For basketball legend Nancy Lieberman, the future of women’s sports will always be tied to the past.

While the 63-year-old trailblazer is in no way preoccupied with what once was, she appreciates the value of history and giving those who came before their due.

“Legends of the game, players who played the game, they don’t want anything, they just want a little shine, they want a little love, they want a little respect,” Lieberman tells Just Women’s Sports.

If anyone deserves “a little shine,” it’s Lieberman, who led Old Dominion to two consecutive AIAW National Championships in 1979 and 1980, was the first draft pick of the Women’s Pro Basketball League and joined the WNBA for its inaugural 1997 season at 39 years old.

As a coach, Lieberman led the WNBA’s Detroit Shock for three seasons starting in 1998 and became the second female assistant coach in NBA history when she joined the Sacramento Kings’ staff in 2015. She now coaches in the BIG3, a three-on-three basketball league founded by actor and musician Ice Cube.

Lieberman’s message for current athletes is that one day they, too, will be considered pioneers of the game. Before then, she says, they should champion women’s equality and progress and embrace their place in history.

“While you’re going up, just make sure you’re high-fiving, hugging, fist-bumping people that set the plate up for you because you’re going to be that person,” she says. “That’s why we fought for so long on the hill with Title IX, with gender equity. Everything that you see today, the fight has been real for this generation and beyond.”

The New York native wants basketball fans, in particular, to understand the history of the women’s game in order to fully appreciate where the league is today and where it’s headed.

“Do your research because you’re going to miss a lot of the greatness,” Lieberman says. “Women’s basketball did not start in 1997 with the WNBA; it did not start in 1982 with the NCAA. Women’s basketball had a healthy past.”

Lieberman’s reverence for history and dedication to advancement is what makes her partnership with CollectibleXchange by Brandon Steiner so seamless. The online collectible marketplace, launched in August, connects sellers directly to consumers with a wide-ranging inventory of women’s sports memorabilia.

Lieberman sees the collaboration with longtime friend Steiner as an opportunity to highlight women’s sports. The collectibles, she says, reinforce the athletes’ value and help amplify women whose greatness has long been overlooked.

“A lot of people in the ’80s, ’90s, 2000s, were an afterthought,” Lieberman says.

As a decorated former athlete and a friend to many sports legends, Lieberman has quite the assortment of memorabilia herself. Her collection consists of an Olympic torch, her Olympic medals, Tiger Woods autographed golf balls, Diana Taurasi sneakers and Michael Jordan signed jerseys.

“I am still a fan no matter who people think I am throughout the course of my career,” Lieberman says. “I am a fan of greatness.”

No two people stand out more to Lieberman when it comes to greatness than tennis star Martina Navratilova and boxer Muhammad Ali. She calls both athletes her heroes for pushing sport and society forward, accomplishments she believes put them in a category of their own.

“To be a GOAT (greatest of all time), it’s not just statistical … to me, a GOAT is somebody who changed the game, not just played the game,” she says.

Lieberman says close friends Ali and Navratilova put their careers on the line at their peaks for a greater purpose, with Ali fighting for racial justice and Navratilova living her truth as a gay public figure. For those reasons, Lieberman’s collectibles from Ali and Navratilova carry special significance.

“I have Martina’s rackets, her wooden racket that she played early on,” Lieberman says. “I have the rackets that she played with at the US Open and Wimbledon when she won.”

The basketball icon gleefully recalls personally sliding leaded tape into her friends’ rackets to account for Navratilova’s strength. No item, however, holds more value to Lieberman than Ali’s boxing gloves, which she says she cherishes to this day.

In addition to their sentimental value, Lieberman believes that memorabilia can help attract new fans and bolster women’s athletes’ cultural capital across generations.

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Lieberman says she already sees a shift happening, especially in women’s basketball.

“We hoped to have a WNBA. Today, kids who are 7, 8, 9 years old, they expect it,” she says. “Young girls expect to get a college scholarship, they expect to play on TV. They expect to then, if they’re good enough, go to the WNBA. I love that.”

Along with scholarships, select collegiate players can also expect to make money thanks to the NCAA’s reformed NIL policy. The deals and partnerships Lieberman has seen emerging in college sports are developments she says “would have been fun to have in our day.”

