Unrivaled, the professional three-on-three basketball league that paid the highest salaries in American women’s team sports history in its debut season, announced three new players and its eight head coaches for Year 2 on Thursday.
Rising WNBA star Dominique Malonga, the No. 2 pick in April’s WNBA Draft, as well as wing Rebecca Allen and guard Aari McDonald, are included in the league’s final preseason player announcements. The league had space for an additional player after it announced DiJonai Carrington would miss the 2026 Unrivaled season due to a left foot injury she suffered in the WNBA postseason.
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“Excitement across the board is really, really high,” Unrivaled executive vice president and general manager Clare Duwelius said. “The players who we were able to add heading into Season 2 are super exciting names to me. Knowing how we had amazing success in Year 1 and just seeing how it can really come to life in Year 2 is probably what I’m most excited about, eager about.”
Malonga had originally signed to play with Turkish power Fenerbahçe this offseason, but the club announced 10 days ago that she had “unilaterally terminated” her deal. Duwelius declined to share specifics of how the league ended up with the French star, only that, “once she expressed to us she had interest, we definitely want to see it through.”
Teresa Weatherspoon and Nola Henry, whose Rose team won the inaugural championship, headline the league’s eight coaches, four of whom, including Weatherspoon, are returning for a second season. Weatherspoon (Vinyl), Henry (Rose), DJ Sackmann (Lunar Owls) and Andrew Wade (Laces) are all back with their respective teams.
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Former Seattle Storm coach Noelle Quinn, Chicago Sky assistant coach Rena Wakama, Connecticut Sun assistant coach Roneeka Hodges and Zach O’Brien, who was most recently an assistant with the New York Liberty, will be head coaches for the other four teams. Each coach will be involved with Unrivaled for the first time.
Quinn, who served as the head coach of the Storm from 2021-25, will be the first coach of Breeze Basketball Club, one of Unrivaled’s two new teams this season. Wakama, who is also the head coach of the Nigerian women’s national team, will be the coach for Hive Basketball Club, also debuting this season. Hodges will replace Adam Harrington as the coach of Phantom, while O’Brien will replace Phil Handy as Mist coach.
“It’s a wide range (of experiences),” Duwelius said. “We want to develop the players just as much as we want to develop the coaches who are being thrust into these positions and to see how they can shine too.”
Duwelius said that “interest was great” from prospective coaching candidates, and the coaches the league hired have already been involved in the team-building process. The eight six-player rosters are expected to be announced next week, and the six-player developmental pool will also be unveiled. Those six players will not be assigned to a team at the start of the season, but will be present on-site and serve as injury relief players.
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The addition of the development pool represents just one significant change heading into next season.
Before players in the inaugural season dispersed from South Florida, league executives sought comprehensive feedback from them.
“We’re really intentional about everything that we do that touches the player experience and a big thing that we wanted to do before everyone left Miami last year was sit down, have face-to-face conversations with all the players and just get a temperature check on their experience,” Duwelius said. “The things that they communicated, we snapped our fingers and started investing in right away.”
Further growth in medical and training resources is one of those changes. Last year, three trainers were split among the six teams. This season, each team will have its own dedicated athletic trainer, as well as its own strength and performance coach. Every club will also have a designated player development coach.
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As part of its continued growth, Unrivaled, which announced it raised capital from a group of investors at a $340 million valuation earlier this fall, has taken over another studio on the lot it occupies, creating more of a campus feel, per Duwelius. That will allow for a second practice court and a training room that’s more than double the size.
“I just think that we do a really, really good job of taking care of players in the amenity space,” Duwelius said.
In conjunction with its expansion, the league will play games on a fourth night and eliminate back-to-backs. Unrivaled is also making its first “tour stop” in league history, playing two games in Philadelphia on Jan. 30. The league’s home arena, located outside of Miami, is growing its capacity by around 100 spectators, too.
Kelsey Plum, Paige Bueckers, Kelsey Mitchell, Saniya Rivers, Sonia Citron, Veronica Burton and Kiki Iriafen highlight the list of first-time players. Angel Reese and Sabrina Ionescu are among those not returning, though Duwelius said they had “a lot of conversations” with both.
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“We always want to be a home to the best players in the world,” she said.
Duwelius said McDonald, who suffered a right foot injury midway through the WNBA season, and Malonga, who recently shared that she had right wrist surgery, are expected to be ready by Jan. 5 when play begins.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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