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As Ariel Atkins reflects on Ukraine season, teammate navigates dangers

Ariel Atkins played in Ukraine this WNBA offseason for BC Prometey. (Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)

Just as WNBA fans and families were beginning to feel at ease, with reports that American players in Ukraine and Russia were returning home safely, we awoke last Saturday to find out that Brittney Griner was taken into Russian police custody over three weeks ago on charges of possessing vape cartridges containing hashish oil. Griner was detained at the airport as she attempted to return to Russia, where she competes for UMMC Ekaterinburg and has played professionally during the WNBA’s offseason for the past eight years.

Suddenly, the real-life consequences of Russia’s political agenda hit very close to home for sports fans in the U.S. At the heart of the conflict in Europe, the lives of professional Ukrainian players were thrown into total chaos as soon as Russia’s invasion of their country began two weeks ago.

Olympic gold medalist and Mystics starting guard Ariel Atkins was competing in Ukraine as things began to unravel. After stints in Poland, Australia and Turkey, Atkins decided to play with BC Prometey, a EuroCup team based in Kamianske, during this WNBA offseason. Atkins led Prometey to a 9-1 EuroCup regular season record, while averaging 20.3 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game.

At the end of January, the European season paused for a month-long national team break as top players returned to their national team programs for FIBA World Cup Qualifying competitions. Atkins joined Team USA in her WNBA home city of Washington, D.C. for a three-day training camp and two-game series against Puerto Rico and Belgium.

With Russian troops gathering at the Ukrainian border even before she left for the break, Atkins was skeptical about returning to Eastern Europe for the rest of the season and packed up almost all of her belongings for her trip back home.

“It was definitely a tough decision,” Atkins recalled in a recent conversation with Just Women’s Sports. “Ultimately, I decided not to go back as I didn’t plan on crossing the Ukraine border whatsoever, just because I wasn’t sure how I would be able to get out if things ended up being what they are right now.”

But when her agent called to say the team was being relocated to Bulgaria to continue practicing ahead of their EuroCup playoff series against a tough Turkish squad, Atkins found herself back on a plane to Europe to rejoin her Ukrainian teammates.

“I build bonds with my teammates, and I really do care about them,” Atkins said from Turkey, the day before CBK Mersin knocked Prometey out of EuroCup competition. “I just want things to go well for them and I want to help as much as I can. But I honestly, personally, don’t know how. What I’m thinking or feeling or dealing with is not even an ounce of what they’re dealing with.”

The Russian invasion of Ukraine escalated rapidly during the brief time Prometey was practicing in Bulgaria and then competing in Turkey. The team’s Ukrainian captain, Olga Dubrovina, did her best to console her teammates as feelings of helplessness overwhelmed them.

“Everybody cry. Everybody don’t know how to help,” Dubrovina said in her semi-fluent English. “Everybody is scared. A lot of people leave [Ukraine]. The situation is so bad. A lot of people die.”

In shock and sorrow, the team continued to practice and prepare for their playoff game.

“There are moments here and there where you can just tell the room goes kind of somber,” Atkins said. “I feel like my job is to try to make practice more fun or to kind of lighten the mood a little bit as best I can, without being ignorant to the fact of what they have going on with their friends and their families back home.”

After losing that final playoff game and the remainder of the Ukrainian Women’s Basketball SuperLeague season was canceled due to the war, Atkins returned home to the U.S. while her teammates dispersed across Europe. Dubrovina and a couple of her Prometey teammates were able to sign with teams inside Turkey, and will play the remaining six weeks of the domestic league there.

With her 4-year old daughter and husband, a pro soccer player, safe in his native Bulgaria, Dubrovina’s primary concerns now are supporting her family financially and ensuring the safety of her loved ones still in Ukraine, including her parents, grandmother and brother.

“My brother is in the war in Ukraine. I don’t know his movement,” she said. “We don’t know where he is, what he’s doing. It’s army. It’s everything like secret, and we just wait for when he talks, he calls mom.”

Dubrovina, 34, says a few of her Prometey teammates opted to return to Ukraine despite her encouragement that they stay in Turkey until the danger subsided. Those with husbands or fathers younger than 60 years old were the most anxious to return, as men aged 18-60 are currently not permitted to leave the country per President Volodymyr Zelensky’s general military mobilization.

Other teammates scattered to Poland or Belgium, Dubrovina explained. One had a family connection in Canada. Another, who opted to stay and play in Turkey, is planning to use the money she will earn there to get her kids and grandmother safely out of Ukraine when the season ends.

