Angel Reese felt that Atlanta Dream teammates Rhyne Howard and Allisha Gray were snubbed by not being selected as All-Star starters.
Now the Dream trio will get to play together in Chicago at the WNBA All-Star Game on July 25 after all three players were selected as reserves by the league’s coaches on Tuesday.
Reese had said after the All-Star starters came out that she felt her two Dream teammates should have been starting. It’s the fourth time that Atlanta has had three All-Stars.
Joining the Dream players as reserves are Washington teammates Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen. Both made the All-Star Game as rookies last season.
Toronto’s Marina Mabrey will be making her first All-Star appearance and gave the expansion franchise a player in the game. She matched the WNBA record with a 53-point game last month.
Other players selected by the coaches were New York’s Jonquel Jones, whose adoptive mother is Temple women’s basketball coach Diane Richardson, Minnesota’s Courtney Williams, Las Vegas’ Jackie Young and Seattle’s Dominique Malonga, who will also be making her All-Star debut.
New York Liberty center Jonquel Jones (center) will join teammate Breanna Stewart in the WNBA All-Star Game.
Los Angeles teammates Nneka Ogwumike and Kelsey Plum also were picked. Ogwumike has been an All-Star 11 times and moved into a second-place tie with Diana Taurasi for most All-Star appearances, only trailing Sue Bird’s 13.
Coaches couldn’t vote for their own players.
Plum has been sidelined for the last few weeks with a leg injury and will be evaluated again later this month. If she can’t play, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert will choose a replacement.
New this year, WNBA greats Cynthia Cooper and Teresa Weatherspoon will serve as honorary general managers and select the two teams from the pool of All-Stars. The pair will select the teams at some point soon.
Chicago, Portland, Connecticut and Phoenix all don’t have All-Stars.
NEW YORK — Caitlin Clark was voted to start her third straight All-Star Game and will be joined by Indiana Fever teammates Kelsey Mitchell and Aliyah Boston, the WNBA announced Thursday.
It’s the second time in four years that three players from the same team were chosen to start the game, with Las Vegas doing so in 2023. Clark couldn’t play in last year’s game that the Fever hosted because she was injured right before the All-Star break.
Dallas’ Paige Bueckers and Minnesota rookie Olivia Miles will join Clark and her teammates as backcourt starters. It’s the fourth consecutive year that a rookie was chosen as an All-Star starter. Bueckers played last season.
A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, Jessica Shepard, Natasha Howard, and Gabby Williams were selected for the frontcourt for the game that will be played July 25 in Chicago. It will be Wilson’s and Stewart’s eighth All-Star appearance while Shepard will be making her first.
“It’s an honor to be an All-Star, even though I’ve had a few of them,” Stewart said. “Each one is really special, and I’m not taking it lightly.”
Williams played in her first All-Star Game last season. Howard will play in her third.
Starters were chosen by a mix of fan, player, and media votes. The fan vote counted for 50% while media and player votes were 25% each. Each player’s score was calculated by averaging their weighted rank from all three areas.
The league’s head coaches will select the 12 reserves for the team, and they’ll be announced Tuesday. The 15 head coaches will vote for three guards, five frontcourt players, and four players at either position regardless of conference. Coaches can’t vote for their own players.
New this year, WNBA greats Cynthia Cooper and Teresa Weatherspoon will serve as honorary general managers and select the two teams from the pool of All-Stars. Previously, the top two fan vote-getters would serve as captains and select the squads.
Bueckers, Clark, and Boston were the top three vote-getters among fans. All three received more than 1 million votes.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. —With Tennessee’s Candace Parker among the eight inductees in the 28th class of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, the site of Tennessee Theatre, which opened in 1999, seemed perfect.
But Philadelphia could have worked equally well as a magnet attraction, considering the number of people at the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame with ties to the area.
South Jersey native and former La Salle star Cheryl Reeve, longtime coach of the Minnesota Lynx who, with 379 victories, is one away from being the all-time league leader in a 17-year career, became the second WNBA mentor to gain induction.
She already is the combined leader when playoff appearances are factored.
Reeve is tied with former Houston Comets coach Van Chancellor at four WNBA titles and is in the hunt again this season. She also guided the 2024 USA Olympic team in Paris to its eighth straight gold medal.
The former high school hoops star at Washington Township was presented by one of her assistants, former Lynx great Lindsay Whelan. Among her supporters were recently retired Northwestern coach Joe McKeown, a Father Judge graduate who had Reeve as an assistant at George Washington, and Taj McWilliams-Franklin, who played for her in Minnesota and was also on the ABL Philadelphia Rage.
“She always treated everyone the same,” McWilliams-Franklin said of playing for Reeve.
Delaware grad Elena Delle Donne, out of Wilmington, now retired and the first managing director of USA 3×3 women’s national team, was also in the class and was introduced by former Immaculata star Marianne Stanley, who was an assistant coaching her on the Washington Mystics’ 2019 WNBA championship team.
Delle Donne was the No. 2 draft pick by the Chicago Sky in 2013, earning WNBA Rookie of the Year that season. She was twice league MVP and was the first member of the 50/40/90 club in 2019, shooting 51.5% from the field, 43% from three-point range, and 97.4% from the line.
