Ex-Lakers coach joins Breanna Stewart, Napheesa Collier's Unrivaled league
11/15/2024 02:39 PM
WNBA superstars Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier’s league, Unrivaled, has already made waves with their announcements regarding participating players and television rights. Marc J. Spears reported for Andscape on Friday that longtime NBA development coach Phil Handy will have a role in the league as well. Handy will reportedly become a first-time head coach for a team to be named in Unrivaled’s first season.
“Former Lakers, Cavs and Raptors assistant coach Phil Handy will become a first-time head coach for a team be named team in the first season of Unrivaled in 2025, sources told Andscape,” Spears wrote on Friday. “Unrivaled is new 3-on-3 professional women’s basketball league debuting in Miami in January.”
Handy worked under Mike Brown as a player development coach for the Los Angeles Lakers from 2011-2013. He then followed Brown to the Cleveland Cavaliers and worked as an assistant coach there from 2013-2018. In the last four years of Handy’s time in Cleveland, the organization made the finals each year.
Handy made the finals again next year as a member of the Toronto Raptors’ coaching staff under Nick Nurse. After just one season in Toronto, Handy was on the move again. He was highly sought after and even courted by the Brooklyn Nets for Steve Nash’s staff. But he decided to reunite with both LeBron James and the Lakers. That season, he made his sixth straight trip to the NBA Finals.
Unrivaled league wants to change how the WNBA spends its offseasons
The Unrivaled league will begin play in Miami, FL in January of 2025, which Stewart and Collier announced in May. The league will feature six teams, whose names were recently revealed. According to USA Today, the league has a wide network of celebrity investors. This includes Carmelo Anthony, Steve Nash, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Geno Auriemma, actor Ashton Kutcher, and more.
The league has been consistent in saying they will offer WNBA players the highest rate possible in exchange for their participation. The WNBA is rapidly gaining in popularity but player salaries still aren’t at a point league-wide where the trend of WNBA talent needing to play overseas to boost their income has died. Unrivaled wants to change this. Alex Bazzell, NBA and WNBA trainer since 2014 and husband of Lynx superstar Napheesa Collier, will serve as league president.
The league is still waiting to find out if Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark is going to join them or not; it would definitely be incredible to see Phil Handy coaching up Clark throughout a season after years of working so closely with LeBron James.
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