, in all of her decision-making. This language implies that Ohemaa intends to do something that journalists aren’t actually getting from her explanations, not directly: a sense of connection, of care through mutual understanding.

  • And I wonder how, over time, this language will land with Valkyries fans — if/when the franchise makes another decision that, from the outside at least, portrays a kind of harsh brutality. Will the touch-y feely language used by the front office land with comfortable familiarity for Bay Area fans, or will the discordance between tone and action (at least, action as its perceived) end up creating more conflict, tension, and strain?

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• In most facets of your life, March 18 was probably not so long ago. Maybe that’s the last time you really did a deep clean of your apartment. Or caught up with a dear friend who you think of as seeing “pretty regularly.” Or took care of your partner that week when they got super sick, now your co-workers still ask, “are they all better?”

• But in the world of the WNBA, March 18th was eons ago, another dimension. That’s when the WNBA’s players’ union and the league finally agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement, months into a tensely-dragged-out negotiation so congested that many people - including me! - were convinced the WNBA season would need reconstructive surgery. Wildly, somehow, it didn’t. In the last month, a dizzying amount of change has sped things forward: free agency, an expansion draft, and of course the chokehold of a turnaround that has rookies going from the NCAA national championship to pro ball in fewer than 10 days - except in women’s basketball, that’s apparently normal.

• Mostly, the exhilaration of this preseason is born from how unlikely it felt, until only recently, that WNBA arenas would return as a stage for actual women’s basketball (“Are we gonna be watching invisible players?” a friend had joked to me weeks before the CBA was signed, when the Valkyries announced their season schedule.)

• Arriving to the Valkyries’ preseason matchup against the Seattle Storm, it feels like all of Chase Center has been running non-stop, breathless and sometimes clumsy, just to get here. I half expect the MC to pause the game so we can take a breath, congratulate everyone on their hustle, thank the players for their fight. Instead, there’s just this carefree graphic that appears on the jumbotron early in the first half:

• And so the off-season’s historic labor struggle remains hidden from view amidst the fantasy of Ballhalla: more purple-dyed hair this year, fresh from the salon, plenty of queer families with sweet little babies on-camera, and “every flavor of lesbian,” as I heard one person brag to their friend by the Michelob Ultra concession stand.

• Then there’s the joy and tragedy of this preseason game: the fact that it features hugely expanded rosters, an array of new talent - soon to be chopped down, dreams crushed and players waived before the season begins. And so while this particular game doesn’t “matter” for regular season league standings, it is essentially a live tryout, part of the training camp otherwise held in the Valkyries’ practice facility in Oakland (so close to Chinatown that it stresses me out players probably don’t have time to go eat there.)

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• Making the Valkyries final roster is especially competitive because the franchise is returning a core group of players, and adding one star: Gabby Williams. She is the biggest name to join the Valkyries in its history (according to an FB post by one of her extended family members that I scrounged up, the franchise has been trying to sign Gabby since its inception.) Her multi-year contract with the Valkyries was such a huge deal for the front office that head coach Natalie Nakase bought a double bottle of champagne to celebrate. Natalie tells this story to reporters during Gabby’s introductory press conference as they sit side-by-side along with General Manager Ohemaa Nyanin, who is on the edge of (happy) tears. And there’s this nerdy little thing Gabby says, that catches my attention:

• For now, Gabby watches the Seattle game from the sidelines, having recently arrived after winning a championship and EuroLeague Defensive Player of the Year just a few days before. Tonight, the Valkyries are led most boldly by Veronica Burton, now transformed into a most-essential veteran of the Golden State squad.

• And when the game tips off, it takes just 14 seconds for Veronica to score, officially reigniting the roar of Ballhalla in 2026, which sounds like this:

• I love that Veronica shoots the same way she handles the ball: with total responsibility and control. It’s like she’s dropping a baby off at the top of a short slide, totally confident about their arrival on the other end, except in this case the journey is at least a 22 foot arc into the hoop. Nevertheless, Veronica delivers the ball to its net like a cradling, and we are comforted in her hands.

• It’s also a wonder to see Kayla Thornton back on the court, our heartbreak from last season. In July of 2025, she returned from her first-ever All-Star appearance only to suffer a season-ending knee injury during one of her first practices back. It was a vicious and unfair ending to her season, and the team seemed to hush with grief whenever anyone asked it. Now, according to Natalie Nakase, Kayla’s made a game time decision to play (“Let’s rock and roll,” Natalie apparently said in response) and she is moving fearlessly. Her first two points come off of a driving layup, through contact, and she’s so competent once again that it’s difficult to imagine the battle she endured to return here, to us. But that’s the composure that Kayla Thornton brings.

• The game is close, but Natalie Nakase gives every available player time on the floor to show what they are capable of. I am loving watching Laeticia Amihere play, whose confident defense looks like a demand: I will make this damn team (that’s my prediction, anyway.) Meanwhile, Kate Martin is cold from the floor - though no matter what, she shouts and hustles like an EMS Captain at the scene of an accident. She also gets hit with a Flau’jae Johnson three in the face, a step back jumper in the 2nd quarter that is by far my favorite play by the Seattle-almost-Bay-Area hooper, who we want nothing but the best for.

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• Kaitlyn Chen plays the entire second half. In the presser after the game, Natalie Nakase reveals that at one point, Kaitlyn motioned to be taken out, to have a break. “Nah,” her coach responded. “You’re staying in there.” After that, Kaitlyn only ramps the intensity up, including a sick Euro step that her teammates absolutely eat up.

• But the Valkyries’ true second half star is Miela Sowah, a previously un-drafted guard from Australia, who hits four threes and scores 14 points in 14 minutes. I’m not sure if she’s ever stepped foot in the Bay Area until this month, but Miela looks so comfortable, nearly automatic, whipping Ballhalla into a frenzy of cheers.

• Miela’s performance makes me think about how young Valkyries fandom still is, how impressionable we are. That even a shooting streak in a preseason game - much like Julie Van Loo’s back-to-back threes last year - will be vividly remembered. How people here might reference something like “The Miela Sowah Game” for years. We are still savoring everything, still full of delight and appreciation, like the beginning of a delicious meal. That’s probably what Gabby Williams was thinking of when she attended a game last season, as a fan: “I was watching my partner play,” she told the press - cause for its own celebration.

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• After the Valkyries eke out a 2-point victory (shout-out to Ashlon Jackson’s 1 point of the game, her second free throw, that iced the win), I see some Storm fans outside the arena. “Do you feel like you won, though?” I ask, a little too snarky. “Because you got Flau’jae?” Without hesitation, one of them responds immediately. “That was a great pickup,” she says. “But no, I’m just sad. We lost Gabby.” She looks at me meaningfully. “You got a really good one there.” On the train home, I watch video after video of Gabby hugging her former Storm teammates, genuine embraces, thinking about how quickly women’s basketball players must adapt, all the time, how only they alone singularly understand this of each other <3

• P.S. Beyond the Bay, my preseason obsessions include: the fact that my favorite player-to-watch Chennedy Carter is back in the WNBA, baby (thank you, T-Spoon), the differing, equally controversial takes about why Tasha Cloud hasn’t yet been signed to a WNBA team, plus this small bomb of a deleted tweet by her current (?) girlfriend Isabelle Harrison, watching Raven Johnson play beautifully while giggling with the point guard she fully shut down to win a national championship two years ago, and the fact that Saniya Rivers has Brittney Griner twerking (thank you, queer gods).

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• We’re fast approaching the WNBA’s 30th season and my thoughts about the league are bursting with complex full circle-ness, layered with continuity and reclamation alike. This 30th anniversary of the league’s beginning marks a beautiful and challenging and open-ended process, and something I’ll be writing about all summer long.

• Today, I wanted to share two pieces in this genre with you: first, an essay I just published yesterday in the Oakland Review of Books (ORB) called “The Guerrilla Investigators of WNBA Queerness.” This piece, I realized, is basically a gateway drug for all queer folks who are WNBA-curious, but need a little push. Please use it accordingly.

READ IT HERE

• And if you don’t yet know ORB, check them out! They are a banger of an indie publication full of insightful writers who also have very good vibes (so hard to pull of these days.) And my favorite editor, Tommy Craggs, is one of the founding editors… so you know it will be both Rare and Special <3

• On to the exclusive Rough Notes Guest Dispatch! I’m thrilled to share this essay by Yezmin Villarreal, a queer women’s basketball fan & organizer in Phoenix, Arizona.

• Yezmin and I connected through the wonderful world of women’s basketball internet ahead of the Final Four. When they asked if they could write a dispatch, and I was overjoyed. (One day, I aspire to have a budget for many guest writers, for now if you’re super motivated to write something let me know because I do have t-shirts!) In any case, check out this lovely, heartfelt piece about Yezmin’s own full circle return to the WNBA and queer basketball:

WNBA Diaries of a Phoenix Queer Hooper
by Yezmin Villarreal

• I went to my first Phoenix Suns game when I was 8. I didn’t go to my first Phoenix Mercury game until I was 32.

• I attended my first Suns game in 1998 at America West Arena with my brother and cousins. I still have a photo from the moment after the game when we walked from the nosebleeds down court side to take a photo together. I wore my Phoenix Suns hat and borrowed a Suns jersey from my cousin, Hector. I remember the moment my mom saw my outfit before we left for the game, she told my cousin, “You made her look like a boy.”