“That’s a whole season,” Stanley said of Delle Donne’s shooting accuracy.
Elena Delle Donne was a two-time WNBA MVP and Olympic gold medalist. She retired after the 2023 season.
Acclaimed ESPN broadcaster Doris Burke, who could not attend but earned induction as a contributor, has lived in Ardmore since 2018. She has been a pioneering woman on NBA broadcasts besides having done WNBA and NCAA national women’s games earlier in her career as an analyst.
The late Barbara Kennedy-Dixon out of Clemson, whose husband accepted the award on her behalf, was presented by all-time Kentucky great Val Still, who lives in Palmyra, N.J.
Kennedy-Dixon, one of eight players in NCAA history with 3,000 points and 1,000 rebounds, still holds a slew of ACC single season marks. and in 1982 playing against Penn State, she scored the first basket in the inaugural NCAA women’s tourney.
Meanwhile, taking over as the Hall’s executive director this year is former Tennessee star Michelle Marciniak, known as “Spinderella” in her high school days as a point guard in Allentown, and who also played on the Philadelphia Rage at the same time as Dawn Staley.
Parker and Delle Donne are also headed for Springfield, Mass., in August as part of the Naismith inductee class as is former Tennessee notable Chamique Holdsclaw, who was Parker’s presenter.
“She changed the game,” Holdsclaw said of Parker, who then saluted likewise in her acceptance speech.
The other inductees Saturday night were Amaya Valdemoro, a former WNBA star in Houston and the first Spanish star inducted here, former Colorado star Isabelle Fijalkowski, the first French player into the WNBA, drafted in the inaugural 1997 season and whose daughter 6-foot-7 Alicia Tournebize now plays for Staley at South Carolina, and recently retired Kirkwood Community College coach Kim Muhl, who is the NJCAA leader with a 1,108-178 record and nine titles. He holds the NJCAA D-II women’s record of 39 straight wins.
One of the more opinionated individuals in the WNBA, Reeve during Friday’s media session got emotional, shedding a few tears talking about playing for Speedy Morris at La Salle and how much of his coaching she has taken with her to her career.
Taking about her high school coach Dawn Schilling, later married to Eagles star John Bunting, Reeve, who also played softball, credited Schilling for steering her to continue basketball “with more opportunities.”
In Saturday’s speech, she made references on working Immaculata coach Cathy Rush’s camps and mentioned John Miller, who also coached her at La Salle.
Reeve, who was taking a 5 a.m. flight Sunday to rejoin the Lynx at Dallas, has had her share of controversy with WNBA officials and talking about seeing some listed as inductees here, quipped “I can’t wait to get one.”
Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve is in her 17th season with the team.
Talking about her first WNBA job as an assistant to Anne Donovan at a $5,000 salary and later with Dan Hughes and Bill Laimbeer before hired with the Lynx, Reeve said, “From 2001 until today, I ate, drank, and slept everything WNBA. I experienced teams folding, I collected unemployment, and hearing my dad wonder when I was going to get a real job.
“This game has given me a fulfilling lifetime of joy. To share the Hall with so many women’s basketball greats makes me glad I never got a real job.”
Marciniak, doing her first welcome, noted her number was retired.
“I had No. 3 before Parker, so yes my number is retired.”
Delle Donne, who had a short commitment at UConn before landing home at Delaware to be closer to her sister Lizzie, who was born deaf, blind and cerebal with cerebral palsy, brought the house down in her opening remarks, expressing the warmth she felt from Knoxville.
“I’m not sure if it’s because of this Hall of Fame honor or because I left UConn after 24 hours.”
Saluting her sister, Delle Donne was emotional, saying, “Although you can’t hear me, I hope you can feel the impact you made on me. For the challenges most people couldn’t begin to understand … you’ve shown me that the hardest battles are met head-on without self-pity.”
On her recent retirement after dealing with back issues late in her career, dealing with the pain, she decided it was time and was at peace with herself.
She described her career as “a love story, that even had a brief divorce for volleyball until I came back.”
Parker wore a suit designed as a tribute to her coach, the legendary Pat Summitt, who 10 years ago Sunday, died from complications of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
“My continued desire to imitate Pat and how she attacked life every day proves there’s nobody like her,” Parker said. “Though she’ll be gone 10 years ago tomorrow, she’s still leaving a lasting impact that we all can and should draw from.”
No matter where Kahleah Copper’s basketball journey takes her, she continues to carry North Philadelphia with her — even on her shoes.
The Phoenix Mercury guard and four-time All-Star debuted a custom “Norf Philly” Adidas Harden Vol. 10 player-exclusive sneaker during Wednesday night’s game against the reigning WNBA champions Las Vegas Aces.
The black-and-white shoe features “Just a kid from” on the left heel and “Norf Philly” on the right heel. Copper has adopted the phrase “just a kid from Norf Philly” throughout her time in the WNBA. It’s a nod to the neighborhood that helped shape her.
