Unrivaled Basketball has revealed the head coaches that will lead the six 3-on-3 teams when the season starts in January.
The league announced a slate of six head coaches on Friday, headlined by former Chicago Sky head coach Teresa Weatherspoon. The other coaches are Phil Handy, Adam Harrington, Nola Henry, DJ Sackmann and Andrew Wade.
Weatherspoon, a Hall of Fame player and a former assistant with the New Orleans Pelicans, was fired from the Sky after just one season with the team, marking one of the most unexpected firings in a slew of WNBA head coach vacancies this offseason.
Overall, Unrivaled’s head coaches offer a range of experiences: Handy is a longtime NBA assistant coach with stints with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Toronto Raptors and Los Angeles Lakers. Harrington also has NBA experience, most recently as an assistant coach with the Brooklyn Nets.
Henry is the current player development coach with the Los Angeles Sparks, while Wade is the head video coordinator and assistant player development coach with the Washington Mystics. Sackmann, the founder of HoopStudy, is a trainer and skills coach who works with NBA and WNBA athletes.
Last month, Unrivaled unveiled the names and logos of the six teams that will make up the league. The teams, which will have six players each, will be called the Laces, Mist, Rose, Lunar Owls, Phantom and Vinyl.
The league, which originally planned to have 30 roster spots, recently expanded to 36 with the hope of chasing some even bigger fish, reportedly including Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark.
The selection process for the six teams will take place on Nov. 20, and will follow an interesting draft-like format. Each player will be placed into one of six pods, with the plan for one player from each pod ending up on each team. The six coaches will then work together to distribute the players from the pods onto the six teams.
The coaches won’t be assigned a team until after the rosters are set, with the goal of creating evenly balanced rosters across the board. Unrivaled also hopes to give fans a chance to see different pairings that they might not get to see during the WNBA season.
The league, which was founded by WNBA stars Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, will play in Miami, with the season starting on Jan. 17. Unrivaled will be broadcast on TNT after signing a media rights deal in October.
