Last week, Napheesa Collier won Unrivaled’s highly-anticipated 1v1 tournament, beating Aaliyah Edwards in three games — after beating Katie Lue Samuelson, Courtney Williams, and Azura Stevens in the first three rounds.
Napheesa Collier’s Unrivaled season somehow keeps getting more successful
The Lunar Owls star is splitting her 1v1 tournament prize money with the training staff she credits for making it all possible.
Photo by Megan Briggs/Getty Images
Noa Dalzell is a senior writer covering the WNBA and all of women’s basketball for Breakaway, SB Nation’s women’s sports vertical, as well as the Celtics for CelticsBlog.
As such, Collier was awarded the tournament’s lofty $200,000 cash prize.
But, on Friday, ESPN’s Kendra Andrews reported that Collier quickly decided to split her prize money with the Lunar Owls’ training and performance staff. Collier wanted to show appreciation to the staff members investing themselves into Unrivaled, the new 3-on-3 league she co-founded with Breanna Stewart.
Unrivaled’s inaugural season has been a massive win for Napheesa Collier
Unrivaled is in the midst of its first season and is offering players the highest average salary of any women’s sports league, in addition to equity. One of the league’s unique draws is its 1v1 tournament, which spanned from Feb. 10 to Feb. 14 and featured 23 of the WNBA’s best players.
Collier wasn’t the only player to walk away with additional money from the 1v1 tournament. Edwards secured a $50,000 runners-up award, while Stevens and Arike Ogunbowale — both semi-finalists — walked away with $25,000 each. Each of Collier’s teammates on the Lunar Owls also earned $10,000 by being on her team: Williams, Skylar Diggins-Smith, Allisha Gray, and Shakira Austin.
Now, the Lunar Owls coaching staff, led by DJ Sackmann, get in on the prize money.
For Collier, Unrivaled has been a chance to bounce back from a devastating loss in the WNBA Finals.
So far, Collier has also been the league’s most dominant player, averaging 29.3 points and 11.5 rebounds per game.
The decision to share her prize money with her coaching staff reflects a broader desire to invest in the success of her league. Collier has made clear from the jump just how important the league’s first season is to her.
“It’s like when you throw a party, you want people to show up and have fun, you know?” she said last month.
The league aims to provide WNBA players an offseason alternative to going overseas while providing them with a state-of-the-art facility in Miami, complete with a childcare center and everything athletes need.
“We come up here if we need to get treatment, work with the trainers, use a sauna, ice bath — whatever we need,” Arike Ogunbowale told SB Nation last month.
Unrivaled still has a few weeks of action remaining — the playoffs officially end on March 17. Collier’s Lunar Owls team is currently the league’s only undefeated team, and she’s on pace to become the league’s MVP, which would conclude a wildly successful season.
But, perhaps the most impactful moment from her Unrivaled tenure will be the opportunity to share her prize money with those who have helped ensure the start-up league would be successful.