Her love for basketball started on the streets of North Philadelphia. She practiced shooting by attaching a crate to a one-way sign on 32nd & Berks Streets.
“There wasn’t a lot of opportunities for young girls to play in different leagues, so I played in a league with a bunch of guys,” she said in an interview in 2025. “The things those guys instilled in me, whether it was that toughness or that grit or just always having that chip on my shoulder because I wasn’t as strong as them … shout out the guys.”
In 2021, Copper was named WNBA Finals MVP after leading the Chicago Sky to their first championship. After winning the championship, she paid it back to her Philly roots.
“North Philly is different,” she said in a 2021 article in the Players’ Tribune. “It’s a place I love, the place where I learned how to play tough.”
The Aces won Wednesday’s game, 86-76, and Copper, who finished with 26 points, is averaging a team-best 19.3 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 1.9 assists for the Mercury (4-12), who are 13th in the WNBA standings.
Copper has joined the tradition of Philadelphia basketball stars using sneakers to show where they’ve come from. The Nike Kobe 4 Philly dropped on Jan. 1, 2009, with a color scheme of red, white, and blue to pay homage to Kobe Bryant’s hometown and the 76ers. A “Philly” Nike Kobe 4 Protro was released in 2024.
Official Look at the 'Philly' Nike Kobe 4 Protro
This "Philly" colorway pays homage to Kobe Bryant's connection to the Philadelphia area, as his father, Joe, played for the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1970s.
Rasheed Wallace, a 2004 NBA champion with the Detroit Pistons and Simon Gratz graduate, was known for wearing high-top Nike Air Force 1s.
“The strap was a Philly thing,” Wallace told the All the Smoke podcast in May 2025. “In Philly when we wear the high-top Air Force 1s, you keep the strap on the back.”
After more than six months of searching, The Stoop Pigeon has finally found its home. The women’s sports hub will be located at the intersection of Broad and Pine Streets — giving Philly fans a view of City Hall, and the perfect place to reminisce on past championship parades.
“It’s a location that people immediately identify with,” said Lori Albright, the managing partner of The Stoop Pigeon. “As soon as we say Broad and Pine, people are like, ‘Oh my God, that’s where I watched the Phillies parade.’”
The Stoop Pigeon has been in the making for a few years. It all started with Jen Leary’s creation in spring 2024: Watch Party PHL, which hosted monthly events at local sports bars to bring fans together and provide a safe and inclusive place to watch women’s sporting events — with the sound on..
Since then, they’ve continued to grow — and so has the city’s women’s sports team, including the announcement of its own WNBA team — and Leary realized it was time for a brick-and-mortar location.
“It’s been truly amazing to go from where we were two-and-a-half years ago when I started doing this,” Leary said. “I could not find a single place in the city showing women’s sports at all, let alone with the sound on, to where we are now — packing places with like 700 people wanting to watch women’s sports. It’s incredible.
“It just shows you that if you give people a space, they will come out and support women’s sports, but you have to give them the opportunity to do that. And we are doing that here in Philly.”
Watch Party PHL founder Jen Leary holds the “Philly is a women’s sports town” shirt that went viral after Aubrey Plaza wore it to a Liberty game.
The women’s sports hub, which will be open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to midnight, will double as a cafe by day and a watch bar at night. The cafe includes partnerships with several Philly-based companies, including coffee from Rival Bros, pastries from Crust Vegan Bakery and Second Daughter, and drinks, including locally brewed beers, ready to drink cocktails, and non-alcoholic beverages, from Sterling Pig Brewery, with whom they previously partnered for a women’s sports themed beer.
They’ll serve a number of items named after women athletes and Philadelphia favorites. Some of the items include: The Dawn Staley latte, the Victory Veggie Burger (named after Victory Brewing), Ora-cini balls (named after Ora Washington), Vivian Shoe-Stringer fries, a KFC pulled-chicken sandwich in honor of Kahleah Copper’s “KFC” nickname, and a Tastykake bread pudding as an homage to the Philadelphia-based snack brand.
“The goal was to have a local take on a menu,” Leary said. “This isn’t going to be a restaurant, but we’re definitely going to have things that will make people want to come back. We want to make sure they enjoy their time with us and stay. So we’re going to have vegetarian options, we’re going to have vegan options, we’re going to have allergy-free options.”
With a number of big sporting events coming to Philly in 2026 — including the MLB All-Star Game, the PGA Championship, and the FIFA World Cup — Leary, Albright, and their partners, Fawn McGee and Megan DiTolla, plan to open in June.
“We really want everyone to feel welcome,” Leary said. “So we want it to be family-friendly. You can bring your kids. The whole reason we’re very intentional about not calling it a bar is because we want people who don’t drink to feel comfortable there.”
When The Stoop Pigeon opens, it will join Marsha’s on South Street, which opened in September, as the latest sign that “Philly is a women’s sports town.”
NEW YORK — If someone starts making money somewhere, the Big Apple often isn’t far behind trying to claim a piece.
So when Philadelphia’s hosting of Unrivaled’s women’s basketball league banked $2 million in revenue, turning profits for the league and Comcast, it wasn’t surprising that this city wanted in.