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Olga Dubrovina competes for the Ukrainian national team at the European Championships in 2014. (Jonas Güttler/picture alliance via Getty Images

Dubrovina originally left Ukraine in 2014 when tensions with Russia escalated over the annexation of Crimea. After ten years of playing professional basketball all over Europe, the point guard had assumed her playing career was behind her when she became pregnant with her daughter in 2018. She was enjoying coaching youth basketball when an old coach called and talked her into getting back on the court with the newly formed Prometey club in Ukraine. As a result, Dubrovina, her husband and their young daughter have spent the past two years in Ukraine.

Now that her family has relocated to Bulgaria, Dubrovina is the sole provider for the time being. She says focusing on providing for her daughter, who wants to be a basketball player like her mom when she grows up, is keeping her sane during an otherwise unbearable situation. Dubrovina talks with her family during every break she gets, often ten times a day.

She hopes to eventually get her parents safely to Bulgaria, where she envisions staying to raise her family surrounded by her husband’s relatives. The main reason her parents are still in Ukraine is that her grandmother cannot travel.

“I’ll stay with my family, my daughter and husband. And speak with my mom, because now I have grandma who is invalid,” she said. “She can’t move, she’s just in the bed. And I want to take my mom and my family to Bulgaria, but it’s impossible because Grandma can’t move and now it’s so dangerous.”

As to what Dubrovina thinks will happen to her homeland, she says giving in is not an option for her people.

“You need to understand, we’re not scared of nothing,” she said. “We are a people who can’t just stay and shut up … We can’t lose. If we lose, it’s just as if we died.”

She also urged leaders in the West to hear Ukraine’s pleas for military support in the country’s air space.

“[Those] who have power, close the sky for Ukraine, please,” she implored. “We don’t need food. We don’t need help with money. Just to close the sky…We talk about this night and day. Close the sky. That’s all.”

For now, the continuation of leagues outside Ukraine is helping players like Dubrovina better survive this catastrophe. But as the situation with Griner escalates and geopolitical relations become more strained, WNBA players who supplement their salaries overseas during the offseason will have even more difficult decisions to make in the future.

Tessa Nichols is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports.

WSL and WSL2 Clubs Vote in Favor of English League Expansion

Chelsea FC attacker Aggie Beever-Jones celebrates a goal during a 2025 WSL match.
Despite previous proposals, the expanding WSL will not forgo relegation. (Chris Lee - Chelsea FC/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)

The Women's Super League (WSL) is growing, with the UK league's top two flights deciding in a Monday expansion vote to enlarge its top tier from 12 to 14 teams ahead of the 2026/27 season.

The number of matches played each season will also balloon from 22 to 26 games to accommodate the incoming clubs, as will established cup competitions.

Monday also saw the WSL vote down a prior proposal to temporarily suspend the relegation and promotion process to accommodate this expansion, deciding instead to adopt a "two up, one down" model for the second-tier WSL2 next season.

As such, the top two finishers of the 2025/26 WSL2 season will automatically join the higher-tier WSL, while the WSL's last-place team will battle the WSL2's third-place club in "a high-profile, high stakes match" for the final spot in the top flight.

After reaching 14 teams, both leagues will return to relegating the last-place WSL finisher while promoting the WSL2's top team for the following season.

Along with the increased investment in club infrastructure, a 14-team WSL keeps pace with the global women's game — most notably, the NWSL, which will become a 16-team league in 2026.

"Our priority was to find a route that would benefit the whole women's game pyramid, and we believe this next evolution of women's professional football will raise minimum standards, create distinction, and incentivize investment across the board," said WSL Football CEO Nikki Doucet.

WNBA Teams Offset Injuries, EuroBasket Departures with Short-Term Contracts

Golden State Valkyries rookie Kaitlyn Chen dribbles the ball up the court during a 2025 WNBA preseason game.
2025 WNBA draftee Kaitlyn Chen returned to the Golden State Valkyries to offset EuroBasket roster departures. (Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images)

With EuroBasket set to tip off on Wednesday and injuries mounting league-wide, WNBA teams are filling out dwindling rosters with more short-term contracts — and calling back some familiar faces along the way.

While some European standouts withdrew from EuroBasket consideration — including Phoenix's Satou Sabally and Seattle's Gabby Williams — others, like New York's Leonie Fiebich and Golden State's Temi Fagbenle, will join their national teams for the regional FIBA tournament through the end of June.