• In the 90s and early 00s, I also grew up rocking a Champion red, yellow, and purple Phoenix Mercury jersey. I couldn’t tell you if my jersey was #22 for 2x All-WNBA Jennifer Gillom, #7 for All-Star Michele Timms, #8 for Maria Stepanova, or another star player from the roster. But I know I wore it while hooping at Terry Park in Phoenix’s Maryvale neighborhood with my brother.

• I remember having the Phoenix Mercury jersey, but I didn’t have any other connection to the team–I didn’t watch their games on T.V. and I didn’t know any of the players. As a pre-teen, I could rattle off stats from the Phoenix Suns teams of the late 90’s and early 00’s. I still have a binder full of NBA basketball cards from that time, with pages of Phoenix Suns cards. I’m still a loyal fan to this day.

• But I kept thinking about that Mercury jersey, and how it came into my possession. So I called up my cousin, Hector, this weekend. He said he’d gifted it to me for my birthday, that he still remembered the day vividly.

• We were at Desert Sky Mall in October of 1999. My cousin remembered the exact year and date because it was the same day the Arizona Diamondbacks were eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Mets. Hector loves sports memorabilia and while we were window shopping at Sears, he saw a Phoenix Mercury jersey. The WNBA had just launched in 1997 and it was all the buzz at the time. Since it was my birthday, he bought it because he was excited for me that Phoenix had a women’s professional basketball team for the first time.

• I rediscovered the Phoenix Mercury in 2021, when, in tandem, both the Mercury and Suns went to the finals. But this time, my connection to the WNBA wasn’t through my family, it was through my friends and community.

• I had a close friend, Melissa R., who was a WNBA fanatic. Melissa R. and I always texted each other during big games or when our teams played each other. It was super fun to go back and forth about our favorite players and teams, as I learned the backstories and tea of all the players in the league.

• I still wasn’t too familiar with the WNBA once I moved back to Phoenix, when Melissa R. told me she was coming to town to watch the inaugural 2021 Commissioner’s Cup that was hosted at Footprint Center (now Mortgage Matchup Arena). I agreed to go with her, even though the Phoenix Mercury weren’t playing. It was my chance to see Sue Bird play in person for the first time and after that game, I learned about this player named “Stewie” aka Breanna Stewart.

• I was having so much fun connecting with my friend about the WNBA, but I wanted to meet more people as passionate about women’s basketball as I was.

• I played in a feminist basketball league in Los Angeles back in 2015 and 2016, where I met Melissa R.. Inspired by my return to women’s basketball, I decided to connect my passion for playing and watching basketball, back like I did when I was a kid.

• So in 2024, I founded Phoenix Queer Hoopers, a queer community basketball group.I was looking for queer community and friends to play basketball with, and nerd about the Phoenix Mercury and the WNBA at-large.

• Phoenix Queer Hoopers started as a handful of players, playing pickup at Encanto Sports Complex. Now we host around 30+ people every week at our weekly indoor pick-up games. We host game watch parties, attend Phoenix Mercury games, and have gone on camping trips to Prescott, kayaking at Canyon Lake, and other fun stuff.

• I had no idea this group would become what it is today. It’s a space where people have fallen in love, formed deep friendships, collaborations, and Phoenix Queer Hoopers has even inspired the creation of other queer groups (Queer Run Phx, a queer soccer pickup group, a queer basketball pickup group in Michigan [one of our members moved to Michigan and started her own group]). PQH is an amazing meeting place for queer people in Phoenix to come together through the sport of basketball.

• When people first come to PQH, they often tell me that they feel like they’re connecting with their inner child. The kid that loved to play basketball, but gave it up as they got older and took on more adult responsibilities.

• One of the ongoing traditions we have at PQH every week is we take a “yearbook photo.” We started taking a group photo from our first pickup meetup at Encanto Sports Complex and it’s continued to this day:

• Earlier this month, I reconnected with that little kid in me, with all of that nostalgia, when my hometown transformed into a women’s basketball oasis as the host city for the NCAA Women’s Final Four.

• The street sign names downtown near Mortgage Matchup Center were temporarily renamed after the schools competing in the Final Four: Women’s Final Four Way, UConn Ave., UCLA Dr., South Carolina Blvd., and Texas Ln.

• The hotels near the arena were plastered with signage from the four different schools competing in the tournament. At the Phoenix Convention Center, where the fan fest was, there was a block party, where the street was blocked off, covered with outdoor basketball courts, basketball brand activations, and a stage where all the final four games were played.

• The sports bars, the billboards running ads with Azzi Fudd, the light poles promoting Final Four weekend–it was Women’s Final Four everywhere downtown. TOGETHXR set up the “TOGETHXR house” and had a weekend packed with events. Marina Mabrey and Saniya Rivers coached a 5-on-5 game between players who competed to play on their teams. My friend Melissa from PQH ended up on Marina Mabrey’s team! Their team name was “The Crash Outs.” When asked about her experience playing for Marina, Melissa said, “Even though we got cooked by some tweens, it was so much fun. Marina Mabrey was an absolute sweetheart and so chill!”.

• I ran into my teammates at the Final Four fan fest, at TOGETHXR house, at the Lisa Leslie podcast live podcast recording, at the A Touch More live podcast recording–everywhere I looked I saw familiar faces from PQH.

• One of my favorite events during Final Four weekend was the live podcast recording of “Between the Lines with Lisa Leslie.” She brought out Syd and TP, and after the two sat down on the couch, Syd asked Lisa to re-introduce them as, “THEY’RE HERE & THEY’RE QUEER.” And I know this is such a small anecdote from the whole weekend and all I experienced, but for some reason that moment really stuck out to me.

• Lisa followed that by saying, “I have no problem saying that!!!! THEY’RE HERE & THEY’RE QUEER!!”

• I don’t know what it was like to be a queer WNBA fan in the earlier eras of the league, but it does feel amazing to see players like Theresa Plaisance and Sydney Colson embrace queer culture as strongly as they do. Queer WNBA culture is so fun and silly and it’s cool to see Syd and TP be on that same level with us. It’s very PQH-coded.

• I also attended the live podcast taping of Unsupervised with Syd & TP at the TOGETHXR house, where Sydney Colson mentioned that she wanted queer WNBA fans to get gayer, if possible. She said we weren’t gay enough.

• How could we get gayer? A legitimate question! After they appeared on Lisa Leslie’s podcast, my friend Miranda and I asked Syd and TP if they could give a shoutout to Phoenix Queer Hoopers, and they agreed:

• Apart from all the podcasts, events, and activities, the best part of celebrating Women’s Final Four in Phoenix was taking it in with my team, Phoenix Queer Hoopers. We hosted a watch party for both the semifinal and championship games at Original Gravity.

• We had around 30 teammates and friends join us. Some of us were rooting for South Carolina, but most were rooting for Connecticut. We got rowdy, we got competitive, but it’s all for the love of the game. It’s one of the best parts of playing basketball with your friends, that you can talk trash to each other (respectfully lol) and then score a basket on each other. Run back on defense, and your friend gets you back on the other end.

• I think that sense of community is what remains imprinted on me now. As a kid, I played at the park by myself or with my brother, but now my basketball community has grown, to include a world of queer women’s basketball fans, players and culture I never thought I’d see in Phoenix.

To learn more about Phoenix Queer Hoopers, follow us on Instagram or TikTok.

Yezmin Villarreal is a writer, journalist, and founder of Dyke Queen. They began their career covering art, music, and LGBTQ culture and politics for outlets including L.A. Weekly, BOMB Magazine, and Billboard, and later served as an editor at The Advocate, PRIDE, and Grindr’s INTO. Villarreal has received residencies from Hello Mr. and Rocking S Art Ranch. Passionate about the WNBA and women’s basketball, they started Phoenix Queer Hoopers, an LGBTQ+ community basketball group.

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• Look, I was ready to go through last night’s top 10 draft picks with purely zazzy commentary and my favorite memes. But all that flew out the window when the Golden State Valkyries traded our number 8 pick Flau’jae Johnson to Seattle in dramatic & bamboozling fashion, just minutes after she stood on stage beaming in a purple hat. So now I’m here to tell you about how…

• Last night, the Valkyries dangled this to Bay Area fans for a moment before taking it right back:

• I’m not here to comment on whether this trade was a grave error in terms of basketball strategy. But I do think the way this decision played out is a significant error in Bay Area culture.

• Because the Golden State Valkyries have claimed overwhelming success in the Bay with a progressive & diverse fan base at its back. And that requires an active relationship to this place, its people, and their vision, too.

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• In her own right, Flau’jae “Big Four” Johnson (born & raised in Savannah, Georgia) is perhaps the most famous women’s basketball player in last night’s draft. As an outspoken Black woman and multi-hyphenate athlete-rapper-musical-artist (soooooo a Bay vibe), she is already worth more than entire WNBA teams get paid and has more personality in her pinky finger than the Valkyries’ current roster.

• In other words: she is entirely the kind of player that folks from the Bay Area — particularly Oakland, my own own hometown — crave the opportunity to triumph. Because Oakland is a city that’s been shaped by Black migration, the home of the annual Oakland for Black Joy Parade, and a city that’s gentrified so rapidly, its housing crisis has significantly displaced thousands of longtime Black residents.

• It’s also the city, lest you forget, where the Golden State franchise played for 47 seasons, only to have its own bid for a WNBA team bluntly rejected by the WNBA.

