“I saw Sabrina Ionescu contest a three and I turned off the TV” – Draymond Green criticizes the Unrivaled League originally appeared on Basketball Network.
WNBA players, led by Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, started the Unrivaled 3-on-3 Women’s Basketball League, which debuted in January 2025.
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However, the league has faced some criticism, most notably from Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green, who pointed out the lack of defensive intensity.
“I saw Sabrina Ionescu contest a three and I turned off the TV,” the 2017 Defensive Player of the Year said on “The Draymond Green Show with Baron Davis.”
Green praised the initiative. However, he expressed his concerns about the WNBA season being too short, which is why women players must create and play in offseason leagues.
“I think the answer is somewhere between you gotta get more WNBA games — you know what I’m sayin’ — you gotta get the season longer. Starting any league is impossible, so for them to get it off the ground, I wanna make sure I do let them know that I respect that,” he added.
Growing popularity
In the past, many WNBA players would go overseas during the offseason to make extra money from basketball since the WNBA season only lasts roughly three months, with salaries ranging from 62,000 to 252,000 dollars.
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However, with the WNBA growing in popularity — thanks primarily to Caitlin Clark — many American WNBA players have chosen not to go overseas but to stay home.
That’s where Stewart and Collier saw the opportunity and created the league for players to stay in shape and earn more money.
The league features six teams with six players each. Games are played on a smaller court and are divided into three seven-minute quarters, with the fourth quarter — the league calls it the “winning score” — calculated by adding 11 points to the leading team’s score entering the final period
“Everything was built for the players,” Unrivaled’s president of basketball operations Luke Cooper said. “The business was built for the players, the facility was built for the players, and the actual game — the three-on-three full court is rooted in how you would play basketball as a kid.”
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Rose won the Unrivaled’s inaugural championship after beating Vinyl in the finals 62-54.
Positive impact on women’s basketball
According to Unrivaled, “the championship game averaged 364,000 viewers with a peak of 385,000 viewers. Unrivaled coverage reached more than 11.9 million viewers all season and delivered the 10 most-watched women’s basketball games ever on TNT Sports’ networks.”
People have tuned in, and combined with the growing popularity of the WNBA, the league has had a positive impact on the overall visibility of women’s basketball.
Did it solve the problems the WNBA has faced for years? No, but it’s still a step in the right direction.
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This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jun 15, 2025, where it first appeared.