Categories: Sports

Jonquel Jones and the untold story of the WNBA’s reigning MVP

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ALREADY 22 HOURS into her journey, and with the ultimate leg of her 6,000-mile journey nonetheless to go, tears prick the corners of Jonquel Jones‘ eyes. The 6-foot-6 Connecticut Sun ahead stretches her legs as a lot as she will be able to in her exit-row seat. She wants extra space, however largely she wants extra sleep.

It has been a protracted 27 hours since she strode off the court docket at Mohegan Solar Enviornment after main the Solar to their 13th consecutive victory, beating the New York Liberty 98-69 on Sept. 15, 2021. Jones scored 18 factors and grabbed 13 rebounds. She awakened 4 hours later, climbed right into a automotive at 2 a.m. and was pushed 120 miles to New York to catch a six-hour flight to Los Angeles. From there, it was one other hour experience, a day’s work after which again to the airport to board this 9 p.m. flight to Connecticut. Forward of her nonetheless: a 90-minute experience house to her house in southeastern Connecticut, the place she will be able to snuggle her Goldendoodles and sink her head into her pillow.

She is meant to have follow tomorrow — or is it right this moment? — however fortunately, coach Curt Miller understood the importance of this journey, so he gave her the time without work.

Cramming the whirlwind trek into the stretch run of her MVP-caliber WNBA season won’t have been the neatest factor to do for her physique, however it was necessary to Jones to benefit from this distinctive alternative.

“Whenever you see State Farm commercials, they’re in all places,” Jones says.

The filming itself was removed from a heavy raise. Jones needed to stretch up, seize a jar of pickles off the shelf and hand them to — the 5 inches shorter — Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young. After which 7-foot-Three Houston Rockets-bound heart Boban Marjanović handed her a jar of mustard. She spoke simply six phrases. Fairly easy. It was every thing else that took some doing.

However the probability to boost her profile, and, sure, to money a examine, was nicely price folding her lengthy legs into an exit-row seat on this airplane. Households across the nation would see her face and listen to Younger say her identify. Thanks, Jonquel. Endorsement alternatives for WNBA gamers, whereas rising, are uncommon. And the alternatives for somebody like Jones — Black and homosexual and, how she describes it, not historically female — are nearly nonexistent. Jones ought to be the third leg in a celebrity tripod with fellow 20-something MVPs Breanna Stewart and A’ja Wilson. However essentially the most seen WNBA gamers, at the very least in keeping with 2021 jersey gross sales, are Sabrina Ionescu, Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi.

Jones has the sport; she has the persona. She even has a compelling origin story. But few folks exterior of the WNBA trustworthy even know who Jonquel Jones is.

Weeks after capturing the State Farm industrial, Jones accepted the 2021 MVP award from commissioner Cathy Engelbert. Jones prayed the award would confer a stamp of marketability that might translate to extra endorsement and income alternatives.

Since then? Crickets. “There hasn’t been something,” Jones says.

She thinks she is aware of why.


WHO GETS TO BE a WNBA celebrity? The participant who scores essentially the most factors? The one who collects essentially the most championship rings? The one who sells essentially the most jerseys? Or, are elements past the court docket at work within the WNBA?

“I believe it begins with profitable,” Las Vegas Aces guard Kelsey Plum says.

“Somebody that may actually have the broad shoulders to assist carry the load of a staff,” Miller says.

“A WNBA celebrity is about play on the court docket, work in the neighborhood, social justice, and elevating from a advertising and model perspective,” Engelbert says.

“However it’s additionally about that visibility, that marketability, that machine behind you,” says Amira Rose Davis, a Penn State assistant professor of African American Research and co-host of “Burn It All Down,” a feminist sports activities podcast. “Who will get the machine, after all, is the center of a variety of the problems.”

The proverbial machine being the ability of the media, market, staff and league lining up behind a participant to push them out to customers. There is no such thing as a public database that tracks endorsement offers of WNBA gamers, however a number of folks with data of {the marketplace} for a league that’s greater than 80% folks of coloration constantly cited six names: Candace Parker, Sue Hen, Sabrina Ionescu, A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart and Elena Delle Donne. Simply two of them are Black.

“Although our league is predominantly Black, I believe it is onerous for our league to push us, in a way, as a result of they nonetheless must market, of their thoughts, what’s marketable,” Wilson says. “Generally a Black lady would not examine off these containers.”

Plum has been on the opposite facet of that, cringing when her face appeared on graphics selling her staff early in her profession when she was enjoying restricted minutes and scoring sparingly. “I really feel like this league is about respect and it’s a must to earn your manner,” says Plum, the No. 1 decide within the 2017 draft out of the College of Washington. “And I did not. I used to be getting preferential therapy as a result of I used to be straight and white. I blocked [the WNBA] on social media. I used to be pissed. It is completely an issue in our league. Simply straight up.”

Solar guard Courtney Williams entered the league in 2016 alongside Jones, and she or he heard issues from her household about needing to look “a sure manner.” On draft evening, she wore a black costume, pink heels and her lengthy hair down. Now, she rocks a bleach-blonde minimize cropped near her head, simply lengthy sufficient to see the ripples of her waves. She thinks she’s in all probability misplaced alternatives — misplaced cash — due to how she presents herself. “It is onerous to get at that desk, being your self, being Black, being homosexual and being unapologetically your self,” Williams says. “Particularly in case you’re not keen to adapt and do sure issues that they need you to do.

