Skilled ladies’s basketball is headed to Nashville, due to Athletes Limitless

When Lexie Brown received the 2021 WNBA championship with the Chicago Sky, she didn’t have a lot time to have a good time. That’s as a result of lower than every week later, the Duke standout needed to go abroad to play skilled basketball in France.

“It was sort of a bummer as a result of that’s a second that’s uncommon,” Brown informed SB Nation. “I don’t know if I’ll ever win a championship once more, and I barely keep in mind successful it and with the ability to actually let that second sink in.”

Brown’s fast turnaround after the conclusion of the WNBA playoffs was common — traditionally, most WNBA gamers have headed abroad to play skilled basketball within the offseason, each for supplementary revenue and basketball expertise.

Brown, whose one-year contract with the Sky amounted to only over $47,000, was no exception.

She had been waived by the Minnesota Lynx earlier that season and was effectively conscious of the fact that her future within the WNBA was unsure, so she hoped {that a} standout season with the Charnay Basket Bourgogne Sud basketball membership in France would open the door to future alternatives within the W.

That didn’t find yourself being the case. Regardless of averaging greater than 20 factors within the EuroLeague, Brown didn’t hear from any WNBA groups. She missed her household and regretted leaving cash on the desk from off-court alternatives.

“I used to be simply sort of like, ‘What am I nonetheless even doing over right here?’” she stated.

One thing wanted to alter — and a brand new basketball league simply getting established within the US occurred to be the reply.

Athletes Limitless (AU) is a month-long one-month ladies’s skilled basketball league that launched in 2022, permitting WNBA gamers to remain within the US and develop as basketball gamers. (It’s fully totally different from Unmatched, the 3-on-3 basketball league getting began subsequent month in Miami).

Athletes Limitless, which makes use of a fancy level system to crown a person champion on the finish of every season (extra on that later), reached out to Brown forward of its inaugural season to gauge her curiosity in taking part. Nonetheless, her agent strongly suggested her to go abroad.

The next 12 months, Brown fired her agent and adopted her intestine, enjoying in Athletes Limitless’s 2023 season in Dallas reasonably than going to Europe.

It’s a call she views as life-changing.

“It actually modified the trajectory of my profession,” Brown stated. “I actually was feeling misplaced as a professional, probably not understanding the place my confidence went, the place my function was going to be on this league.”

At the moment, she serves because the chairperson of the league’s Participant Govt Committee, the place she works to recruit different WNBA gamers to the league she views as so personally revitalizing.

How Athletes Limitless crowns a person champion

Athletes Limitless options 40 ladies’s basketball gamers who compete in common 5-on-5 basketball video games thrice every week. However whereas the product on the ground would possibly look like common staff basketball, the scoring system is kind of totally different out of your common basketball league.

Athletes Limitless maintains a operating leaderboard that tallies factors for every participant; gamers earn factors for staff success (reminiscent of their staff successful a recreation or 1 / 4) in addition to for particular person success (like scoring, helping, or rebounding).

Gamers additionally acquire factors if followers and different gamers vote them as one of many MVPs of a specific recreation. Conversely, they lose factors for unfavorable performs, like missed photographs, turnovers, or fouls.

On the finish of every week, the highest 4 gamers with essentially the most factors grow to be captains, and captains draft new groups every week, so followers continually get to see totally different mixtures of gamers collectively. And, whereas on the finish of the season, the participant with essentially the most total factors is topped the AU champion, the scoring system is fastidiously crafted to incentivize staff basketball, reasonably than ball-hogging.

“We’ve formulation in place that make it possible for the person factors, and the staff factors, are weighted in a means the place one particular person can’t simply resolve to take the sport over, shoot up all of the photographs, pull all of the factors, and anticipate to be on the high of the leaderboard,” Brown stated.

Along with the distinctive level system, AU is totally different from different basketball leagues in that it’s player-led, with none coaches or front-office members. And, as a result of gamers continually swap teammates, the league fosters a way of camaraderie.

“Every little thing could be very intimate and really family-oriented,” Brown stated. “That’s the primary factor that I personally promote — you’re by no means going to have an atmosphere like this, anyplace else on the skilled degree. You must come and expertise it to consider me. One thing about not having a entrance workplace, not having a coach, not having a training workers, not having the bizarre politics that go on in skilled sports activities, makes this a really free-flowing, enjoyable, high-energy style of basketball. And I feel that’s one thing that the ladies’s recreation wants.”

