r/WNBA365

Becky Hammon did not start regularly until her sixth pro season. Chelsea Gray waited until her third. Olivia Miles got the keys on day one, and Hammon now calls her “not a chartable player.” Minnesota is 29-7, three games up on Golden State entering tonight’s meeting in San Francisco.

The path runs through a year of TCU practices against teammates listed at 6-7 and 6-8, where Miles learned to finish against drop coverage; Lindsay Whalen as her 1-on-1 partner for the between-the-legs and no-look experiments; and Golden State hedging under screens on June 4, which turned a 2-for-18 start from three into a rookie-record eight makes. The same instinct produced five first-half turnovers against Las Vegas on Saturday, then four assists and none after halftime.

The one-handed whip passes are why Miles has the highlights and why she had five turnovers in one half against Las Vegas. Heading into the playoffs, do you want Reeve to rein that in, or let her keep firing?

The decision traces back to a walk on a San Diego beach during training camp, after a stretch that ran an 18-month CBA negotiation, free agency, the college draft, and the start of the season into one another. She called her people that night and told them she was 98 percent sure. Nneka Ogwumike sat with Taylor Rooks on the ten-year anniversary of the 2016 title she won in Los Angeles, and said the hardest part of her WNBPA presidency was “having to fight for people who would probably not fight for you.” She described emergency calls running past local midnight and 4 a.m. training sessions as the only window left for herself.

She is averaging 16.8 points and 8.8 rebounds on 50.8 percent shooting in her fifteenth season, back with the Sparks after two years in Seattle.

Full interview: youtu.be/q0xz-KNCXq8

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Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman worked with 13 brands across 72 hours around this year’s All-Star Weekend, and the figure their team gives for that stretch is north of a million dollars.

The stream numbers back up the reach even if the revenue is self-reported. In 2025, they logged 37 million minutes watched, averaged 8,400 concurrent viewers, peaked at 27,000, and drew 6,234 subscriptions. This year: 41.3 million minutes, average concurrent viewership up 32.6 percent to 11,138, a peak of 38,216, and subscriptions nearly doubled at 9,888.

Individual activations come with their own numbers. A DoorDash partnership last year produced a reported 16 million impressions and $550,000 in earned media value. Livestreaming the Celebrity 3-Point Contest for State Farm generated more than 3 million impressions and $150,000 in earned media value. They dyed their hair blue for AT&T, handed out bags in Chicago for Coach, and have deals with more than 20 brands, including Starbucks, Airbnb, Cash App, and Sprite.

In 2025, most of the deals materialized mid-stream as brands noticed what was happening. This year, the partnerships were planned in advance and built around the All-Star schedule. They are already working on 2027.

Could another WNBA duo pull off what Williams and Hiedeman have built, or do the StudBudz have something that doesn’t transfer?

The undrafted part covers seven years: four seasons at UMass, going from 1.9 points as a freshman to roughly 16 a night by the end; then a COVID waiver year at Louisville, where she started nearly every game at 10.8 points. Nobody drafted her. Two seasons overseas followed, the second producing 22.7 points, 4.1 assists and 1.5 steals in under 29 minutes on 56.7 percent shooting and 40.8 percent from three.

Chicago gave Taylor a training camp contract on April 13. She scored 23 on 7-of-13 in the second preseason game, made the roster, and was starting inside the first month.

This season, she’s averaging 14.7 points, the highest mark ever by an undrafted rookie, having passed the previous record of 13.0 on July 15 against Seattle. Twenty-seven against Toronto in game five. Seven more 20-point games since, including a career-high 31 against New York on 52.9 percent shooting. And last week against Las Vegas, 29 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, ending with a Natasha Cloud inbound and a three over Jackie Young with 3.2 seconds left for an 84-83 win. Her explanation afterward was that she just let it fly.

Does Taylor land your All-Rookie team?

Chicago can also pay her between $270,000 and $1.3 million next year. What’s the right number for a 25-year-old who went undrafted two years ago and is now the team’s leading scorer?

Whitney Bell, the Tempo’s chief marketing officer, studied the New York Liberty’s Ellie the Elephant before Toronto began its own process, which ran about a year. That included submitting illustrations to the WNBA for approval, clearing IP and trademarks, and a secret two-day audition in January to cast the performers. The team collected fan submissions, then went with one of its own preliminary concepts.

Dez, a borealis blue snapping turtle, comes from Muskoka and is named for decibel.

Dot, an Arctic hare, takes her name from T-Dot, the nickname Kardinal Offishall carried onto tracks like BaKardi Slang.

Toronto weighed a debut on opening night or at the April court reveal at Coca-Cola Coliseum, and held out for halftime against the Indiana Fever at Scotiabank Arena.

At least three fans were asked by league security to cover their shirts during Sunday’s Fever-Dream game in Atlanta. Two wore a message that women’s and girls’ sports should be restricted to those assigned female at birth. One wore a shirt in support of transgender people.

The league’s statement Monday said it was aware of the interactions and that this should not have happened. The security workers from that game have since been told they were wrong to ask for the messages to be covered.

For context on the underlying question, the CBA restricts the WNBA to women and contains no further language about gender identity or sex assigned at birth. No player assigned male at birth has played in the league. Players assigned female at birth have come out as transgender or nonbinary.