  

• Last night, the Valkyries’ front office offered noticeable flatness about their decision to trade Flau’jae mid-draft. “I don’t have a lot of detail to share,” Valkyries General manager Ohemaa Nyanin told reporters in the “bizarre” post-draft presser. Meanwhile this morning, an ESPN report is out that the trade was pre-meditated. Ohemaa told ESPN: “I want to be super clear about the draft: This had nothing to do with Flau’jae or any specific athlete selection.” The statement, to me, carries an air of “so does that settle things?”

• It doesn’t.

• Golden State’s first WNBA franchise is known for masterfully curating a Bay Area vibe with E-40 bangers and intro videos narrated by Oakland’s own Kehlani (what pairing Flau’jae with those icons could have meant!) At the same time, sometimes the franchise feels distinctly San Franciscan in the most gentrified sense: born from the WNBA’s rejection of Oakland first, requiring Oaklanders to take a most pricey trek to Chase Center. But there’s also something else: the Valkyries’ habit of investing in “poorly-pigmented Euro players” (as one of my family members recently described). Last night, Golden State briefly broke this trend by seemingly championing Flau’jae Johnson, a dark-skinned star of both women’s basketball and Black American culture.

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• Upon getting drafted to the Valkyries, Flau’jae looked elated, never mind her sweet little brothers, one of whom beelined to the stage, who for a moment we imagined embracing as our own. We could see it, we could feel it. Until minutes later, when Bay area fans felt the harshness of that vision jerked away… and it hurt. This one freaking hurt.

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• Angel Reese’s departure from Chicago to Atlanta is both a

  blessing for the mistreated star & the latest devastating blow for Sky fans. Especially because the good people of Chicago know: the leaders of the Chicago Sky franchise have been making baffling choices for a long time — and while many group threads amongst fans in Chicago often function as small investigative units, the fact is… as media, there’s been a historic lack of deep reporting about the franchise.

• To start at the beginning… as I wrote about yesterday, two years ago in Chicago was a summer of naked hope, starring Angel Reese and then head coach Teresa Weatherspoon. T-Spoon, while in her first season as a WNBA head coach, is also famously one of the players who held the league up in the first place, starting in 1997. Beyond hitting one of the most iconic shots in history, she spent years as the fiery, floor-slapping floor general of the New York Liberty. And she carries a level of WNBA sage-ness & a capacity to build real trust with players that you’d expect an institutionally-shorthanded franchise like Chicago to honor (I know my own journalism career peaked because of her.)

• So it was a shock of a gut punch when, in October of 2024, the Sky fired Teresa Weatherspoon after giving her just one season leading the Sky, never mind that she was clearly bonded with their star player in Angel Reese, and despite the fact that the team had very nearly made the playoffs. Many Sky fans, including me, were devastated.

• Things have seemed to go downhill from there. The Chicago Sky’s 2025 roster — constructed by Jeff Pagliocca, the guy said to be behind Spoon’s firing — was lackluster at best, without a core identity and featuring Angel Reese most prominently on the sidelines after voicing deeper issues with the team’s ownership while fans in the arena chanted “Fire Jeff!”

• Meanwhile, WNBA players anonymously voted the Sky as one of the worst franchises in the league, while constructions of their new training facility — oddly located in the “village” / made-up-for-zoning-reasons neighborhood of Bedford park — was delayed into 2026. And then, just this past fall, a new lawsuit: minority partner Steven Rogers filed a lawsuit accusing Sky owner Michael Alter of "opportunistic self-dealing” following the Sky’s championship in 2021.

• That’s when — at long last — a genuine investigative piece into the Chicago Sky’s front office came out, February of 2026. But it wasn’t published by a big institution or a local Chicago “paper of record.” It came from No Cap Space, one of my favorite independent platforms in women’s basketball digital media world, written by its creator, Andrew Haubner. His piece is a clear-eyed, prescient vision: “Amid Lawsuit, Sky Owner Faces Crisis of Confidence From Investors, City Official.”

• Andrew’s work is more relevant than ever now, in light of the franchise’s most epic fumble of Angel Reese. As soon as I read it, I knew I wanted to do a behind-the-scenes interview with him, to better what he’d dug up + how this investigative story came to be — here’s an excerpt of our conversation.

Rough Notes: Oh my god, I have ten million questions for you, but I’ll try to limit it. I can’t stop thinking about the historical perspective here. Like how in the historical arc of women’s basketball, there have been so many men who have access to wealth, who come in to help out women’s basketball when no one else is, but they are really stubborn about doing it in a particular way. And that also feels like it’s part of Michael Alter’s leadership style. Does that feel fair to you?

Andrew Haubner: I will say this, I don’t think the stubbornness is restricted to him. I think there is a protectionism over a lot of this stuff in women’s basketball. There’s such a desire to kind of protect the brand from people who have critiques in bad faith. But that allows them to exert a lot of control over it, too.

Rough Notes: So when Sky fans are coming for Michael Alter - do you think he’s the main villain here?

Andrew Haubner: I think people are trying to affix good versus evil in a lot of this stuff, but everyone is varying shades of like — nobody really knows what the hell they’re doing here. And I think a lot of that’s rooted in the fact that you have an owner that is trying to operate around the fringes instead of just being like, “how much is the check? I’ll write it.” Which is kind of what New York and Golden State and Phoenix are doing right now.

I think that while Michael Alter has the tendency to be a meddler, the problem is he has a blind spot for bringing on influential people that are the wrong kind of influence. Like his radar for sussing out bad people is clearly not very good. If you look at the business that he runs, you look at the stuff that he’s done for Chicago, there’s a lot of social programs and really good stuff that he does in that community. He’s a pretty reliable Democratic Party donor, and he went out of his way to found a WNBA franchise. He’s not a villain in that sense.

But I do think he has brought on some ‘viziers,’ so to speak, who aren’t good. The people he surrounds himself with - down to Adam Fox, the president of the franchise, whose background of running a team at its highest level was an AHL team, which is in the NHL’s minor league. I just don’t think he’s surrounded himself with good people on the basketball side of things.

For example: I think that Jeff Pagliacca wakes up every morning as the general manager of the Chicago Sky, and because of that, it provides the confirmation bias that his way is the right way. The best way I can explain it is this is a guy who really did get it out the mud. He was a school coach and a skills trainer and found his way into the Sky organization - his relationship with helping to train Courtney Vandersloot goes back to the early 2010s.

And then he worked his way through under James Wade and ended up becoming a general manager. When the team won a championship in 2021, it was actually one of the worst things that happened to the franchise in the time since because it created that confirmation bias for Michael and Jeff and a lot of these people. The idea that this way works. I think Jeff tries to make the case that: “I won a title as part of this group and part of this organization and because of that, I know what I’m talking about.”

That’s kind of the deal with him: he has a belief that he’s unimpeachable because he helped bring the championship to Chicago. I don’t think that’s necessarily a unique story in business or sports teams. It’s a very normal story of people who have one major windfall, and because of that, they get stubborn. I think the Chicago Sky story right now, more than anything else, is one of stubbornness.

Rough Notes: Can you give me an example of how that stubbornness operates internally?

Yes. For example, I’d heard a lot of different things as to why Spoon had been let go… and what I found was, the rationale given internally was so preposterous. Basically, there was a meeting held with all the owners about firing Spoon. Jeff, Nadia, and, and Michael were the three people that led that meeting and were in kind of lockstep according to my sources. And when I first talked to my source about what happened in that meeting, I expected to hear that they were more forthcoming with all of the owners about what the issue was. I was expecting to hear some type of real intrigue and some rationale around why.

Through reporting however, I’ve learned that it was actually what Jeff Pagliocca told the press, via Annie Costabile, that he’d heard free agents were “skeptical of joining the Sky” with Spoon as the coach. I always thought that that was something that they had just kind of put out into the public as like something to kind of BS. But over time it proved that indeed the reason they gave to the owners was just that. And I was stunned. I could not believe that something that flimsy was the thing that was given to the people with the money. I was just stunned that there was that little respect it seemed for the people that were writing the checks for Jeff and his staff.

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Now, there’s a faction within the ownership group that is more than a few people who have invested money into the team that thought Angel was getting hung out to dry. They felt she was the reason for a lot of the business successes the sky was having. More than a couple of people approached it from an investor’s perspective: “I put money into this. We’re now finally getting returns. You’re gonna fuck this up over pride and get rid of the cash cow? What are you, nuts?” At the end of the day, these guys are capitalists. They’re trying to make money. They haven’t made money on this product for years and now you have someone that is responsible, they feel, for the fact that you are finally making money and now someone - like your GM, or whoever - is gonna blow it up. And I think a lot of Chicago Sky fans understand that, too.

Rough Notes: Just to get into the media critique of it all - one of the things about your article that makes me giggle to myself is — I have a couple of friends who are hardcore Sky fans, who have been dying to figure out what’s going on inside the Sky front office for so long. And when I told them that you’d written this, and that you don’t even live in Chicago, they were like “what!?” What made you feel like you were the guy to investigate this? Or that you could actually find more information that others have?

Andrew Haubner: Yeah, honestly, I got, I got lucky because I had a rock solid source that reached out to me after my initial column that I wrote about the Sky.

Rough Notes: Yes, I loved that piece.