Nor was it surprising that Unrivaled wanted it too. The three-on-three circuit and Brooklyn’s Barclays Center had already talked about next season, but a deal quickly came together to move this season’s playoff semifinals here. It was a natural fit for a venue renowned for drawing some of the WNBA’s biggest and loudest crowds to New York Liberty games.
“When this opportunity came up, they jumped right on it,” Paige Bueckers of Breeze BC and the Dallas Wings said. “I played here a couple times before, and the atmosphere in the arena is just electric. [Philadelphia] was everything that we could have dreamed that it would be, and so it’s obviously an opportunity that we want to take advantage of again.”
Paige Bueckers (right) working against Arike Ogunbowale in the Breeze vs. Mist semifinal.
How would this scene compare to Xfinity Mobile Arena’s record crowd of 21,490, as the city unleashed itself from a 28-year-wait to see professional women’s basketball in person?
Natasha Cloud played diplomat, being both a Broomall native and Liberty fan favorite.
“This is just a testament to the demand [for] women’s basketball right now,” the Phantom BC guard said. “This [night] is going to sell out tonight again, just like Philly did. And this is why we’re going to continue to stand on our worth and our value because when you give the product, the demand is there.”
One could guess that New York would deliver more cash. Fans here will pay up for a big show, and the Barclays Center recently added swaths of new luxury seating.
Before Monday’s games, Unrivaled CEO Alex Bazzell met with the media and said, “this is already a profitable trip,” including over $1 million in ticket revenue alone.
Natasha Cloud (left) defending Brittney Griner during the Phantom vs. Vinyl semifinal.
Philadelphia keeps a record
He also was unabashed in drawing a straight line from Unrivaled’s success in Philadelphia to going on the road again a few weeks later. This night came together in just three weeks, from landing the building to selling it out.
“To be honest with you, it was somewhat of an internal split room on, ‘Should we pull the trigger on this? Should we not?’” he said. “Coming off Philly and having that great success was one thing, but it was also we had time to strategize and plan [and] had a great partner like Xfinity come in behind it and help amplify it [as a sponsor].”
In the end, the executives trusted their gut and were rewarded.
“This was all organic,” Bazzell said. “We can look at all the data that you want, but, ultimately, the decision came down to: We didn’t play it safe to build this league, so we don’t start playing it safe now. That’s not in our DNA.”
On one count, Brooklyn always was going to land far short of Philadelphia. The Barclays Center is a much smaller venue than Xfinity Mobile Arena, and its full house Monday was 18,261.
So Philadelphia gets something to claim while it waits for its own WNBA team in 2030, and it’s a mark that could stand for a while. Just three pro basketball arenas nationwide have larger capacities: Detroit, Washington, and Chicago.
“Philly was amazing, from everything that I saw and from talking to everybody that came back,” Brittney Griner, a star of Vinyl BC and the Atlanta Dream, said after watching those games from afar. “It looked amazing on TV — they packed out that stadium. It shows how much women’s basketball is growing and there’s a love and there’s a need and people want to come and watch.”
Breanna Stewart, one of Unrivaled’s cofounders, said, “the conversation from the players was just a tremendous amount of appreciation” for the turnout.
“What I think is probably the coolest about Philly is we went to a non-WNBA city,” she said. “People came, and they cared, and whether they had to travel in [or] all those types of things, it showed how big of a deal it is.”
Looking at a return
Of course, the superstar of Mist BC and the New York Liberty admitted her bias toward Brooklyn, as one would expect. And since this was a playoff game, she had to earn the right to play in it.
“Ever since I knew that this was possible … for it to come to fruition and full circle that fast is something that I couldn’t wait to be a part of,” she said. “Like, my team needed to be here in the semis. I didn’t want to come as a spectator; I wanted to be playing.”
Stewart duly delivered, willing Mist to a 73-69 win with a fourth-quarter comeback that had the crowd roaring. She piled up 23 points, eight rebounds, and five assists, dishing the last to Arike Ogunbowale for a game-sealing three-pointer on the Wings star’s birthday.
Bazzell confirmed there are plans to keep touring next season, and there’s a lot of “inbound interest” from potential hosts. He didn’t name specific cities, but he did say preliminary talks with the Barclays Center had started with looking at next year instead of this one.
— Unrivaled Basketball (@Unrivaledwbb) March 3, 2026
He also said “going to cities that really don’t get to see these stars up close” matters. And he threw the door wide-open to a return to Philadelphia, though it might not happen next season
“We want to find our way back to Philly,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s next year, the following year, or the year after — we do want to hit new markets. … There’s obviously other NBA markets we still want to think about going to. So I would anticipate new venues, new cities next year when we do announce our [schedule].”
The last word goes to a player who was a star of both touring nights. Kelsey Plum led Phantom BC to a win in Philadelphia and another here, this time scoring 31 points in an 83-75 victory over Vinyl. A longtime villain in Brooklyn from past years with the Las Vegas Aces, this time she was roundly cheered.
“Basketball cities, right? And I think they just love the game,” she said. “I thought everyone put on a show, and that’s what you want for the fans.”