This 12 months, the season will run from Feb. 5 to March 2 and have WNBA gamers like Kierstan Bell (Las Vegas Aces), Alysha Clark (Aces), Sydney Colson (Aces), Isabelle Harrison (Chicago Sky), Elizabeth Williams (Sky), Jordan Horston (Seattle Storm), Kia Nurse (Sparks), Alissa Pilli (Minnesota Lynx), and Maddy Siegrist (Dallas Wings). Collaborating athletes will earn a minimal of $20,000 for the five-week season, which may improve to $50,000 with bonuses.

Photograph by Ethan Miller/Getty Photographs

“We’ve had gamers are available in AU and have All-Star seasons the following 12 months,” Brown stated. “I don’t suppose that’s a coincidence. I feel that’s due to the power and confidence that they’ve gained whereas they play.”

Final 12 months, Atlanta Dream guard Allisha Grey was the Athletes Limitless champion. Meaning she accrued extra whole factors than some other participant within the league, and was awarded a medal and a commemorative portrait. Only a few months later, she turned an All-Star for the primary time.

Brown just lately completed her seventh 12 months within the WNBA, averaging 8.1 factors and three.3 assists per recreation for the Los Angeles Sparks.

She attributes lots of her continued success within the W to Athletes Limitless.

“It simply re-energized me,” Brown stated. “I regained the love for the sport once more.”

Athletes Limitless is complementary to Unmatched

For the primary time, two skilled ladies’s basketball leagues will happen within the U.S. this winter.

Unmatched, a brand new 3-on-3 league co-founded by Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, will launch subsequent month in Miami and have not less than 34 WNBA gamers. That league has generated monumental buzz, promising $150,000+ salaries and securing a media partnership with TNT.

Whereas each leagues will run concurrently, Brown doesn’t view them as competitors for each other. As an alternative, she views their collective success as interconnected.

“It advantages us in the event that they’re profitable, and it advantages them if we’re profitable,” Brown stated. “The extra ladies’s basketball is profitable as a complete, that’s the purpose. That’s the last word purpose. It’s superb seeing so many alternatives for gamers to remain stateside, whether or not it’s with Athletes Limitless or Unmatched.”

A number of of Unmatched’s inaugural gamers — like Natasha Cloud, Lexie Hull, and Allisha Grey — beforehand performed for Athletes Limitless. Others, like Alyssa Thomas and Kayla McBride, are swapping their longtime abroad assignments for 3-on-3 basketball in Miami.

Brown is solely glad to see there are extra offseason alternatives for ladies basketball gamers.

“There are some gamers enjoying in Unmatched that most likely weren’t going to return enjoying Athletes Limitless anyway, however to have the ability to be making their mark, and them being as excited as they’re for this new ladies’s league — that makes me pleased, that makes me excited for them,” Brown stated.

Final 12 months, Athletes Limitless video games had been streamed on WNBA League Cross. This season’s broadcast plans haven’t but been launched, however Brown stated all video games will probably be very accessible.

Nashville is Athlete Limitless’s house in 2024

For the previous two seasons, Athletes Limitless occurred in Dallas. However this season, the league could have a brand new house.

“We had been just a little iffy about shifting places,” Brown stated. “We constructed such an excellent little neighborhood in Dallas the final two seasons.”

However, Nashville — a metropolis that’s reportedly focused on in the end having its personal WNBA staff — relentlessly recruited AU.

“They made it very, very clear, a number of instances,” Brown stated. “They had been very persistent about how a lot they needed ladies’s skilled basketball within the metropolis.”

The recruitment labored — and in flip, Athletes Limitless is headed to Tennessee.

Brown stated that her major purpose for the upcoming Athletes Limitless season is to extend the visibility of the league. That may result in increased salaries, which in flip, will assist attract further gamers and create extra alternatives for current ones.

“I simply need extra individuals to know what Athletes Limitless is,” Brown stated. “I really feel like not lots of people even know that it exists. My purpose, because the chairperson of the chief committee, is to make it possible for we get as many eyeballs on us as doable this season, as a result of I feel that is going to be actually particular. We’re going to do it huge and it’s going to be nice basketball, and it’s going to be lots of enjoyable to observe.”

This text is the third installment of SB Nation’s new “WNBA Defined” sequence, a weekly column diving deep into totally different matters associated to ladies’s basketball. You’ll be able to learn final week’s column about Unmatched right here.