Andrew Haubner: So yeah, this story doesn’t come together unless that source calls me. And some of that is luck, admittedly, but also this source reached out to me specifically because they didn’t trust the Chicago writers from the major newspapers. And sometimes that’s because you’re a victim of your own outlet’s reputation. Like the Chicago Tribune‘s reputation precedes its writers, especially when last year they ran some pretty nasty shit about Chennedy Carter, like their their editorial board saying that she should have been charged for assault.

Rough Notes: Oh I remember! I was livid. I think some writers at the Tribune might have been, too.

Andrew Haubner: Yeah, I feel bad for them in that sense.

And also, to be honest, I just looked up government documents while writing this. I think people miss that 90% of reporting is literally waiting for records or requests to come back. That’s a big reason some of that shit takes so much time is because like, you know, a FOIA could take you 4 weeks.

Rough Notes: But also, to your credit, you’re willing to publish reporting where you also voice your opinion, where you have a perspective.

Andrew Haubner: And that’s also part of what we’re sometimes lacking in women’s basketball. I think people are scared of it, especially if they’re talking about an ownership group. But I also think some of it, for me, is that I came from college football in general assignment writing. So I’ve had college football coaches threatening to beat my ass, I’ve had government officials threatening to depose me. I don’t really have an inherent fear of what will happen.

Rough Notes: Did you end up hear back from the Sky after publishing your piece?

Andrew Haubner: A Sky employee emailed me back after the story ran and asked me to issue a correction. I said, “OK, what is the correction you want me to issue?” And they said, “well you said Michael Alter and Nadia and Jeff through Sky PR declined to comment. This is a misinterpretation because they’re not the ones saying no to the request. Sky PR is, and someone declines a request only if they are specifically asked in a formal interview setting for comment.”

And I was like, “no, I would be acting inappropriately if I went over your head and called Michael Alter straight up. It’s your responsibility to take it to the people that I’m asking questions of.” And so in my follow up, I emailed them back saying, “just so we’re clear, are you telling me you just blew off my request entirely?” Because clearly there’s a block here, and it’s not me. Did you just not do your job?

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• I don’t know if you’ve ever been personally fumbled, but it cuts, like, pretty deep. There’s just a particular maddening to losing not what was, but what could have been. In other words, as Emily Dickinson wrote, it “scalps your naked Soul.”

• Yesterday, Angel Reese’s trade was announced — to the Atlanta Dream, from the Chicago Sky. For many Reese’s Pieces (Angel’s fans), and perhaps for Angel herself, leaving Chicago is a kind of liberation — she ended last season publicly frustrated with the infamously lackluster franchise. But for many fans in Chicago, her leaving carries an extra layer, more baggage: the scalping awareness of what we once held as naked hope. And I am still in my feelings about it.

• I’ll start from the beginning: In May of 2024, I was living in Chicago and had just started to regularly freelance as a women’s basketball writer. That month, the onset of summer was approaching like a manic episode. I’d recently snuck into the WNBA Draft at BAM in Brooklyn (I know my way around a 165 year-old arts building, ok?), where I managed to sit next to Jan Jenson, clumsily introduce myself to Coach Jackie (no, she did not want to “stake out the afterparty with me,” I was a stranger), and screamed my absolute head off when the Sky drafted — as the 7th overall pick — Angel Reese, the Bayou Barbie. Who was, by the way, literally wearing this:

• I was so thrilled that I wrote an article about it for South Side Weekly in Chicago. It was called “Welcome to the WNBA Hype Era,” and really, it was just a manifestation of the future I wanted to see (which is a thing I do sometimes.) Below the headline, the ‘deck’ literally read:

• In the piece, I described the moment that Angel Reese was drafted like this:

The crowd screamed, and I screamed with them.

We screamed because Angel Reese brings impeccable toughness and resilience to her professional career, and to Chicago. “This is for the girls that look like me, that’s going to speak up on what you believe in,” she once told reporters after winning the 2023 NCAA championship. “It’s unapologetically you.”

• The print edition of the article came out on the day of my birthday party that year, a thrilling new beginning.

• That rookie season — with head coach Teresa Weatherspoon and once-in-a-blue-moon talent Chennedy Carter — was remarkable to me from the beginning. It felt like a campfire. Like a California rainstorm in the highest heat of fall. Yes, like new love. We all shared the sense of surrounding something special, and rare. It was just a vibe.

• And Chicagoans loved Angel. Sometimes I felt like people were ready to leap out of their seats, a flock of fire-breathing dragons, to protect her from harm. And we saw the way Angel dove into the fray, to put the weight of her teammates on her shoulders. “I’ll take the ‘bad guy’ role,” she said at a press conference, defending her teammate Chennedy Carter after she’d been villainized by viral racist media tropes. “And I’ll continue to take that on and be that for my teammates.”

  

• That season was also what inspired me to start Rough Notes — and in my fairly unhinged writing (the whole idea of this newsletter/blog was to be a space for the rough, the experimental, the still-taking-shape), I reveled in the arrival of Angel, our young leader, who dove into the fray of every play like a warrior. On June 23rd, she led the Sky to an 88-87 comeback victory over the Indiana Fever. I wrote this:

• We’re down by four now and I don’t know how anyone here is breathing, oh my god. The nerve of us sports fans, peaking with adrenaline, expecting these players to keep their bodies within the rules of the game. I could bite my finger off. It’s 2:24pm on a Sunday afternoon and life is still awful and exciting and tragic, but inside Wintrust, we are poured together. I’ve seen hundreds of women’s basketball games but I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen something like this. It is a new era, and we are shimmering.

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• Angel’s fearless play was intermixed with the magic that T-Spoon and Chennedy brought, too. For all noise & chat about Chennedy Carter, what I can say definitively is that watching her play in person was unreal. I mean look at this photo in which is literally jumping as high as A’ja Wilson:

• And then there was Teresa Weatherspoon, who carried the WNBA’s history on her shoulders, and who seemed to believe in her players with potent belief. She was basically a motivational speaker at the press conference folding table, and gave these warm side hugs to her players, especially Chennedy and Angel. Her eye contact was revolutionary. It all had me under a spell; my brain was exploding with possibilities.

• I don’t think I was alone in this feeling. It was easy to fall in love with Angel Reese and her team. Plus, she was ending every game with a double double, 9 straight in fact, poised to break Candace Parker’s WNBA single-season record with her 10th in a game against the Minnesota Lynx on June 30th, 2024. With less than a minute left, Angel was closing in on breaking the record - she just needed to score one more point. I wrote this:

On the final possession, Angel finds the ball in the paint and the whistle comes quickly, a note of relief. But she misses her first free throw. I grip someone’s shoulder next to me for the second, ducking my head, barely watching. “It’s going to be okay!” another person reassures me, and we hold our breath as the second shot sails through the net, a few feet from where Angel’s mother sits, who had probably been whispering a prayer.

All of Wintrust explodes after the shot goes in. The truth of Angel is that she is our team’s lifeline. Watching her, we are luckier than the first summer day at the lake. Luckier than hitting every green light on Western Avenue. Luckier than a perfectly clear afternoon without wind, when you can see the Chicago River holding downtown like fruit on a tree. Luckier than biking without brakes down even the grid’s smallest hill.

Perhaps we don’t get every gift in Chicago, but Angel Reese most certainly is one. She brings enough pride to the city that, like all the best things here, you’ll even want to share it with strangers. If you haven’t yet, come to Wintrust and watch Angel play. Then close your eyes and imagine you are flying.

• … Aaaaaand hard stop.

• It’s time to fast forward to the end of the story. Brutal, right? But you already know what happens: less than two years later, the Sky have lost a generational, game-changing player in Angel Reese. Her trade to the Atlanta Dream officially marks a premature departure from Chicago (in the WNBA, rookie contracts are typically three years; Angel just finished her kind of disastrous second year with the Sky.)

• To me, all those things that were so exceptional about Angel in 2024 that I’d noticed — her fearlessness, the way she rebounds like she’s saving a baby, her singular presence and celebrity, all of those things are still just as true. She is one of the most important figures in this era of the WNBA. But it’s the Chicago Sky franchise that couldn’t keep up.

• It was toward the end of her rookie season that things started crumbling. Quite plainly. Eventually, the Sky’s playoff hopes began to expire a little more steeply than we’d thought, and then T-Spoon was fired after just one season on the job, despite her connection with Angel — poof, like that. That’s when unspeakable things took place.

• I’m exaggerating. But I’ll write about what happened at that exact moment later this week — in a much more reporter-ly part two of this Angel Reese appreciate/heartbreak series. Because I’m not over it yet.

• I’ll always remember the summer of 2024 for what I witnessed in Angel Reese, her rookie season. She was a gift, a lifeline. The person I thought of as I began writing, in my own voice, with my legs hanging out the living room window, into Chicago’s sky. The summer Angel forever instilled herself as a legend in this city. When she reminded Chicago that regardless of the powers that be, we the people actually have some pretty brilliant ideas. Like loving Angel Reese. And that’s what we can keep.

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• The Final Four is here, and no matter where you’re watching it, this weekend is all about community. That’s exactly why I wanted to make sure you have all the ~community guides~ to this weekend, including grassroots recommendations in Phoenix & watch parties across the country. Check it all out, below.

• By the way, I’ll be with the People’s Watch Party at Xingones in Oakland, where there will be great community vibes + amazing raffle prizes (as always.)