Each Friday, Inquirer photo editors pick the best Philly sports images from the last seven days. This week, we’re reaching all the way to last Friday night, when Unrivaled took over South Philly and brought a record crowd to Xfinity Mobile Arena. But that’s not all the basketball — we’ve also got the Sixers, some local college action, and a high school hoops showdown between two defending state champs, Father Judge (Class 6A) and Neumann Goretti (5A).
St. Joe’s forward Anthony Finkley (left) reacts after teammate Jaiden Glover-Toscano hits a three during the second half against George Washington. The Hawks’ 76-73 win was their fourth straight.Philly native Ronald Moore (center) was once an NCAA Tournament hero at Siena and now serves as an assistant coach for the Penn Quakers.Neumann Goretti’s Marquis Newson gets up a shot against Father Judge in the first quarter of the Saints’ 71-66 win over the Crusaders in South Philadelphia on Sunday.Neumann Goretti’s Kody Colson passes the ball past Father Judge’s Khory Copeland (4) and Rezon Harris. Unrivaled set a record for attendance at a regular season women’s basketball game during the three-on-three league’s stop in Philly on Friday night.Cameron Brink of the Breeze leaps past Broomall native Natasha Cloud of the Phantoms. Cloud celebrated her professional hoops homecoming on Friday.Friday’s Unrivaled doubleheader drew more than 21,000 fans and was sold out well in advance.Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey (right) said he was surprised to hear that teammate Jared McCain was traded this week. Before the deadline, center Joel Embiid (left) said he had hoped the team would stay intact. Sixers forward Dominick Barlow drives past New Orleans Pelicans center Yves Missi.Flyers forward Owen Tippett beats Capitals goalie Clay Stevenson to give the Flyers a 1-0 lead in the first period of Tuesday’s win over Washington.Flyers goalkeeper Samuel Ersson (left) talks with Samuel Hancock, who plays goalie for his youth league team, at the Flyers Charities Carnival on Sunday.Shawn Paul, 3, receives a little help from his dad, Zach, as they try one of the games at the Flyers Charities Carnival.The Flyers Charities Carnival featured a Ferris wheel, a merry-go-round, and other carnival favorites. Fans could also interact with players, coaches, and alumni.The Phillie Phanatic helps load cases of supplies onto the team truck before it leaves for spring training in Clearwater, Fla. Yes, he packed his hot dog launcher.Sunday’s boys’ basketball game between Neumann Goretti and Father Judge was sold out.
Head to the corner of 32nd and Berks, Kahleah Copper says. And find the telephone pole with the backboard still nailed to it.
“That’s where I started hooping,” Copper said Thursday. “That’s where it all really began for me.”
That spot is so meaningful that Copper took her Unrivaled teammates on a walking tour there, traipsing through snow-lined sidewalks and frigid temperatures to reach it. The 31-year-old wanted them to see the North Philly she always boasts about, to “share that little piece of me.”
Kah visiting where it all started👑 #Unrivaled #WNBA
It was part of the nostalgia and “waves of gratitude” Copper felt during this particular trip home, culminating in playing Friday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena in professional women’s basketball’s return to Philly. While speaking about the family, friends, and mentors in that sold-out crowd — who knew the kid who once shot on that makeshift hoop — Copper’s emotions quickly (and unexpectedly) bubbled to the surface.
“There’s so many people that just kind of stepped into my life,” said Copper, eyes teary and voice breaking, “and did stuff for me, literally not looking for anything in return. … For them to see me now, like I really made it because of y’all. That’s tough. That’s fire.
“Everybody literally planted little seeds for me to be who I am today. That’s why it’s so special.”
An early opponent on that neighborhood basket? One of her three sisters, whom Kahleah claims “wasn’t even that good, and she did not even, like, like it.” It is how she realized how much she did love basketball — and hated losing.
Then there were the guys who welcomed her into pickup games at Fairmount Park playground courts at 33rd and Diamond, even though she was a girl. As long as she did not cry. As long as she was ready to take hits. And as long as, whenever she lost, she got off the court and found her way back into the next game.
“Nothing being handed to me. Got to go get it. Got to be tougher,” Copper said. “That’s kind of where I got my mindset, and that’s how I approach everything.”
Eric Worley, the cofounder of Philadelphia Youth Basketball, first met Copper as a middle schooler. Sabrina Allen, a friend and then the coach at Girard College, recognized potential in Copper. Worley agreed that Copper “could run real fast, could jump real high” — and “got off the ground twice before the other player got off the ground once.”
“She just came in the game and you knew she was going to bring energy,” Worley told The Inquirer in front of an arena suite Friday night. “Get some offensive rebounds. Get some putbacks. And just kind of bring that North Philly toughness that she always kind of goes back to.
“That’s really true, and that has always been part of her makeup.”
Kahleah Copper introduced in front of the Philly crowd. Got something cooking on her that you’ll be able to read tomorrow 👀
Yet because of work and family obligations for Copper’s mother, Leticia, Kahleah often needed a ride to practices or AAU games. Worley and his family stepped in. Reminiscing about that kindness is what first made Copper’s voice waver in front of reporters on Thursday. The next day, Worley called the gesture “easy” because of the Copper family’s honesty about their situation and appreciation for the support.
