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The returning Skylar Diggins is trying ahead to what the second season of Unequalled holds with each the Lunar Owls and past.
Skylar Diggins sees herself as an “upperclassman” on the Unequalled campus…however don’t count on any senior skip days from the Lunar Owls BC star.
With over a decade {of professional} expertise beneath her belt, the 35-year-old Diggins is likely one of the extra seasoned stars of Unequalled, the home 3×3 league set to embark on its second South Seaside outing. Working that lengthy on the skilled stage is hardly the luck of the (Combating) Irish, and Diggins appreciated that Unequalled lived as much as its namesake and allowed her to earn a continued residence.
“If you happen to’re not aggressive in opposition to this group, , they’ll present your [butt] up,” Diggins mentioned because the Lunar Owls flew south for the winter. “I feel that everyone right here has a physique of labor that deserves to be revered, that earns the suitable to be revered. I feel the most important praise I can provide is competing as arduous as I can. I feel that establishes the surroundings on the ground, what it’s going to be, particularly whenever you play in opposition to our group.
“We all know final yr we had change into 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 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 imagine that it’s an iron sharpens iron mentality, not just for the gamers which might be on my group, but in addition who we’re dealing with. [They] demand a sure stage of competitors and supply a sure stage of perspective and swag that it’s important to carry 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 Workforce honors to shut out the league’s maiden voyage. She averaged 18 factors and a team-best 4.8 assists in a virtually excellent 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-Unequalled 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 Unequalled 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 go away, Diggins’ 3-point proportion elevated practically 10 factors from the prior marketing campaign, and she or he earned the primary triple-double in her WNBA profession. The aggressive nature of Unequalled, which favors the aggressive, appeared to assist her put together for an evolving W.
“The three durations of seven minutes, after which a goal rating, your method—you actually can win any sport,” Diggins famous of the slim nature of Unequalled’s scoreboards, the place victors are decided by a goal rating in an untimed last interval. “Some groups get tight once they’re up going into the goal rating, and so they do issues, they play to not win, nearly, or to not lose quite…however the aggressors win on this sport.
“You need to go, and it’s important to 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 loads of the nuances that we’ll discuss via as a group and strategize with the brand new make-up of our group. 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 joy 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 protecting 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 growth was the league’s gamers affiliation giving its excessive desk the go-ahead to strike “when crucial.”
That’s, mockingly sufficient, an space the place the debut season of Unequalled can help Diggins and her fellow ground fighters.
Final winter’s first go-around assembled a few of the sport’s brightest stars, which actually 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 Unequalled…We took benefit of the chance, making an attempt to be proactive, speaking about what this yr may probably appear to be, 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 at all times do. Clearly, it’s finest that, , it’s finest once we can have loads of us in the identical room, see one another’s facial features, bounce concepts off one another, and simply have that help 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 Means for the Subsequent Era
Set to enter her thirteenth yr of WNBA play (“God keen”), Diggins has left her mark on the progress the league has made so far. That have, she admitted, ensures that she gained’t have the ability to reap the total advantages the following CBA will provide. However preventing for the following technology is a superbly acceptable alternative award in her eyes, making Unequalled an opportunity to hone her sport each on the ground and within the boardroom.
“I feel that we haven’t heard what we wish to hear but. I do know that for positive,” Diggins acknowledged. “We’re nonetheless preventing for what we wish. We nonetheless wish to be heard and brought significantly. We will’t do an enlargement draft with no CBA. We will’t do qualifying provides with no CBA, and we are able to’t discuss this development that we’ve been lining up for years and years and years and organising for [more] with out getting these negotiations finished.”
“We’re preventing for one another. For me, I gained’t be within the league for everything of this CBA. It’s not for me, however I’m serious about my daughter, having a league to play in someday, and these youthful gamers which might be nonetheless going to be on this league once I’m gone. That’s the mentality and my method.”
Geoff Magliocchetti is on X, @GeoffJMags
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