The returning Skylar Diggins is trying ahead to what the second season of Unmatched holds with each the Lunar Owls and past.
Skylar Diggins sees herself as an “upperclassman” on the Unmatched campus…however don’t anticipate any senior skip days from the Lunar Owls BC star.
With over a decade {of professional} expertise below her belt, the 35-year-old Diggins is likely one of the extra seasoned stars of Unmatched, the home 3×3 league set to embark on its second South Seashore outing. Working that lengthy on the skilled degree is hardly the luck of the (Combating) Irish, and Diggins appreciated that Unmatched lived as much as its namesake and allowed her to earn a continued residence.
“Should you’re not aggressive towards this group, you already know, they’ll present your [butt] up,” Diggins stated because the Lunar Owls flew south for the winter. “I believe that everyone right here has a physique of labor that deserves to be revered, that earns the correct to be revered. I believe the most important praise I can provide is competing as exhausting as I can. I believe that establishes the setting on the ground, what it’s going to be, particularly whenever you play towards our crew.
“We all know final yr we had turn out to be a little bit of the hunted, so far as how we approached the sport. I take myself very significantly in these areas, and so, sure, it’s no secret that I really like the competitors, and it’s what fuels me, however I additionally stay up for the caliber of gamers that I’m round. I actually consider that it’s an iron sharpens iron mentality, not just for the gamers which are on my crew, but additionally who we’re dealing with. [They] demand a sure degree of competitors and supply a sure degree of angle and swag that you must deliver to the desk to have the ability to compete, and never solely to compete, however to win.”
Working with league co-founder Napheesa Collier, Diggins earned Second Staff honors to shut out the league’s maiden voyage. She averaged 18 factors and a team-best 4.8 assists in an almost good common season for the Lunar Owls, who usher in Rebecca Allen, Rachel Banham, Aaliyah Edwards, and Marina Mabrey within the quest for playoff redemption.
2025 All-Unmatched Groups
1st TeamNapheesa Collier25.7 PTS, 10.6 REBChelsea Gray21.3 PTS, 5.4 AST, 6 GWKayla McBride 22.2 PTS, 2.8 AST
2nd TeamSkylar Diggins-Smith17.9 PTS, 4.8 AST, 5 GWRhyne Howard29.5 PTS, 1.3 STLAngel Reese13.1 PTS, 12.1 REB pic.twitter.com/5bz4EuDDFQ
— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) March 13, 2025
The compact courtroom of Unmatched paid Diggins dividends within the eventual WNBA season: in her second season with each the Seattle Storm and again from a yr off from maternity depart, Diggins’ 3-point share elevated almost 10 factors from the prior marketing campaign, and she or he earned the primary triple-double in her WNBA profession. The aggressive nature of Unmatched, which favors the aggressive, appeared to assist her put together for an evolving W.
“The three intervals of seven minutes, after which a goal rating, your method—you actually can win any sport,” Diggins famous of the slender nature of Unmatched’s scoreboards, the place victors are decided by a goal rating in an untimed closing interval. “Some groups get tight once they’re up going into the goal rating, and so they do issues, they play to not win, virtually, or to not lose relatively…however the aggressors win on this sport.
“It’s a must to go, and you must go have a quick begin. You get to halftime quick, after which after that third interval, you’re proper into the goal rating,” Diggins continued. “These are numerous the nuances that we’ll speak via as a crew and strategize with the brand new make-up of our crew. It’ll be much more this yr. That is solely the second season, so we solely have one season of pattern measurement to sort of evaluate to. However that’s the thrill about it. Anyone can win, in order that’s nice for the viewers.”
Diggins on the Upcoming WNBA CBA
Pleasure, for higher and worse, additionally lingers off the courtroom: Diggins, like lots of her contemporaries, is maintaining herself abreast of the WNBA collective bargaining settlement discussions that dominate the present ladies’s basketball panorama. With Christmas coming, the workshop is a comparatively dormant interval, as the most recent improvement was the league’s gamers affiliation giving its excessive desk the go-ahead to strike “when crucial.”
That’s, satirically sufficient, an space the place the debut season of Unmatched can help Diggins and her fellow ground fighters.
Final winter’s first go-around assembled a number of the sport’s brightest stars, which definitely made for an fascinating session of WNBA free company. However the opening of a path to a revamped CBA, Diggins revealed, was laid out amidst the good-natured gossip, and she or he is aware of that the dialogue will emerge in full power this time round.
“We undoubtedly took benefit final yr right here in Unmatched…We took benefit of the chance, attempting to be proactive, speaking about what this yr might probably appear like, the CBA, a few of our objectives, and get opinions of all people so far as the hierarchy,” Diggins defined. “We’re going to do the identical factor. We’re undoubtedly going to arrange like we all the time do. Clearly, it’s greatest that, you already know, it’s greatest once we can have numerous us in the identical room, see one another’s facial features, bounce concepts off one another, and simply have that assist system and that area to be snug and share.”
Skylar Diggins tonight 🔥
• 26 factors • 7 assists • 3 rebounds • 2 steals• 8/18 FG
pic.twitter.com/YqBMxQPjuF
— Girls’s Hoops Community (@WomensHoops_USA) June 8, 2025
Paving the Manner for the Subsequent Technology
Set to enter her thirteenth yr of WNBA play (“God keen”), Diggins has left her mark on the progress the league has made to this point. That have, she admitted, ensures that she gained’t be capable of reap the complete advantages the subsequent CBA will supply. However preventing for the subsequent technology is a superbly acceptable alternative award in her eyes, making Unmatched an opportunity to hone her sport each on the ground and within the boardroom.
“I believe that we haven’t heard what we need to hear but. I do know that for certain,” Diggins acknowledged. “We’re nonetheless preventing for what we would like. We nonetheless need to be heard and brought significantly. We are able to’t do an enlargement draft with no CBA. We are able to’t do qualifying gives with no CBA, and we will’t speak about this development that we’ve been lining up for years and years and years and organising for [more] with out getting these negotiations accomplished.”
“We’re preventing for one another. For me, I gained’t be within the league for the whole lot of this CBA. It’s not for me, however I’m desirous about my daughter, having a league to play in someday, and these youthful gamers which are nonetheless going to be on this league once I’m gone. That’s the mentality and my method.”
Geoff Magliocchetti is on X, @GeoffJMags