“She trusted us with her baby,” Worley said of Copper’s mother. “She was like, ‘Hey, I know y’all are good people. I know you have her best interests at heart. Come get her. What time do I need to have her ready? She’s going to have her bags packed and ready to go.’”
Copper later moved to 23rd and Diamond, into the same Raymond Rosen projects where basketball legend Dawn Staley grew up. Copper started playing at Hank Gathers Recreation Center and walked Broad Street to Temple to join the pickup games with the women’s basketball team.
Eventually, Copper branched out, starring in college at Rutgers before turning pro. She blossomed into a four-time All-Star and won the 2021 WNBA championship and Finals MVP. She played overseas in Belgium, Poland, Turkey, Israel, and Spain. This past fall, she helped the Phoenix Mercury to a surprise Finals run, upsetting the defending champion New York Liberty along the way.
Then Unrivaled, the offseason league in its second season, finally brought Copper home to play professionally.
Veteran star Skylar Diggins sat behind Copper on the bus once they arrived, watching her take in her hometown. Copper kept a camcorder handy to document everything from the familiar surroundings to her teammates crammed in an elevator in their hotel. Awaiting everybody was a massive cheesesteak order from the iconic Dalessandro’s, ready for Copper to dress her sandwich with mayonnaise, salt and pepper, and ketchup (but no onions).
“Everybody I know [eats it that way],” Copper said. “That’s real Philly right there.”
All four Unrivaled teams practiced at the Alan Horwitz “Sixth Man” Center located about 10 minutes from where she grew up. She marveled at the easily accessible “safe space” — complete with study areas, therapy rooms, and meals — it provides area kids today. That is where she first reunited with Worley, the coach calling it “genuine love.” Copper then spent time with some of Worley’s current players, along with kids who have grown up attending Copper’s summer camp, launched nine years ago.
“Now it’s time to really cement your legacy,” Worley said, “by paying it forward for the next generation.”
Kahleah Copper of the Rose scored 19 points and had four rebounds during the Philly Is Unrivaled doubleheader on Friday.
And with her Rose BC teammates in tow, Copper still squeezed in that neighborhood walk she made countless times as a kid. They began at the park and then moved to the pole with the backboard, which Copper said left everybody “in awe.” Then they went to her home, sat on the stoop, and yelled “Norf!”
Throughout the stroll, Copper pointed out her favorite water ice stand and go-to gas station. She shared memories of trying to hurry back home before the streetlights came on. It all illustrated why, in teammate Shakira Austin’s words, Copper is an “embodiment of Philly.”
“You can just see the way she speaks about things,” Austin said Friday. “She’s so excited about this opportunity and about this experience. She’s been rambling a lot, but it’s so fun to hear and just to see her be her true self.
“She’s probably been the most out of her shell since we’ve been here.”
Copper took all 60 tickets provided by Unrivaled for “her people” to attend Friday’s game, with several others sharing that they had bought their own. She could not wait to scan the crowd and “probably see people I haven’t seen since I was maybe in college, or maybe in high school.” After the Rose’s 85-75 loss, in which she totaled 19 points and four rebounds, Copper ventured into Section 123, wrapping those loved ones in hugs and posing for photos.
Many of them know all about 32nd and Berks, and the pole with the backboard. And now, so do her Unrivaled teammates.
“I made them walk in that cold,” Copper said. “But they love so much, so they did it for me. I was just super grateful to be able to show that little piece of me.”
Fans hold up their signs supporting Kahleah Copper of the Rose and Natasha Cloud of the Phantom during the Philly Is Unrivaled doubleheader on Friday.
We hear often that it’s good to run things in life like a business. It’s said especially loudly about women’s sports, in Philadelphia and elsewhere.
So let’s do that.
The 21,490 fans who packed Xfinity Mobile Arena for Friday’s Unrivaled basketball showcase clearly had business on their minds. It was the largest announced attendance in arena history, helped by Unrivaled’s three-on-three court being smaller than regulation, and it was full of wallets.
They were opened often, to buy T-shirts, hats, hoodies, hot dogs, and all the fancier food and drinks on offer these days.
The crowd roared for hometown heroes Natasha Cloud and Kahleah Copper, but not just for them. Paige Bueckers, Kelsey Plum, Chelsea Gray, and Marina Mabrey also drew big cheers.
Kahleah Copper during player introductions before the Rose game against the Lunar Owls in Game 2 of the Philly is Unrivaled doubleheader on Friday.
“I think it was awesome to see them come out and support us like that,” Mabrey said after scoring an Unrivaled game record 47 points in the Lunar Owls’ 85-75 win over Rose. “I don’t know what I expected, but I didn’t realize it was going to be so much hype around it and so much support.”
There was celebrity wattage from Wanda Sykes, Leslie Jones, Freeway, and Jason and Kylie Kelce. Dawn Staley was in the front row, of course. The 76ers’ Tyrese Maxey, Kyle Lowry, Andre Drummond, Trendon Watford, and Dominick Barlow had courtside seats too.
