INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Fever‘s Aliyah Boston will be honing her 3×3 skills this offseason.
Boston will play in Unrivaled, the new 3×3 league in Miami co-founded by WNBA All-Stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart. She is the second Fever player in as many days to join the upstart league — Unrivaled announced Lexie Hull was joining the league on Wednesday.
Boston has some 3×3 experience with USA Basketball, dating back to 2018. She won a gold medal at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games 3×3 and won the 2018 USA Basketball 3×3 National Championship. Boston hasn’t competed in 3×3 beyond her high school years, instead participating in 5×5 youth tournaments and training camps throughout her college career. Boston was a part of the 5×5 training camp for the Paris Olympics, but was not selected for the final roster.
Now, Boston will combine her 5×5 and 3×3 talents in Unrivaled. While it is a 3×3 game, Unrivaled will have a full-court, four quarters, and game clock similar to that of 5×5 play. Olympic 3×3 is played on a half-court with a single 10-minute period.
It is not immediately clear what this means for Boston’s future as a basketball analyst for Peacock. Boston served as an analyst for Big Ten women’s basketball games on NBC and Peacock in the last collegiate season, but she hasn’t said if she plans to continue broadcasting this offseason.
Unrivaled’s eight-week schedule will begin on Jan. 17, with players reporting on Jan. 2 for training camp.
More:Lexie Hull joins Unrivaled, becomes first Indiana Fever player in new 3×3 offseason league
The new league has reportedly given a ‘Messi-like offer’ to Clark, which Front Office Sports compared to Inter Miami’s offer to soccer legend Lionel Messi to join Major League Soccer, trying to entice her to join the new league. Some of Clark’s closest friends in the WNBA, including Hull and the Las Vegas Aces’ Kate Martin (who was Clark’s teammate at Iowa), have recently been announced as players in the league.
Clark previously told ESPN during the WNBA playoffs she will not be participating in any offseason basketball, instead focusing on having time to herself in the offseason after a full year of being in the spotlight.
“It’s gonna be nice, I think,” Clark said in her Fever exit interview, “getting out of the spotlight and just getting to live my life and do things that I want to do.”
More:Why Caitlin Clark isn’t playing overseas in offseason or in 3×3 leagues
What’s next for Caitlin Clark?‘I’m just scratching the surface,’ but also some golf.
The Fever star will still have a lot to do in the offseason; she is participating in a charity pro-am with LPGA golfer and fellow Gainbridge ambassador Annika Sorenstam in December, and will likely have more appearances and events with other sponsors.
Still, Clark could have changed her mind between Indiana’s exit interviews and now — with the announcement that Unrivaled has expanded to 36 players, the league has six more players to announce before it starts in January.
“We’re always going to have a roster spot for Caitlin Clark,” Unrivaled president Alex Bazzell told Sportico. “We’re not applying a full court press the way people think. We are letting her decompress from basketball. … She knows that we have a spot for her when she’s ready.”
How will Unrivaled work?
Unrivaled will be a six-team league with six players on each team playing 3×3. The teams will be picked by a selection committee to ensure it is split by position and skill, Collier said on X.It will be a new type of 3×3, though, with a 70-foot-by-50-foot court, four quarters, a game clock and a shot clock. Olympic and FIBA 3×3 games are 10 minutes total, with a 12-second shot clock.
It will be an eight-week season, starting in January 2025. After six weeks of round-robin play, the top four teams will have a two-week postseason. There will also be a 1v1 tournament throughout the season, and Collier said whoever is deemed the best individual player in the world will win a minimum of $250,000.
According to the Unrivaled website, the league will have the highest average salaries in women’s sports history, and all players will also receive equity in the league.