Due to these planned absences, WNBA teams temporarily suspend their EuroBasket players' contracts, allowing squads to add others to their rosters.

Players signed due to temporary absences are technically on rest-of-season deals, though the agreements can end whenever the missing athletes return.

In contrast, the league requires that teams release any hardship signings due to injury once squads tally enough healthy original players to satisfy the WNBA's 10-athlete roster minimum.

Featuring a lineup stacked with international talent, Golden State made the most transactions this week, temporarily suspending four regular contracts as 2025 EuroBasket stars departed for the annual competition.

To bolster their depleted bench, the Valkyries brought back 2025 WNBA Draft Cinderella pick Kaitlyn Chen and recent training camp participant Laeticia Amihere on short-term contracts, in addition to guard Aerial Powers and forward Chloe Bibby.

Elsewhere, after losing forward Maddy Siegrist to injury and temporarily suspending the contracts of centers Teaira McCowan and Luisa Geiselsöder, Dallas acquired center Li Yueru from Seattle — with the Wings possibly needing additional hardship signings in the coming days.

The Storm snagged two future draft picks in the Saturday deal — a second-round selection in 2026 and a third-round pick in 2027.

Ultimately, teams are striving to find a balance between stocking up and maintaining consistency, all while operating under the WNBA's roster constraints — with further league expansion fast approaching.

WNBA Commissioner’s Cup Conference Play Comes Down to the Wire

Seattle Storm forward Ezi Magbegor tries to defend a jump-shot from Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier during a 2025 WNBA Commissioner's Cup game.
Napheesa Collier and the Minnesota Lynx will advance to a second straight WNBA Commissioner's Cup final with a Tuesday win. (Alika Jenner/Getty Images)

The 2025 WNBA Commissioner's Cup will wrap up its conference play on Tuesday, as both Eastern and Western teams battle for a ticket to the in-season competition's championship game — and a cut of the $500,000 prize pool.

With 12 of the league's 13 teams facing off across Tuesday's WNBA courts, the results will set the stage by minting the two squads who will battle in the July 1st final showdown.

Reigning Commissioner's Cup champs Minnesota have the West's easiest path, as a win over the Las Vegas Aces will send the Lynx to a second straight final.

Should the Lynx fall to the Aces, however, Seattle can grab the Western Conference berth by beating the Los Angeles Sparks.

Meanwhile in the East, a surging Atlanta could land a trip to the final by topping New York, while the Liberty need both a win over the Dream plus a loss by the Indiana Fever to clinch their own return ticket to the Cup's grand finale.

If New York does take down Atlanta, the Fever could advance to the team's first-ever Commissioner's Cup final by beating the struggling Connecticut Sun.

How to watch Tuesday's 2025 WNBA Commissioner's Cup games

All of Tuesday's six WNBA games count toward the 2025 Commissioner's Cup tally.

The action begins with the Atlanta Dream tipping off against the New York Liberty while the Indiana Fever battles the Connecticut Sun at 7 PM ET, live on WNBA League Pass.

Chicago Sky Star Angel Reese Files Trademark for ‘Mebounds’ to Silence Internet Trolls

Chicago Sky star Angel Reese grabs a rebound during a 2024 WNBA game.
Chicago Sky star Angel Reese is trademarking a term often used to criticize her play. (Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images)

Chicago Sky star Angel Reese made headlines this week, with the second-year WNBA forward announcing that she has trademarked word "mebounds" — a slang term opposing fans use to describe Reese rebounding her own missed shots.

"Whoever came up with the 'mebounds' thing, y’all ate that up, because mebounds, rebounds, keybounds...anything that comes off that board, it's mine," Reese said in a TikTok video on Saturday.

"And a brand? That's six figures right there," she continued, referencing her trademark application. "The trolling — I love when y'all do it because the ideas be good!"

Currently averaging 11.9 boards per matchup, Reese is leading the WNBA in rebounds for the second straight season.

Her rookie campaign saw Reese average 13.1 boards per game, a rate that set a single-season league record. She also blasted through the WNBA's consecutive double-double record last season, claiming it with 10 straight before extending it to an impressive 15 games.

Along with the average rebounds record, Reese also broke the single-season total rebounds record previously held by retired Minnesota Lynx legend Sylvia Fowles — a mark that was later surpassed by 2024 MVP A'ja Wilson following Reese's season-ending wrist injury.

"Statistically, all the rebounds that I get aren't always just mine," Reese added in her Saturday social media post. "They're the defense's, too, or somebody else on my team."

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