They all helped answer a question that’s been simmering in town for a while.
At any business school, they’ll teach you that the most fundamental rule of economics is supply and demand. But how can you prove there’s demand when there’s no supply in the first place?
One way, for sure, is to not try in the first place. That was the case with women’s basketball in Philadelphia for 28 years, the time between the end of the Philadelphia Rage in 1998 and now. It’s mostly been the case with women’s soccer since the Independence folded in 2011, though at least the U.S. national team visits every few years.
Yet Philadelphia has now set two women’s sports attendance records in recent years. In 2019, Lincoln Financial Field hosted 49,504 fans for a U.S. women’s soccer game, and that’s still the largest crowd for a standalone home friendly. On Friday, the arena across 11th Street hosted the largest crowd to watch a regular-season professional women’s basketball game.
Another path to travel invokes another rule of economics. In a free market, shouldn’t someone be able try something? If they fail, so be it, and if they succeed, they profit.
The people who brought Unrivaled here, and those who will bring a WNBA team here in 2030, chose the second road.
‘It wasn’t a charity event’
On the day in October when Unrivaled announced it would come here, Comcast Spectacor chief financial officer Blair Listino watched her phone light up with notifications of ticket sales.
A Phantom fan cheers the team during its game against Breeze.
“While we were sitting there waiting for the [announcement] event to happen,” she told The Inquirer, “7,000 tickets were sold within the first few hours of the event being on sale. So right then and there, I knew, ‘OK, there is demand.’”
Listino also is an alternate governor of the Flyers. She was the team’s CFO from 2019 to 2023 and has worked for Comcast in a range of finance-related capacities since 2011. So she has plenty of experience with measuring what Philadelphia sports fans want — and with making hard business deals.
“We worked with Unrivaled management, and we treated it like any other event,” she said. “It wasn’t a charity event; we didn’t give them a sweetheart deal. It was a true rental agreement where we said, ‘We believe in you, we think that you’ll be able to sell out this building, and we’ll all be profitable from it.’”
That made it, she said, “good business sense for both us and Unrivaled.”
Philadelphia welcomes Paige Bueckers to the floor:
It was not just based on Jen Leary, the founder of Watch Party PHL, holding events and selling out of “Philly Is A Women’s Sports Town” T-shirts for over a year. Or Chivonn Anderson opening Marsha’s, a women’s sports bar on South Street. Or any number of people on social media, or in this reporter’s inbox, or so on.
No, this was Philadelphia’s biggest company believing that women’s sports can be profitable in its city. And now there’s proof.
Along with that, an Unrivaled spokesperson told The Inquirer on Saturday that the night delivered $2 million in revenue to the league, including over $1 million in ticket sales and $400,000 in merchandise sales at the arena.
“I think when choosing a market that doesn’t necessarily have a team, but there’s demand, you take a leap of faith into your decision,” said Cloud, whose Phantom beat Breeze, 71-68. “And Unrivaled chose the right city, the right sports town, and the right fan base.”
The crowd returned the favor many times over Friday, bringing the Broomall native to tears in a postgame interview on court.
“You just give us the opportunity to actually do it,” North Philadelphia’s Copper said. She recalled playing a WNBA preseason game in Toronto with the Chicago Sky in 2023 in front of a sellout crowd at the city’s NBA arena. That moment lit a spark that led to the Toronto Tempo, an expansion team that will tip off this year.
“How they were able to kind of lead up and have that build up, I think it’s kind of the same,” she said. “And I think the city has been wanting it. So this is a good introduction, and we’ll give them something to look forward to.”
It’s not just the local products who’ve felt that. Players from elsewhere who are used to big crowds at their games were excited to be part of a first here.
“Kudos to Alex [Bazzell], our president, and the whole league having ‘Tash’ and ‘Kah’ be spokespersons for this amazing city,” said Breeze’s Cameron Brink, who played collegiately for Stanford and is now with the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks. “Kah has done so much for women’s basketball in this city and the resources that are now available. I’m just proud that we saw that this is a city that wants to cheer on women’s basketball — so hopefully there’s more of it in the future.”
Cameron Brink leaps past Natasha Cloud (right) during the first quarter of the Breeze-Phantom game.
Brink grew up in Princeton, N.J., and her parents played college basketball at Virginia Tech. She moved to the Portland, Ore., suburbs at age 8, but heard plenty of stories from her mother, Michelle, about the East Coast.
“I was talking with her the other day — she’s like, ‘I honestly can’t believe women’s basketball has gotten to this point,’” Brink said. “I mean, we’ve always believed, but it’s really special that we get to soak in this moment. So I just think back to the women before me, and I’m just thankful for how they paved the way.”
Kate Martin of Unrivaled’s Breeze has played for Iowa and the WNBA’s Golden State Valkyries, both of which draw huge crowds to every game. She knew Philadelphia doesn’t have that track record, so she was excited to be part of a first.
“I think it’s really important for young girls to be able to see people that they want to be like,” Martin said. “I think it’s important for them to be able to see if they want to be a women’s basketball player, to see that in their city, and be able to have access to going to a game.”
