Aces guard committed to new offseason league she helped develop

The Aces’ star point guard already has plans for the WNBA offseason.

Chelsea Gray will play in a new professional women’s basketball league called Unrivaled — a project she helped develop — when it launches in January.

On Thursday, she became the league’s first confirmed player outside of its co-founders, New York Liberty forward Breanna Stewart and Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier. Unrivaled has since revealed that Dallas Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale and Seattle Storm guard Jewell Loyd will participate in the Miami-based three-on-three competition, which is also set to include one-on-one matchups.

It was no mistake that Gray was Unrivaled’s first announcement.

On Saturday, she recalled a conversation with Collier’s husband and now-president of Unrivaled, Alex Bazzell, in which they brainstormed ideas for the league. The concept was born with the desire to give elite players more options to stay on U.S. soil and earn money during the WNBA’s offseason.

It came after the league introduced new prioritization rules that complicate the normal model of players going overseas for a full season, where they stand to earn three to four times their base WNBA salaries.

Eventually, Gray took action after her conversations with Collier and Bazzell and made herself available in the pursuit of funding for the burgeoning pursuit.

“We knew that we wanted to get her involved really early. I feel like it was maybe late last year,” Collier said Saturday. “At that time, we were still really fleshing out what the player experience would be like, and she was really open with helping in any way. And that’s how she got involved with some of the investor calls.”

Those calls were clearly a success. Unrivaled announced in May that it would offer a six-figure salary to rival any other offering in the history of women’s professional sports leagues, a result made possible by a seed round from investors that exceeded expectations.

The group of investors includes NBA greats Carmelo Anthony and Steve Nash, soccer superstars Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe, golf legend Michelle Wie West, longtime Connecticut women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma and actor Ashton Kutcher.

Stewart and Collier said when the league was unveiled that it would consist of the top 30 players in women’s basketball, all of whom will get equity in Unrivaled as part of its inaugural class.

“Obviously, the money and the salary came first,” Gray said of her decision to get involved with the league. “And the opportunity to still play, be in shape and not have to go overseas while still having our families here. I think it was a combined factor.”

Gray, one of the Aces’ four players headed to the Paris Olympics this year, played for two Turkish teams before 2020. Aside from participating in the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, she has opted not to go overseas recently.

The 2022 Finals MVP and her wife, Tipesa, welcomed a son named Lennox in the offseason. Gray said her family will travel to Miami and stay there throughout the season, noting that Unrivaled offers a child care stipend.

Gray also worked two on-air television jobs for NBC Sports covering the NBA’s Sacramento Kings and ACC Network during the women’s college season last year. She’s not sure what the NBA schedule will look like amid the recent broadcasting rights negotiations, but said she’s open to trying to do a little of everything when the Aces’ season ends.

Aces coach Becky Hammon said she will watch the new league.

“The one-on-one is going to be crazy,” she said with a laugh. “That’s going to be pretty cool to watch. But if I was a player in my prime, I would not be signing up for that.”

Contact Callie Lawson-Freeman at clawsonfreeman@reviewjournal.com. Follow @CallieJLaw on X.