  

If You’re in Phoenix: Real Recs from Locals, made with PHX Queer Hoopers

• Since you cannot trust anyone for recommendations except people who actually live in that city, I called up Yezmin Villarreal from PHX Queer Hoopers for some recommendations.

• Yezmin started PHX Queer Hoopers back in 2024, and they meet weekly at ARCH on Sunday mornings (though not this Sunday morning) to play ball and just as importantly, to make friends + build community (& at least one long-term relationship.)

• I asked Yezmin to share “shit locals actually like” in Phoenix + what events they’re most excited to go to, and even spots that you can get away to if you’re sick of basketball. They got some more input from the rest of the PHX Queer Hoopers crew, and the result is this Locals Guide To Phoenix, a Google map of over 30 recs around town, curated specially for this week of the Final Four.

  

  

If You’re Anywhere Else: Here’s a List of Watch Parties Around the Country

• I recently joined a national network called Backcourt Collective, all about strengthening the women’s basketball ecosystem through connecting creatives, fans and organizers. There’s a whole bunch of dope people with amazing projects in the collective, and many of them are having watch parties in cities across the U.S. Here’s a list of all of them:

Dallas

• Friday, April 3rd & Sunday, April 5th
  Hosted by GamechangHERS
  Friday: Locals Lounge (13050 Bee St Suite 100, Farmers Branch)
  Sunday: Cosm Dallas (5776 Grandscape Blvd, The Colony)

Detroit

• Friday, April 3rd @ 6pm ET
  Hosted by Bar IX
  J’s Penalty Box (22726 Woodward Ave, Ferndale)

Durham

• Sunday, April 5th @ 3pm ET
  Hosted by the PlayHER Circle
  Primrose Bar & Lounge (111 W Main St)

Charlotte

• Friday, April 3rd @ 6:30 ET
  Hosted by Her Court Collective
  Hi-Wire Brewing (340 W Tremont Ave, Suite 140)

Chicago

• Sunday, April 5th @ 2:30pm CT
  Hosted by Hoop Social Club
  SPF (2121 N. Clybourn Ave.)

Houston

• Sunday, April 5th @ 2pm CT
  Hosted by Sideline Social Club
  Kirby Ice House (1421 N Loop W)

New York City

• Sunday, April 5th @ 2:30 pm ET
  Hosted by Women’s Sports Rally
  Berry Park (4 Berry St, Brooklyn)
  

• Sunday, April 5th @ 3pm ET
  Hosted by Hoop Rants with Coop
  Blazers Sports Bar (308 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn)

Oakland

• Friday, April 3rd @ 4pm PT & Sunday, April 5th @ 12:30pm PT
  Hosted by The People’s Watch Party
  Xingones Cantina (140 4th St)

Philadelphia

• Sunday, April 5th @ 3pm ET
  Hosted by the Black Women’s Basketball Museum & Mouth of Rain
  Two Locals Brewing (3675 Market St.)

Phoenix

• Friday, April 3rd @ 4pm PT & Sunday, April 5th @ 12:30pm PT
  Hosted by Phoenix Queer Hoopers
  Original Gravity (4700 N 12th St #101)

Portland

• Friday, April 3rd @ 4pm PT & Sunday, April 5th @ 12:30pm PT
  Hosted by Backcourt Collective
  Friday: Jackie’s (930 SE Sandy Blvd)
  Sunday: Brooklyn Carreta (4534 SE McLoughlin Blvd)

Raleigh

• Sunday, April 5th @ 3pm ET
  Hosted by Her Court Collective
  The Brass Tap (16 N. West St)

St. Louis

• Friday, April 3rd @ 6pm CT & Sunday, April 5th @ 2:30pm CT
  Hosted by STL Watches WBB
  Crown Hall (601 Clark Ave in Ballpark Village)

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• First off: there’s a new edition of the “Women’s Basketball Changes Everything” shirt ($36), and this time it has sleeves! Now available in XS-3XL. Choose your favorite style of the coolest shirt around to directly support indie women’s basketball writing + art + community!

The Sleeved Edition

• I spent this past weekend reporting in Sacramento, California at the Sweet 16/Elite 8 — both a joyous & overwhelming return to live women’s basketball. Throughout, I was also struck with a familiar feeling: wondering whether or not I fit in.

• Don’t worry: this is classic for me, a necessary part of my complicated relationship to the game. (Also something I’m curious if you’ve ever felt?) I’ve wrestled with this feeling since I was a kid - when I realized that I didn’t really care about winning at competitive sports but wanted desperately to be on the team anyway, part of a family.

• In other words, one reason why I made these t-shirts in the first place is to invite you and me, all of us, into a greater sense of belonging. It’s as much a statement as it is a prayer: Women’s Basketball Changes Everything.

• This week, I’m nervous & excited to tug the experiences of Sacramento into writing, both here on Rough Notes & elsewhere. I’ll tell you about returning to the brightly lit bowels of the press room, meeting fans who managed to squeeze both the No Kings protest and the South Carolina team sendoff at the Sheraton Grand hotel into their Saturday morning, and learning about the layers of women’s basketball history full-circling around Northern California (that Kara Lawson lore is strong.)

• More than ever, I hope Rough Notes makes you feel like all the ways you care about women’s basketball — or are still figuring out how to care about it — are welcome here. I’ll be working telling myself, too :)

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• P.S. March Madness Marches On! Here’s who’s left dancing, as of Monday morning:

Rough Notes is a one-woman operation by me, Maya, that’s entirely powered by people just like you. Upgrade your subscription to support more coverage like this during the 2026 WNBA season:

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The WNBA has a new CBA*, Rough Notes Nation™! (that’s a nickname I use that’s never really taken off.) I’m running around this week while still settling into the Bay, but I wanted to share a quick & dirty rundown of this historic CBA (!!), *verbally agreed upon by the players & the league after over 100 hours and 8 days of in-person negotiations.

#1: Yes, it’s fucking historic.

• This may be the single biggest leap in player compensation that any pro sports union in the U.S. has ever negotiated (wanna fact check me? I’d love it.) One of my favorite ways to think about the progress earned by this new contract is that even the lowest-paid player under the new CBA will be making more than the highest-paid player used to make under the old CBA. That is economic ascendancy for the entire league.

• What makes it even more transformative is the fact that revenue share may indeed be tied to gross revenue, the stickiest point the players held their ground fighting for. For months, the (W)NBA was seemingly unwavering in only offering a percentage of the net revenue (revenue after expenses). But it seems that has… changed?! (I really thought it would have taken a strike.) Also, shout out to the Bay Area’s own Marisa Ingemi for reporting that the 20% revenue share announced is tied to gross revenue:

• Winning on gross revenue is huuuuuuuuuuge! My good friend Andrew Haubner perfectly summarized the significance of taking this most-contentious labor point off the table: “While there will be subsequent, muddy, brutal, knock-down-drag-out fights over percentages, there will never be another fight like this one. That, in itself, is a transformational labor win that has several positive reverberations for every generation of women’s basketball players that come next.” LFG.

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#2: And yes there will be “knock-down-drag-out fights” to come

• This is not the end. Remember that the Players’ Association began negotiations by asking for 40% of gross revenue from the league: closer to (though still NOT matching the roughly 50% of gross revenue earned by MNBA players). They’ve been dropping the numbers in their proposals ever since, while the NBA’s control has heavy-handed negotiations into a shittier and shittier deal for the women — resulting in WNBA players giving back WELL OVER $450 million to NBA owners in the coming years, as economist David Berri pointed out. In other words, fighting for equality for WNBA players & women’s athletes in general is far from over.

• But what makes this deal so historic is that it begins to directly disrupt the long-entrenched economic framework that has put the (W)NBA on the “Wrong Side of History” since its inception. Just get ready for the next CBA negotiation in roughly 7 years: that one’s gonna be a dog fight, too. (By the way, check out David Berri talking on today’s Good Game with Sarah Spain podcast & shouting out our interview.)

#3: How could fans change the future of WNBA CBA negotiations?

• I keep thinking about this. I believe that WNBA fans overwhelmingly backed the players in this negotiation, and many voiced their support along the way. But as folks like my friend & fellow writer Frankie de la Cretaz have pointed out, the WNBPA seems to lack a dedicated communications position, never mind a intricate & mass strategy to organize fans around union goals. For month I’ve heard from countless WNBA fans asking, “what should we do if they don’t sign a new CBA?” and “should I wait to buy my WNBA tickets until the CBA is signed?” What if we actually had answers for these questions - directly from the players themselves? That’s a big question I’m eager to think through more :)

#4: We’re still waiting for the terms sheet

• Since this is a verbal agreement, we can’t yet read the hundreds of pages of terms hammered out by the new CBA. And so there are still many questions lingering! Like: what happened to the housing issue, wherein the league was attempting to revoke much of its guaranteed housing for players, based on salary increases? And, perhaps my favorite issue: what are the retirement benefits for current & already-retired players, the women who built the league in the first place?! All of these details are yet-to-be-revealed.

#5: We are not emotionally prepared for the chaos that is coming before the WNBA season begins

• The next month is actually unhinged. In it, we’ll witness the roller coaster of March Madness, expansion drafts for the WNBA’s two newest teams in Portland & Toronto, the entirety of the WNBA’s free agency period, the WNBA draft (yep, women’s basketball players have NO time off between college & going pro) and the inevitable crush of training camp (aka a whirlwind of cuts) before WNBA pre-season starts on April 25.