Kate Martin in action Friday.
Friday’s spectacle undoubtedly will push Unrivaled to take more of its games on the road next season, and they may well come back here. There might not be another full house with the novelty factor gone, and one night in 2026 doesn’t mean the future WNBA team will sell out all of its games years later.
Nor does it mean that what’s true today was true in past years, when Cloud and Copper weren’t yet big names.
But it does mean there’s demand for a product right now, and that it can make money right now. Philadelphia finally got an opportunity, and took it.
The crowd inside Xfinity Mobile Arena for Philly is Unrivaled already was high-energy. Then Marina Mabrey brought the house down with an Unrivaled-record 47 points in the second game of the doubleheader.
The Belmar, N.J., native plays in Connecticut and has no real connection to Philadelphia, but the crowd went crazy for every three-pointer like she was one of their own.
“I brought my Jersey to Philly, and I hope that you guys enjoyed it,” Mabrey said. “Thank you for welcoming me with open arms.”
Friday’s Unrivaled doubleheader at Xfinity Mobile Arena was the first time the three-on-three league had left its Miami-area home. Unlike the WNBA or NBA, the teams are not tied to a specific city or region. That makes the league a fascinating “social experiment,” TV analyst Renee Montgomery said.
Unrivaled is driven by fans’ love for players and for the game, Rose BC’s Lexie Hull said. A number of the 21,490 fans in the building came in repping their favorite players across the women’s basketball world, with plenty of love for superstar Paige Bueckers and Philly locals Natasha Cloud and Kahleah Copper, or in T-shirts declaring that “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports” or that “Philly is a Women’s Sports Town.”
“Philly is a basketball city,” Montgomery said. “… I think there’s certain cities that lean in and they don’t just halfway do anything, and I feel like Philly is that type of city. They see that Unrivaled chose this place to be the first one, and Philly’s like, ‘Bet, let’s show out.’ That’s what it felt like to me.”
The neutral crowds make Unrivaled a different environment in the pro sports landscape, but neutral didn’t mean there was any less passion.
“One thing I know about Philly is, it’s really passionate about its sports, good and bad, through and through, the City of Brotherly Love,” Bueckers said. “You feel that, and we felt that tonight, just how passionate they were and are about women’s basketball.”
Philadelphia has never been home to a WNBA franchise, and was home to an American Basketball League franchise for just two years before the team folded in 1998. But with an expansion franchise set to come to Philadelphia in 2030, Unrivaled’s sold-out crowd at Xfinity Mobile Arena was just a taste of Philly’s appetite for women’s professional basketball.
Hull said she hoped to see Unrivaled continue to thrive in that niche, serving markets like Philadelphia that don’t have WNBA franchises yet. Unrivaled’s Philly tour stop set the record for most fans at a regular-season professional women’s basketball game, and a building record for Xfinity Mobile Arena.
“With the growth of the sport, there’s just so many people that want to see it live and don’t have the opportunity to fly to a [WNBA] city and watch a game during the season,” Hull said. “This gives them the opportunity to get to watch and grow the game, so it’s awesome.”
Sixers Kyle Lowry, Andre Drummond, Trendon Watford, and Dominick Barlow, and New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu were among the basketball stars in the building.
But of course, one of the most excited fans in the building was South Carolina head coach and local basketball legend Dawn Staley. For Phantom BC’s Aliyah Boston, who played for Staley in college, it was an amazing surprise to see Staley courtside again.
“I was shocked, when I came out, one of our assistants was like, ‘See Coach Staley?’” And I was like, ‘What? What?’ Saw her right over there, gave her a hug.”
Boston said that the two still have a “special relationship,” and she had to go up to Staley at halftime to ask for feedback on her game.
After playing for Staley, Boston said she had an idea of what to expect of playing in Philly, and the intensity and toughness needed for the tight game matched her expectations.
“The biggest thing for her was just that mindset,” Boston said. “She talked about her upbringing and that grind in Philly, and that’s the approach that she wants us to take on the court. Just have that dog mentality. Being able to hear that for four years just continued to shape me into who I am as a player today.”
Friday’s event was a huge head start in showing the players just how good of a women’s basketball market Philly can be. With the record-setting, energetic crowd, the conversation now turns to how to keep the momentum going until the WNBA franchise establishes itself in 2030.
Unrivaled players were excited about the prospect of adding new tour stops and continuing to travel in the seasons to come, and Unrivaled president Alex Bazzell confirmed Friday that the league plans to do more road trips next year.
Could Philly be on that list a second time?
Breeze BC’s Kate Martin, who played for the Golden State Valkyries in their inaugural season last year, shared the advice she’d give to anyone playing for a Philly expansion franchise, after the Valkyries quickly became the most-attended team in the WNBA in their first year.
“When you start to build that sense of community, that people feel more like they have a relationship with you, they want to come, they want to support,” Martin said. “Making the atmosphere fun, making people feel welcome, making people feel excited about basketball.”
Kate Martin, who plays for the Breeze and the WNBA’s Golden State Valkyries, knows a thing or two about building a fan base.