Lieberman equates Paige Bueckers’s historic contract with Gatorade to Michael Jordan’s advertising partnerships. The NIL deal, she says, could set the UConn star on a path toward generational wealth, something women’s athletes haven’t traditionally been able to rely on.

On the court, the former WNBA coach is equally impressed with the new crop of young talent.

With box scores always up on her phone, Lieberman is paying close attention to the college game, shouting out Maryland’s basketball team, Baylor’s Jordan Lewis, Bueckers and Arizona head coach Adia Barnes.

“I love watching these young people play,” she says, “because now they’re creating their own legacy, they’re putting their thumbprint on the history of the game.”

Professionally, Lieberman applauds the likes of Taurasi and Sue Bird. And while she is impressed with specific institutional changes made by the WNBA, she still sees room for improvements.

The WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement, reached in 2020, is a sign of promise for Lieberman. The former point guard credits the improvements in conditions and the increases in compensation and benefits. Still, Lieberman would like to see more players stay in the U.S. during the offseason and not feel forced to go overseas to complement their WNBA salaries. Many players, she points out, are going to Europe in the prime of their careers.

“If the WNBA had the wherewithal one day to expand and pay larger guaranteed salaries, some of these women wouldn’t have to go to Europe and they could be in the market,” Lieberman says. “They could be in their city, promoting their team and having a bigger, better, more powerful presence.”

Lieberman also weighed in on the expansion debate heating up in the WNBA, citing Oakland as a market ripe for a women’s team. Former WNBA star Alana Beard made headlines in October when it was announced she would lead the ownership group for an Oakland expansion team. Lieberman hopes the league takes a serious look at the city and Beard’s proposition.

“I think it would be amazing for that city,” she says. “They are incredible sports fans, they understand, they care.”

As the league continues to grow, Lieberman also sees an opportunity to get more women in ownership, management and coaching positions. The player-to-coach pipeline has been a hotly debated topic over the years, with many close to the WNBA advocating for more teams to consider former players for jobs. Lieberman’s career has served as a model in both the WNBA and the NBA, with seven women now serving on NBA coaching staffs and three former players serving as WNBA head coaches.

“If you only have one woman, it’s fantastic, but it’s also a tragedy and a failure,” she says. Coaches don’t get hired based on a resume alone, she says; instead, it all comes down to connections, meaning the next step “is to get more women on the front of the bench, building relationships.” For Lieberman, it’s as simple as general managers and decision-makers giving those in women’s sports a chance.

What’s next for the women’s game? Lieberman is unsure, and while she hopes it includes women’s teams boarding private jets like their male counterparts one day, she also knows that doesn’t come without greater investment and return.

Buy the jerseys of players like Bird, Taurasi and Brittney Griner while you can, she says, because one day they will join her on the Mount Rushmore of basketball, exalted as trailblazers of the game.

(Editor’s note: The Collective Marketplace on Athlete Direct is a sponsor of Just Women’s Sports)

Clare Brennan is an Associate Editor at Just Women’s Sports.

Cameron Brink already has her rookie of the year pick for the upcoming WNBA season, and it’s Indiana-bound star Caitlin Clark. 

In the latest edition of Kelley on the Street, host Kelley O'Hara caught up with Brink in New York hours before the Stanford phenom went No. 2 overall to the Los Angeles Sparks at the 2024 WNBA Draft. When O’Hara asked who would win the WNBA's rookie of the year, she answered without pause.

"Caitlin Clark," she said, while a fan commented that she thought Brink would take home the award. Brink later added that the extra foul granted to WNBA players will be "good for me."

"I hope it’s me," Charisma Osborne, who was later drafted by the Phoenix Mercury, said when asked her ROY prediction. "But, I don’t know — we’ll see."

Watch more of Kelley on the Street:

Maria Sanchez issued a statement on Thursday, confirming recent reports that she has requested a trade from the Houston Dash. 

In it, she revealed that the club has been aware of the request "since late March."

"This has all taken a toll and isn’t an easy thing to talk about, but I want to confirm that I’ve requested an immediate trade," she wrote. "My expectations and reasons have been clear. I trust that my current club’s management will honor my decision in a timely manner and proceed with accepting a trade."

"I’m eager to refocus and dive back into what I love most: playing football," she concluded.

Thank you, everyone, for the outpouring of kindness and support. pic.twitter.com/gcnN7dhCJU

— Maria Sanchez (@Maria17_7) April 19, 2024

Reports of Sanchez's trade request first surfaced on ESPN last week, and were later confirmed by multiple sources. 

In December of last year, Sanchez signed a three-year contract with the Dash valued at $1.5 million including bonuses and an option year. It was the largest contract in NWSL history at the time — a figure that would be eclipsed by multiple contracts in the following months. 

Sanchez spent the offseason as a restricted free agent, meaning that Houston could match any other team's offer to retain her rights. Should the Dash trade Sanchez, her current contract terms would remain intact, limiting potential buyers to teams able to afford to take on an inking of that size.

The Dash has yet to address the trade, instead reiterating to ESPN that Sanchez is "under contract, a choice she made in free agency at the end of 2023." 

Both the NWSL trade window and transfer window close tonight, April 19th, at 12 a.m. ET. The window will stay closed through the next 11 regular season games, reopening on August 1st, 2024.

The four-time league champion Seattle Storm unveiled their new practice facility on Thursday, with Storm co-owner Lisa Brummel dubbing Interbay's Seattle Storm Center for Basketball Performance the team’s "new home."

"It's just such a special space," Brummel told Fox 13 Seattle. "I think when the players get here, it's gonna be overwhelming."

The sprawling 50,000-square-foot, $64 million property is just the second designated practice facility to be designed and built expressly for a WNBA team, with the Storm further noting that 85% of all design and engineering team members involved in the project's construction were women and people of color. The finished product holds two professional indoor courts, two 3x3 outdoor courts, a state-of-the-art locker room, and players' lounge, plus designated areas for strength and conditioning, kitchen, dining, and nutrition, and recovery. 

"This facility reflects our commitment to providing our athletes an exceptional environment that supports their growth, health, and performance," said Storm co-owner Ginny Gilder in an official team release. "It’s built for women, by women, embodying our dedication to leading the way in professional women’s sports."

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For their part, the team can't wait to make the faciilty their own.

"It's amazing," Storm guard Jewell Loyd told Fox 13. "Not having to drive everywhere around, knowing you have access anytime of the day to get into the gym, to workout." 

Head coach Noelle Quinn said she predicts the team is "never going to leave this building."

"Which is a good thing for me," she continued. "You talk about having an edge in performance. We want our athletes to not only perform on the court, but get whatever they need."

All of the Storm's staff and operations will now live under one roof, and the team also has plans to launch a youth basketball program operating out of the building.

The Caitlin Clark effect is quickly making its mark on the big leagues, as WNBA host teams around the country rush to upgrade their Fever games to larger arenas in order to accommodate surging ticket sales.

With Clark mere weeks away from her Indiana Fever debut, both the Las Vegas Aces and Washington Mystics have officially relocated their scheduled home games with head coach Christie Sides' squad. On Thursday, the Mystics became the latest to adjust their plans, moving their June 7th matchup from Entertainment & Sports Arena in Southwest DC to the more centrally located — and much larger — Capital One Arena "due to unprecedented demand."

The Mystics home court's capacity taps out at 4,200, while Capital One Arena — home to the Wizards, Capitals, and Georgetown Hoya's Men's Basketball — can fit nearly five times that crowd at some 20,000 spectators.

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"The move to Capital One Arena will allow for additional fans in the stands as well as premium hospitality options, including Suites and the all-new all-inclusive courtside Hennessy Lofts," the team announced via Thursday's press release.

The Aces were one of the first teams to switch venues, aiming to take on the Indiana Fever in front of as many as 20,000 fans inside T-Mobile Arena on July 2nd. That’s a sizable a boost from their home venue, which holds just 12,000.

For those still planning to face the Fever in their home arenas, ticket prices have skyrocketed. Previously scheduled construction has already forced the LA Sparks to relocate their first five games — including their May 24th clash with the Fever — to Long Beach State's Walter Pyramid. The temporary venue is quite the downsize, holding just 4,000 in comparison to Crypto.com Arena's near-19,000. As of Friday, the get-in price for that game started around $400.

Despite fans launching a Change.org petition urging relocation, the Chicago Sky say they're unable to move their June 23rd Fever meeting from Wintrust Arena's 10,000-seat facility to the 23,500-seat United Center due to a concert. Tickets for that game start around $325 as of Friday.