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• If you are like me & forever sentimental about the WNBA team you loved so much last year: it’s about to get ripped apart. A friend texted me this morning saying he thinks training camp will feel like “the hunger games.” I’m not sure the best way to collectively buckle up, but we have to.

#6: A quick list of really specific winners & losers

• Winners: WNBA rookies & vets, season ticket holders, non-American stars who have held out on the WNBA because they don’t pay enough, beat writers for WNBA teams, lesbians in the Bay Area who were so confused about how to plan their summer, sports agents, television network execs, WNBPA leadership, Cathy Englebert’s dubious legacy avoiding total catastrophe, proud women’s basketball elders who never thought they’d see the day, Rough Notes “Women’s Basketball Changes Everything” T-shirts that are even more meaningful now.

• Losers: Talentless men who hate the WNBA because they’re losers, anyone who actually wanted a totally fresh-non-WNBA-women’s-basketball-league-start (thanks to Andrew Haubner for bringing up that point), non sports-loving lesbians who thought they might actually get their summers with friends back.

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• It’s not too late to hop into March Madness! Amidst the strangest women’s basketball times, the NCAA tournament rolls on — and whether or not you’ve had time to watch this season of college hoops so far, this is prime time to dive deep by making your own bracket for Rough Notes + the Wubble Bracket Madness (the Wubble being my #1 women’s basketball group thread, texting since 2020 or 2021, no one can agree):

• For the winner, prizes include: a free “Women’s Basketball Changes Everything” tank top (coolest merch in town), 1 year comp’d subscription to Out of Your League (& access to their awesome Discord!), and a $50 gift certificate to your women’s sports bar of choice.

• To prime you for bracket-making (which is truly an expansive invitation, available to everyone regardless of NCAA watching experience), here are a few of my favorite things to pay attention to during this year’s tournament. This is, as usual on Rough Notes, mostly about the vibes… but feel free to use any of it while making your own bracket(s).

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#1: Programs On The Rise

• My dad Benjy always roots for the underdogs in March — and if you’re like him, now is the perfect time to jump on board. The competition is very steep: according to Rebecca Lobo’s Esteemed ESPN Estimation during the Selection Sunday broadcast last night, she thinks all four #1-seeded teams *should* make it to the Final Four. At the same time, this kind of declaration is basically the siren song of the underdog.

• In particular, there are a few programs that have been building for the last few years, but have never made a Final Four under their current head coach. Those folks are frothing at the mouth to prove Rebecca Lobo AKA “Rookie” wrong — teams like #2-seeded Vanderbilt, Iowa & Michigan, #3-seeded TCU, or even #4-seeded Oklahoma and #5-seeded Ole Miss. For them, victory isn’t just a reflection of their team’s success — it’s a statement about the entire coaching staff and program.

#2: Coaches With Main Character Energy

• Speaking of coaches, March is the month where they really shine. It can be a cautionary tale, of course (Ahem, K*m M****y) But it’s also quite a spectacle to behold!

• One guy I’ll be watching: Geno Auriemma (who by the way is not retiring any time soon) of UConn, the team overwhelmingly expected to win the NCAA championship. In ESPN’s Selection Sunday broadcast last night, Geno exposed himself as joyful, and reflected on how stressed-out he’s gotten in the past by saying, “I’ve been so angst-filled.” (Smells like therapy?) I just really have a soft spot for a grumpy grandpa getting more progressive late in life, and I can’t wait to see Geno actively having fun?!

• Then there’s Shea Ralph of Vanderbilt, who both won SEC coach of the year and was ejected from a game during the SEC tournament (also, her husband is one of her assistant coaches, we love that)! Shea Ralph also played for Geno at UConn back in the day, and in this year’s tournament, she’ll potentially go up against that same overall #1 team + her former coach.

• During March, I always want to watch Coaches Who Jump Around, as though they themselves are playing in the game, like Yolett McPhee-McCuin from Ole Miss or yes, Kim Mulkey (though I prefer when she’s stressed & crouching). I’d also like to nominate potential jumper Tammi Reiss from the University of Rhode Island, who said during Selection Sunday: “You’re gonna have to kill me to beat me.”

• And, of course, there’s Dawn Staley, the reason for South Carolina’s absolute dominance in recent years. Typically, she doesn’t scream or jump up and down on the sideline, but she emanates this quiet conviction and power. Plus, even as a hyper-competitive person, she is noticeably loving — and that’s so rare. Never forget this moment when a reporter tried to trap Dawn into an anti-trans corner with a question, and instead, she responded like this…

#3: Sophomores To Watch Out For

• I love a breakout star of March Madness: a player whose greatness is known to their teammates & coaches, but not necessarily on a national stage — until now. These are the players with the potential to take control of a game or make a clutch shot that changes the course of history and propels them into the national spotlight (& dramatically increases their NIL income). often times, that type of player happens to be… a sophomore. Here are some of my faves headed into this year’s tournament:

Make Your Rough Notes Bracket!

Don’t forget to nab your Rough Notes merch today to get your tank top by the end of the month, and in time for the Final Four!

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• It’s the most unsettled + tense time to be a WNBA fan. Because as of the exact moment of writing this (late on Thursday night or early on Friday morning, depending how you look at it), the WNBA still doesn’t have a new contract for its players. And while the league’s proposals have changed very little over the last few months, the players continue making concessions. On top of that, we have no idea whether there will be a 2026 WNBA season, or what kind of tumult lies ahead.

• My stomach has been lurching as the marathon of negotiations continue. For the last few weeks, I’ve failed to put these feelings into words. Perhaps it’s especially confusing now that I’m here in the Bay Area, where the Golden State Valkyries swept through with revelatory force in the summer of 2025.

• It’s difficult to accept these unresolved negotiations on a visceral level: how could we go from the absolute peak of growth in the WNBA, from the half-billion estimated value of the Valkyries, the era of the viral StudBudz, of ‘Plesbians,’ of Angel on the Reese’s box, into such a seemingly stagnant labor battle? How is it that the NBA can continue to lowball WNBA players with such impenetrable authority?

• When I am in my feelings about WNBA labor negotiations, I often look to the writings of David Berri. He’s an economist who has covered the (W)NBA for a very long time, and his work often anchors me (especially this essay in the New York Times, a must-read, please check it out.) So when I saw a recent post by David on Bluesky, I reached out immediately:

• Soon, David and I were on the phone. But the conversation didn’t exactly lift me up. Which, upon reflection, is perhaps exactly the grounding I needed. Here is our conversation:

David Berri: [Reporters] are not calling me, and I know why. It’s because if you quote me or talk about what I’m saying about the NBA in your article, and you work for ESPN or any of the major news sites, the NBA will give you a call and they will tell you, “stop doing that.”

I used to write for Forbes. I wrote for them for about a year and a half. When I would write about the WNBA, the NBA started complaining about it to my editor. They finally said, “OK, new rule, if you write about the WNBA, you have to let the NBA comment…” And I said, “well, I’m not a reporter, so that’s a little weird to have a rule… But I’ll play along.”

So then [the NBA] had this policy that they’re gonna pay the top player from the G League [the NBA’s development league] $125,000 a year. And I knew at the time that top WNBA players were paid less than that. I also knew that the G League had no attendance and was never was going to get attendance.

So I contacted this NBA person and I asked them a simple question: “The G League salary, is that a cost to you, or do you think that’s an investment of some kind?” And he wrote back, “we’re investing in the G League.” And then he sent me a bunch of financial stuff about the G League, and I’m like, “I’m sorry, I didn’t ask you that. I asked you this question, and you got a chance to comment.” So then I wrote the article saying: “See, the G League is an investment to them, but the WNBA is a cost. And that’s the problem.” And they went ballistic.

They said: “That’s not fair! We sent you a bunch of other stuff too!” And I said: “No. I asked you a question and you answered it.” And my editor got mad at me and said that I didn’t report everything [the NBA] said… so I left Forbes.

Since then, it has been the case that reporters have been reluctant to talk to me about the WNBA because I don’t think the NBA likes it.

Rough Notes: What is the NBA so badly trying to protect?

David Berri: The NBA has a story that they have been telling for 40, 50, 60 years — and it’s that the NBA doesn’t make any money. The WNBA doesn’t make any money. “We can’t pay the players. We have no money. There’s no money in this.”

And economists — not only me but other economists — have gone through and looked at what they’re arguing and said, “well, that doesn’t make sense. What you’re saying does not add up.”

I wrote about this in one of my recent articles — that back in 1983, the NBA claimed they lost $15 to $20 million. That’s what they said they’re losing per year on a league that had $135 million in revenue. So it’s a substantial loss. That’s the claim. And they told the Washington Post: “we are bleeding red ink, and there are gonna be franchises that are going to go out of business because of what the players are demanding in salaries.”

Well, they eventually made a deal with players and the players agreed to go from 57% of revenue to 53% of revenue, which is 4%. And if you do the math, it’s $135 million in revenue and you gave up 4% - that’s not $20 million, that’s about $5 million. You said you’re losing $20 million and you made a deal that only gave you $5 million back? What happened to the $15 million? You should still be bleeding red! You should see franchises fold. You should be going out of business. But that’s not their reaction. They said, “we’re thrilled with this.” How can you be thrilled? Your math says you shouldn’t be thrilled. So I think you’re lying. I think you were lying the whole damn time.

