Advertisement - scroll for more content
Michael Scotto: Sources: The Utah Jazz will promote Marquis Newman to Director of Pro Scouting and Katie Benzan to Salt Lake City Stars G League General Manager. Newman has spent 11 years with Utah. Benzan is the second current female G League GM and played for the WNBA’s Mystics before joining the Jazz in 2022.
Most mock drafts now place Sellers as the No. 4 or No. 5 pick, which would send her to the Washington Mystics or expansion Golden State Valkyries. Still, that hasn’t kept the Sellerses from making their pitch. They feel Chicago would be a perfect fit for Shyanne — her older sister Syarra is even studying law at DePaul, regularly teasing Shyanne about the prospect of living in the same city again. And for the Sellers family, it’s hard not to hope for a return home. “It really brings you full circle,” Brad Sellers said. “She knows what the city of Chicago means to our family and what it has done for us. To see her come back, it would be a joy for me.” The Bulls drafted Sellers with the ninth pick in the 1986 NBA draft as they began building a roster around Michael Jordan. Sellers didn’t stay in Chicago long enough to reap the benefits of the ’90s Bulls. He was traded to the Seattle Supersonics just three years later and remained in the NBA until 1993, when he continued his playing career overseas.
Kendra Andrews: Breaking: 2x-time All-Star guard Ariel Atkins has been traded from the Washington Mystics to the Chicago Sky in exchange for the 2025 No. 3 overall pick, sources told me and @alexaphilippou Sunday. The move kickstarts a rebuild for D.C. and marks a huge get for the surging Sky
Pistons owner Tom Gores bidding for WNBA franchise in Detroit
Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores submitted a bid for the city to receive a WNBA franchise, sources told Yahoo Sports. The Detroit Shock were a big part of early WNBA history, winning championships in 2003, 2006 and 2008 before moving to Tulsa in 2010 — and before being rebranded as the Dallas Wings. The Shock set single-game records for attendance in the 2003 WNBA Finals as 22,076 fans filled the Palace of Auburn Hills to see Game 3 against the Los Angeles Sparks, and they matched that mark again in the 2007 Finals. Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever set the single-game regular-season record against the Washington Mystics this past season with 20,711.
With the WNBA entering a transition period with three new teams, a $2.2 billion media rights deal and a restructured collective bargaining agreement on the horizon, the Washington Mystics have hired the leadership to take the franchise into its next era. Monumental Basketball President Michael Winger tabbed NBA senior vice president and head of player development Jamila Wideman as general manager and former Chicago Sky assistant Sydney Johnson as coach. “Where we are as a league and what we also forecast the next 10 to 15 years of the ‘W’ will look like played a humongous role in the selection of Jamila and Sydney,” Winger said. “If we thought the league was going to be status quo for the next 10 years, we wouldn’t have pursued the visionaries that Jamila and Sydney are.”
Advertisement
Friday night's WNBA matchup between the Indiana Fever and Washington Mystics averaged a 0.6 rating with 1.02 million viewers on ION. The viewership represented the most-watched game ever on the channel. The previous high for the channel was a game between the Fever and Sparks earlier this season, which averaged 724,000 viewers.
The agreement between Leonsis and Bowser includes provisions for: * Monumental to receive $500 million in cash from the city to renovate Capital One Arena, which opened in 1997. * $15 million more to improve the alley that connects the arena to the Gallery Place building next door. * The addition of 200,000 square feet of space in the arena and the Gallery Place building. * Safety improvements, including the presence of 17 Washington police officers to patrol the arena area from two hours before game time to two hours after game time. * Monumental gaining full control of the Entertainment & Sports Arena in Southeast Washington, enabling Monumental to enlarge player spaces and make changes to the arena’s schedule. The WNBA’s Washington Mystics and G League’s Capital City Go-Go will continue to play at the arena, but Monumental will have the ability to move four games per regular season and all playoff games to Capital One Arena. * New restrictions on noise, loitering and vending around Capital One Arena.
Thompson will join a list of several NBA/WNBA players who are also Global Ambassadors for the Special Olympics ... including Phoenix Suns star Devin Booker and Elena Delle Donne of the Washington Mystics.
“Michael's one of the few people that have had success three times,” says Ted Leonsis, the Washington Wizards, Mystics and Capitals owner, who has partnered with Jordan on multiple investments and sports ownership in the past. “A lot of entrepreneurs, they make it once. They have a big win, take their winnings, retire and [we] never hear from them again, or they try something a second time and it doesn't work. He’s had three mega successes,” referring to Jordan’s impact as a player, an owner, as well as the growth of the Air Jordan brand at Nike.
Advertisement
Neil Dalal: Wizards general manager Will Dawkins is courtside at Mystics-Sky with his wife and 3 young children
QIA, as the Qatari state fund is known, is buying about 5% of Monumental, which includes the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, Capital One Arena and NBC Sports Washington, according to one of the people, who was granted anonymity because the details are private. The deal values the group at $4.05 billion, the source said. It’s a landmark deal for U.S. sports, which has gradually opened its ranks to investment from institutional money such as private equity, family offices and sovereign wealth.
In Washington, Dawkins will reunite with Winger, who on May 25 was named the president of Monumental Basketball, overseeing the Wizards, the WNBA’s Washington Mystics and the G League’s Capital City Go-Go. Winger and Dawkins worked together in Oklahoma City from 2010 until 2017, when Winger left Oklahoma City to join the Clippers as L.A.’s general manager.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement