Previewing Unrivaled's Rose Basketball Club

We're less than a week away from the debut of Unrivaled, a new 3x3 women's basketball league that is sure to be exciting. There will be six total teams with six players each, and every member of the league will be a stakeholder in Unrivaled.

The participants will also be earning around $222,222, which is currently higher than their WNBA salaries, and this will also make it so that players don't have to travel overseas during the offseason in order to earn more money.

Every game will be played in Miami, Florida in an intimate arena that will then be broadcast on TNT stations.

Two former Stanford Cardinal are in the league, with Cameron Brink on the Lunar Owls with Napheesa Collier, among other stars, and Lexie Hull on Rose with Angel Reese. Brink will miss the inaugural season as she works her way back from injury, leaving Hull and Rose as the official team of Stanford women's basketball.

One storyline that will be blown out of proportion will be how Reese, a rookie in 2024 and a standout in her time at LSU, will get along with Hull, who is teammates in the WNBA with Caitlin Clark on the Indiana Fever. There shouldn't be much issue, but there will certainly be headlines that beg to differ.

Joining Reese and Hull will be Las Vegas Aces guard Chelsea Gray, Washington Mystics guard Brittney Sykes, Phoenix Mercury guard Kahleah Copper, and Brink's teammate on the Los Angeles Sparks, Azurá Stevens.

Both Reese and Hull won championships in their time in college, while Gray has won three in the WNBA. The first came in 2016 with the Sparks, then she won back-to-back titles with the Aces in '22 and '23. Sykes will be a defensive presence for this club, with the 5-foot-9 guard winning All-Defensive honors four times--twice on the first team and twice on the second.

Copper is also a WNBA champion, not only securing a title with the 2021 Chicago Sky, but also being named the Finals MVP. She has been named to the last four WNBA All-Star games.

Stevens was also a part of that 2021 Sky championship team, and this past season with the Sparks, she upped her game on the glass, averaging seven boards in 24.7 minutes per night.

This is going to be a fairly well-rounded team, and with Reese averaged 13.6 points and 13.1 total rebounds in her first season in the WNBA, she is arguably the star of the team. While that is by no means a complaint, she is a little inexperienced compared to some of the other star players on other clubs. How that comes into play, if at all, when game action begins will be something to keep an eye on.

Unrivaled officially tips off on Friday, January 17 at 4 p.m. PT with the Mist taking on the Lunar Owls, followed by Rose taking on Vinyl at 5:15 p.m. PT. The full schedule can be seen here, with two games also being played on both Saturday and Monday.