Their attendance had gone from 7,000 per game in 1970 to around 11,000 per game in 1983. Their audience was growing. They were doing quite well, but they’re like, “No, we’re dying.” You’re not dying - you’re lying. Right? But it worked, and the players took a pay cut, and [the NBA] did it again in 2011, again said they were losing money. And again that didn’t make sense. Again, it worked. Players took a pay cut.

There’s a story that people tell that you’re supposed to be honest… but that isn’t how the world works. They do TV shows where they have people do disgusting things for like a million dollars, and people do that. So I tell students, “would you be willing to lie for a million dollars? Would you lie for $500 million? For $500 million I bet you could look into a camera and say anything and no one would be able to tell that you’re lying because it’s for $500 million dollars.”

Rough Notes: [okay, actually I didn’t even have a question at this point, I was just listening, ‘cuz David was on a roll.]

David Berri: I don’t think the NBA really cares if the women play… If the WNBA vanished, I don’t think Adam Silver would lose any sleep over that. If the NBA vanished, I think Adam Silver would crawl into a ball and cry himself to sleep. But the WNBA, I don’t think he has much affection for this in the slightest.

NBA owners own 60-70% of the WNBA. There’s 30 NBA owners. I think there’s a substantial number of NBA owners who don’t care. There are other NBA owners who do care. But they’re in the minority… I just get the sense that right now, [NBA owners] are like, “I don’t wanna. I don’t care enough to do that.”

I get irritated by people online demanding the women negotiate better. You can’t negotiate with someone who doesn’t care whether they make a deal or not. There’s no way that works.

I think a lot of people make a mistake in treating sports like any other business. This is not a cardboard factory. In order for sports to work, the owner has to have some emotional attachment to it because these are fabulously wealthy people. The amount of money the sports make for them isn’t enough for them to give a damn because they have so much money already. They’re doing it because they like sports. But WNBA owners don’t all like WNBA, which makes it a very unusual bargaining situation, opposed to every other men’s sport where the owners do care.

You can’t negotiate with something that doesn’t care. You don’t have any leverage. So that’s what I think is where we’re kind of at.

Rough Notes: So what are the mechanisms that allow for this? Is it just like a general societal misogyny that allows this lack of caring from the NBA side to persist?

David Berri: Yeah, I’m a big believer that the explanation for all gender disparities is discrimination. A lot of economists, especially male economists, will grasp at any other explanation other than what seems to me the most obvious one. Like: women are risk-averse, or some other nonsense. It’s like, no: it’s discrimination. Men don’t wanna deal with women. They don’t wanna make a deal with them. And so that’s the issue.

That’s a really recurring theme in the economics literature: you have mostly males who will say that the gender wage gap doesn’t exist because of discrimination, it’s women who make other choices or something like that. They’re like, “I don’t understand how it’s possible. Why can’t the women just negotiate it?”

Society just has changed a lot in the last 50 years, but you still have the people who are in a time capsule. They’re still in that world. They haven’t joined us yet. So when you’re like “why can’t you pick up on the fact that women’s sports and men’s sports are equal [in value]?” And it’s like: “Well, I don’t think women and men are equal [in value.]” So therefore they can’t wrap their brain around it.

Rough Notes: [Laughing] But from the perspective of queer WNBA fandom — aka a lot of my readership — it’s kind of mind-boggling that we still live in a world in which what these men with power care about, or don’t care about, is still in a lot of ways dictating these negotiations. Like why can’t we just demand that they have to care based on the fact of our presence?

David Berri: Well, the thing is, according to the NBA’s own numbers, [the WNBA] will have a billion dollars in revenue by 2030. And it’s just gonna keep growing after that. When you get to a point where WNBA revenue is $5 billion, $10 billion — and the league is worth $100 billion? At that point, the women have bargaining power because now it’s too much money for you to say no to it. But the problem is that right now, it’s not big enough to do that.

If you go back to the player strikes on the men’s side back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, those men had bargaining power, not just because the owners loved the men’s sports, but also because those male owners were just millionaires. They were rich, but they’re just millionaires — so the team was kind of expensive to them. But now you have [NBA] teams that are owned by billionaires, and the size of the WNBA franchises are equivalent to what was in existence in the ‘70s and ‘80s on the men’s side… so that’s what the women are facing. They’re facing these incredibly fabulously wealthy owners, and the WNBA is still pretty small.

I do think that if you were to sit down with some of these owners, you’d find that the thought of forcing the women come to them and accept their deal makes them extraordinarily happy. I think that makes them extremely happy. They were laughing at [the players] when they said “Pay Us What You Owe Us.” They thought that was funny. Like this one guy, who used to be the president of the Marlins, he’s been doing talk shows —

Rough Notes: Oh yeah, that guy.

David Berri: Yeah, he thinks it’s funny: “I’m not gonna tell you what I owe you because I don’t know. I don’t owe you anything.” But you only don’t owe them anything if you don’t care whether it exists or not.

You know, I’ve thought from the beginning that the only thing that the women can do is to try and get the public on their side as much as they can. That’s really hard. The NBA has the media on their side, so it’s really hard to communicate with the public. It’s difficult. You’re fighting against a lot of history here. And a lot of attitude. But [WNBA players] have made a tremendous amount of progress compared to where they started.

Ultimately, in 20-30 years, I believe the women who are doing this fight are gonna look amazingly great, and the men who have been resisting this are gonna look very stupid… People are gonna say: “Hey, it took you this long to pay the women what you’re paying the men, and you made up a bunch of stories for why you weren’t doing that?” People are gonna look back and go, “well, you clearly were lying. You clearly were making that up.”

In the meantime, it’s very frustrating! It’s frustrating that we have to keep having these conversations… it’s all very insulting. The [offers from the league] have become almost comical.

I do think there might be value in having a short strike. Do as much of a media blitz as you can, emphasize as much as you can the disparity, and then make it so that internally you reach an agreement.

Right now, I think you make this deal as best you can, but it’s not permanent. It’s not the only deal you’re ever gonna make. In a few years there’ll be another. Another opportunity to do this again — the league will keep getting bigger and bigger, and the other voices in the room that believe in this product will speak up more. NBA owners and WNBA owners are not united. And that you don’t hear about that, right?

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• So there you have it. The ongoing CBA negotiations feel so sucky precisely for the same reason that women’s basketball is so exciting — because women’s basketball players have dared to demand their worth. Once again, this means that both players & fans are outpacing the institutions that mediate the sport’s progress (& stagnation.) And given the fact that the Players’ Association has dropped their proposal for shared revenue from 40% (in 2025) to 26% (by February of 2026), they’re simply not going to get the deal they deserve this time around. The fight is far from over.

• Ultimately, recalibrating inequities that have plagued women’s basketball for decades is a disruption that extends far beyond a single CBA negotiation. It requires taking on some of the most conservative, patriarchal power structures that still have a hold on our society. And we have to sit with the real discomfort that changing this is still incomplete.

• The silver lining: if you’re a women’s basketball fan, you’re learning the depth of this struggle. Our future begs for radical collectivity, historical investigation (I’m on it!) and a continued, persistent untangling of the myth that women’s basketball doesn’t matter. That, as we all know, is the wrong side of history. But we will have to force the issue — and it will be painful.

• Of course, this is also why we gotta keep believing…

You are a special bunch: Rough Notes paid subscribers. You make this whole damn thing possible — this growing, creative, ambitious women’s basketball project, unlike anything else out there. I’m so grateful for you. And I created the first-ever Rough Notes merch with thi…

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‘Tis the season of change in women’s basketball, and now here’s the perfect thing to match the moment — WNBA Rough Notes Merch: Women’s Basketball Changes Everything, created by me (Maya) + designer Mara Evans + Rita Forte at Olive Street Agency.

The Shirt

Pre-order the first-ever super cute Rough Notes tank top, available in sizes XS-9XL (paid subscribers: scroll all the way down for the discount code!), for the affordable price of $36. Orders will be shipped starting March 16. There’s no better way to bold statement for March Madness & the summer while supporting your fave scrappy WNBA newsletter; pre-order yours here.

Pre-Order Your Rough Notes Shirt ($36)

The Story

I’ve wanted to make Rough Notes merch for a long while as a fundraiser for this project (this is a one person operation, and I depend on your support to keep it going!) But I also wanted that merch to mean something. And look cool + stand out. And I kept coming back to the idea that Rough Notes is a newsletter, but its also meant to be a community, a kind of belief system. At the core is this idea that women’s basketball is constantly evolving, bound-less, neither clean nor linear nor always even visible — a kaleidoscope of evolution.

In other words, women’s basketball has the capacity to change (& to be changed!) by anything & everything. It’s kind of like my approach to Rough Notes. And change, I believe, is at the heart & soul of this community we share.

Women's Basketball Changes Everything

The Collaborators

I’ve worked with a number of folks along the way to make these shirts come to life: thank you to Jade Hollyfield and Tiffany Threets for your support ideating & iterating. And I’m so, so grateful to Chicago designer Mara Evans for creating this beautiful hand-drawn imagery (check out the rest of her WNBA shop, too!), as well as Rita Forte’s Olive Street Agency in Oakland, who are printing/producing the shirts. This has really been a dream collaboration :)

I hope you’ll consider supporting Rough Notes by pre-ordering your own tank top, as we continue to will women’s basketball toward changing the world, and ourselves. Thank you <3

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• I’m so excited to share my feature about the legend of Cardte Hicks with you, published this morning in Defector. I’ve been working on this piece for months, for a few reasons… there’s just so much happening throughout Cardte’s career (which started in the 1970’s and spanned decades.) And also because: I love working on this kind of deep dive, especially ones that take place years before the WNBA. It’s within this world that I often feel most connected to the heart & soul of women’s basketball — from hearing stories that have often gone largely undocumented, kept by the women themselves, passed down through words across generations. I’m driven by the desire to help connect more folks, like you, to the power of these stories.

