Unmatched has introduced Participant No. 35, and it’s Indiana Fever guard Katie Lue Samuelson.
Samuelson, a five-year WNBA veteran, has averaged 5.9 factors and three.5 rebounds per sport since being drafted 4th general by the Chicago Sky in 2019. She was a standout participant on the College of Connecticut, the place she averaged 16.7 factors throughout 4 seasons and shot 41.5% from three.
The three-on-3 skilled ladies’s basketball league, which has been rolling out names of collaborating WNBA gamers for months, is about to formally tip-off on January seventeenth in Miami, with video games going down on Fridays, Saturdays, and Mondays for 9 weeks. A number of of Samuelson’s Fever teammates, together with Lexie Hull and Aliyah Boston, will take part within the league. In school, Samuelson was additionally teammates with Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, the league’s co-founders.
Samuelson had a tough 2024 marketing campaign after lacking the 2023 season attributable to being pregnant. She averaged simply 4.3 factors in 18.2 minutes per evening for Indiana after averaging 9.7 factors in 29.5 minutes per evening on the Sparks in 2022. Nonetheless, at her greatest, she’s an elite ahead who can stretch the ground and do some little bit of the whole lot.
Why Unmatched?
Unmatched has the potential to rework ladies’s basketball in some ways. For one, the league’s complete wage pool is $8 million, so on common, gamers will earn $222,222. (In distinction, the typical WNBA wage is lower than $148,000, regardless of the season being greater than twice as lengthy).
Moreover, the league is centered round participant improvement, with all six head coaches — Nola Henry, Adam Harrington, DJ Sackmann, Andrew Wade, Teresa Weatherspoon, and Phil Helpful — boasting a robust background in participant improvement.
“I’ve been part of ladies’s basketball for a very long time,” Helpful mentioned. “However, as soon as me and my staff had an opportunity to essentially dive into Unmatched and actually pull again the layers of what they have been attempting to perform, I used to be actually fascinated by the entire idea.”
Initially, the league was solely going to incorporate 30 gamers, however after surpassing preliminary monetary projections, Unmatched added further spots. These went to Alyssa Thomas (Connecticut Solar), Stef Dolson (Washington Mystics), Jordin Canada (Atlanta Dream), Cameron Brink (Los Angeles Sparks), Rae Burrell (Los Angeles Sparks), and ____.
“I believe it simply reveals the extent of pleasure and the way a lot ladies’s sports activities is on the rise —that we have been in a position to broaden in yr one, that we’re having these superb partnerships,” Napheesa Collier instructed SB Nation.
One remaining spot might be revealed between now and tip-off.
The complete checklist of confirmed Unmatched gamers:
Each WNBA staff has no less than one participant collaborating in Unmatched.
- Aaliyah Edwards (Mystics)
- Alyssa Thomas (Solar)
- Aliyah Boston (Fever)
- Allisha Grey (Dream)
- Angel Reese (Sky)
- Arike Ogunbowale (Wings)
- Azura Stevens (Sparks)
- Breanna Stewart (Liberty)
- Brittney Sykes (Mystics)
- Brittney Griner (Mercury)
- Cameron Brink (Sparks)
- Chelsea Grey (Aces)
- Courtney Vandersloot (Liberty)
- Courtney Williams (Lynx)
- Dearica Hamby (Sparks)
- DiJonai Carrington (Solar)
- Jackie Younger (Aces)
- Jewell Loyd (Storm)
- Jordin Canada (Dream)
- Kahleah Copper (Mercury)
- Kate Martin (Valkyries)
- Katie Lue Samuelson (Fever)
- Kayla McBride (Lynx)
- Lexie Hull (Fever)
- Marina Mabrey (Solar)
- Napheesa Collier (Lynx)
- Natasha Cloud (Mercury)
- Rae Burrell (Sparks)
- Rhyne Howard (Dream)
- Rickea Jackson (Sparks)
- Satou Sabally (Wings)
- Skylar Diggins-Smith (Storm)
- Shakira Austin (Mystics)
- Stefanie Dolson (Mystics)
- Tiffany Hayes (Aces)