  

• Cardte Hicks was a singular basketball player of her time. When she first emerged as a 5’9 hooper able to dunk a basketball (yes, yep, you read that right), she played then the way that many WNBA players aspire to now — position-less, a scorer at all levels, and most astonishingly, able to snatch the rim with her hands. She shattered the mold of women’s basketball talent at the time. But that doesn’t mean she was always rewarded for her skill, or treated fairly for who she was.

Read The Legend Of Cardte Hicks

• I’m so grateful to Cardte for agreeing to share her story with me, and to the many folks I spoke to for this piece: from many former teammates, to worldwide basketball scholars, to coaches, to WNBA legend Sue Wicks. And I’m really extra-grateful to my editor at Defector, Samer Kalaf, for supporting such an ambitious feature. Defector rules.

• There’s so much more of Cardte’s story — and the rabbit holes/side quests that working on this piece inspired — than I was able to fit into the feature. For now, I hope you’ll dive into the feature — and check out a few more photos of Cardte “Magic” Hicks that I collected along the way:

  

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• It’s the most delicious little surprise of the winter: the much-anticipated 1-on-1 Tournament at Unrivaled — airing tonight, starting at 7pm ET. The tournament captures what Unrivaled does best, which is giving WNBA players a chance to embrace their self-drawn character-ness, as though inviting us into a real-life video game of their own design. And competing alone, these women’s basketball stars pop from the screen - no team, just one at a time, raw talent. It combines this glitzy fantasy world of Unrivaled with the slightly terrifying twist of 1-on-1, or what a friend recently called “literally the most vulnerable thing that any professional can do.”

• Which means: the 1-on-1 tournament really pulls back the curtain to reveal Each Player’s True Self. Which is the lens I used to predict three of the toughest & most competitive matchups from the first round, beginning today. These are foolproof, so feel free to use them for your Unrivaled Bracket Challenge, duh! Here are the official Rough Notes predictions:

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Marina Mabrey vs. Sonia Citron

• Let’s start with the fact that both of these players are willing to scramble/back-bend for any loose ball, and I’ll tell you why. It’s because they have siblings. Playing basketball against your siblings is a key ingredient to getting great at 1-on-1. And while Marina is way more famous for having siblings, Sonia has them too, okay? They include her older brother Will, who is the reason she first wanted to play as a kid (& who she now beats regularly in basketball):

• Meanwhile, there are some genuinely upsetting allegations being thrown around the Mabrey family, including by guy-with-the-most-oldest-sibling-energy-of-all-time Roy Mabrey:

• He posted this TikTok just after his sister Marina scored 47 points in a game (a league record!) Truly unhinged behavior, which I would call gendered, but I think is potentially just Mabrey-ed, since this claims to be the most competitive family ever. Whatever’s going on, Marina is likely pissed (though that’s nothing new), and will now see all her Unrivaled 1-on-1 opponents exactly like this:

• At this point, signs suggest Marina would have an edge over Sonia. But then things get complicated. Because Sonia Citron was recruited to play basketball at Notre Dame by none other than Michaela Mabrey, the eldest of the Mabrey sisters. And like all Mabrey’s, Michaela seems constantly annoyed with Marina. Maybe she’s secretly plotting to take her down with her real Fighting Irish protege?

• Ok, but then there’s the kicker. It starts with the fact that only one of these two players, Marina + Sonia, has ever worn the infamous StudBudz chain, which clearly possesses secret powers that could influence the 1-on-1 tournament.

• Except that’s not all. The person who put said chain around Sonia Citron’s neck was, in fact, Saniya Rivers. Yes, that’s Marina’s #1, Saniya Rivers.

• Which means that Marina has been recently betrayed by the people she loves most, both of whom have been pouring into her young one-on-one opponent. I don’t think she’s gonna take that lightly. And Marina, as a nearly-30 year-old armed with vengeance and her own special powers crash out jar of accountability, will be just TOO FIRED UP to lose this game. Which means that…

The Winner = Marina Mabrey.

Rhyne Howard vs. Rae Burrell

• First off, both Rae and Ryne have swagger. And some mischievousness. Check out these looks:

• Like if we were filling out this same 1-on-1 bracket, but instead of predicting the winners basketball games, the prompt was “who would you most want to have a few drinks with at the company holiday party while playing practical jokes on people?” - these would be at the top of my list.

• Honestly, they have such different-yet-overlapping wavelengths that if I * had * to choose a single 1-on-1 matchup as a Heated Rivalry, it’s this one. And if that’s true, then who knows whether it’s episode 2 or episode 5, and who holds the emotional upper hand, and whether or not they’ve already stared at each other in the club…?! All of that makes Rhyne vs. Rae a total toss-up.

• Then there’s the fact that these two are current teammates — both coached by Teresa Weatherspoon. Normally I would just choose the person coached by T-Spoon, since she is probably most effective while hyping up her players behind-the-scenes.

• Then there’s their style of play. While Rhyne Howard won WNBA Rookie of the Year in 2022 & probably the more-obviously favored player here, Rae Burrell has been more of a slow burn through the start of her career. That’s not actually quite the right metaphor because Rae’s greatest strength is that she’s like actually this athletic energizer bunny who never runs out of steam, to the point of visibly annoying Rhyne:

@hoopshausI think we can all agree with Rae and Rhyne. 😭🖤 #rhynehoward #raeburrell #vinylbc #unrivaled #fypシ゚viral🖤tiktok wbb | women’s basketball | wnba | funny

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• And that’s exactly the kind of hyper energy you need to take down an opponent one-on-one, which gives Rae an edge. I’m just not sure Rhyne can hang…

• Except for one thing. Remember how Rhyne wasn’t so happy with last year’s 1-on-1 tournament? These were literally her re-tweets after losing to Courtney Williams:

• Which means Rhyne is going to be, as they say, ON ONE. No matter who she’s playing against. She wants revenge not just against an opponent, but against Unrivaled itself, which ultimately tips the balance. There’s nothing more motivating right now than battling a women’s basketball league, which brings me to:

The Winner = Rhyne Howard

Aliyah Boston vs. Laeticia Amihere

• We lost the ultimate boxing match of the century with Alyssa Thomas no longer playing against Aliyah Boston, but now we’ve got former South Carolina Gamecocks teammates and longtime friends going head-to-head!

• Aliyah and Laeticia were part of the famous “freshies” class under Dawn Staley, and won a national championship together. I can’t imagine how many countless meals they’ve eaten together at Columbia, South Carolina’s downtown Chipotle location.

• Let’s see what their former coach, the great Dawn Staley, has to say about her players. Dawn once described Laeticia Amihere by saying, “She’s the most versatile player that I’ve ever coached.” And recently, she said this about Aliyah Boston: “She probably came in as the smartest player ever in the history of our program.” Ugh. Most versatile vs. smartest? That feels like a deadlock.

• Then there’s the fact that Laeticia Amihere is low-key Canadian, not in like an in-your-face kind of way, but in kind of back-pocket-lemme-go-back-up-there-once-in-a-while type of vibe. This, I think, can be used as a secret weapon.

• But if you get deeper into Aliyah Boston lore, you’ll discover that she has a son. And by that I mean a really cute dog named Ozzy. Having children always makes you play for a bigger purpose, especially when there’s money on the line (which, by the way, there is: 200K, down from 300K last year, grrr.)

• With that, I’d give a slight edge to Aliyah. But let’s go back to the Aliyah Boston “smartest player ever” thing. It’s true: Aliyah is wicked intelligent (& grew up partially in Worcester, Mass!) In fact, being so smart makes her one of the youngest multitaskers in the WNBA & Unrivaled, someone who is already a regular analyst for national broadcasts and shares a podcast with Candace Parker. Which means that this Unrivaled season, she’s been working her ass off on the court, and behind the mic:

• Meanwhile, Laeticia Amihere has been training every day with the 2026 Development Pool, a crew that works out and practices non-stop while Laeiticia makes fun of a dude she calls “Little Ray”:

@unrivaledback with another DP day in the life🤣🤣🤣 #laeticiaamihere #makaylatimpson #unrivaled #developmentpool @Laeticia Amihere

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• And when someone’s day-in-the-life video is marked by making fun of a male practice player, that’s when you KNOW a player is hungry for more. Getting plucked rom the development pool into the 1-on-1 tournament is Laeticia’s perfect opportunity.

• Plus, deep down, I think Aliyah Boston knows her former teammate has always been deserving of more shine. Back in the day, she literally gave her SEC championship trophy away to one Laeticia Amihere. Today, I predict that Aliyah will be ready to bow down again, which means I’m going with the hot take…

The Winner = Laeticia Amihere.

P.S. TBH, I’m extremely sad to not get to see this matchup:

P.P.S. The folks at perhaps my fave women’s sports podcast ever — Burn It All Down — are in the midst of a comeback! Consider donating to their campaign :) And keep all independent women’s basketball media strong!

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