“And it acquired to the purpose the place I am like ‘Man, I am not doing it. It’s what it’s.’ I am simply going to must determine one thing else out as a result of I am unable to change who I’m only for a few {dollars}. I am unable to do this.”

In February, Jones tweeted out her personal frustrations. “It is all a reputation contest and politics in wbb. In mbb you simply gottah be one of the best. In wbb you gottah be one of the best participant, finest trying, most marketable, most IG followers, simply to sit down on the endorsement desk. Thank God for abroad as a result of my bag would’ve been fumbled.

“To not point out me being a black lesbian lady,” she added. “Lord the seats disappearing from the desk as I converse.”

Jones, 28, has earned nearly each on-court accolade there’s. She was named the WNBA’s Most Improved Participant in 2017 and Sixth Girl of the 12 months in 2018. She was the 2021 MVP. The mix of her measurement, athleticism and expertise makes her a singular expertise. She will be able to dunk, block photographs, pull up off the dribble, drain a 3.

“Lots of people cannot do what JJ does at her measurement,” Williams says. “For the reason that first day I met JJ, I advised her like, ‘You the one! No person can maintain you. When you imagine that you just a star, you going to be a star as a result of the issues that you are able to do.'”

However being Black, homosexual and self-described as extra masculine places Jones at an intersection that has historically struggled to draw manufacturers even because the WNBA itself — gamers, groups and management — has turn out to be essentially the most LGBTQIA+ inclusive skilled sports activities league in the USA. The league pushed a extra female (and heterosexual) picture within the early 2000s, however has since embraced its various identities, turning into the primary home skilled league to have a Satisfaction platform in 2014.

“There’s nonetheless a variety of room to develop,” Stewart says. “Generally I really feel that we’re attending to a greater place. After which typically I am like, ‘Possibly we’re not.’ It is sort of such as you’re on a curler coaster.”

Bringing manufacturers and media on board stays a problem, notably for various gamers. Even once they have the sport, the persona and a compelling origin story besides.


LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW of the airplane on the crystal-clear teal water crashing towards the sand, Jones hums softly to herself.

Residence candy house. Residence candy house. Irrespective of which a part of the world I roam, The Bahamas is my house.

She realized the traditional Bahamian groove by Tony Seymour and The Nitebeaters as a child, and it at all times pops into her head on the descent to her favourite place — particularly now, as she flies house from Russia in March 2022.

Jones grew up in Freeport, amid a sprawling prolonged household. She rode her bike with buddies and cousins, respiration the salt-specked air over her handlebars and burning rubber towards the asphalt streets.

“It wasn’t simply my mother and father that had been elevating me,” Jones says. “It was all people in the neighborhood. After I take into consideration elevating my youngsters at some point, I need them to be raised in a sort of state of affairs like that.”

A kind of folks was her oldest brother, David Adderley. Regardless of a 19-year age hole, Adderley and Jones had been shut as a result of they cherished lots of the similar issues: sports activities, video video games, comics and anime. One Christmas, when Jones was about 8, she discovered a Nintendo GameCube whereas rummaging in her brother’s closet. Each her mom and brother insisted that the console wasn’t for her regardless that she had requested for one for Christmas. When Adderley offered it to her on Christmas morning, Jones cradled the sport system, crying tears of pleasure.

“That is my child,” Adderley says of Jones. “It was good that I may do this for her.”

Jones discovered basketball by way of her dad, although she would not keep in mind precisely when. She remembers following him to follow to look at him coach a gaggle of boys. “However for so long as I’ve identified myself, I’ve identified the sport of basketball,” Jones says.

Basketball additionally helped Jones uncover herself. Rising up, she was typically advised what she was speculated to do, what she was speculated to put on, and the way she was speculated to act. “I really feel like a variety of instances there have been issues that little ladies weren’t speculated to do,” Jones says. “Like, ‘You are a lady, you are not speculated to be whistling.'”

On the court docket, although, none of that mattered. Jones may concentrate on making a shot or getting a rebound or crossing up a defender. On Sundays, when her mom advised her to place the ball down, keep inside, clear up and go to church, Jones typically sneaked over to her grandmother’s home, basketball in tow. Her grandmother had a court docket in her yard, and Jones would play all day. Home guidelines be damned.

“I may sort of inform the principles that ought to be adopted and those that you may sort of query and sort of interpret for your self,” Jones says. “I can whistle very well now.”

Jones’ ascent to the skinny air of the very best basketball summits was extra regular climb than meteoric rise. By center college, she started to outgrow the basketball alternatives out there within the Bahamas. Fellow Bahamian and present Ole Miss head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin noticed her on a staff coached by McPhee-McCuin’s dad. “JJ’s recreation is futuristic,” McPhee-McCuin says now. “I do not assume she’s reached her ceiling. And that is scary. She’s nonetheless coming alongside.”

McPhee-McCuin requested if Jones wished to play in the USA. It took just a few months and quite a lot of telephone calls, however Jones got here to the U.S. in highschool to play for Diane Richardson at Riverdale Baptist Faculty within the Maryland D.C. suburbs. Jones moved in with Richardson, who grew to become her authorized guardian. Richardson had by no means seen Jones play earlier than she arrived, and she or he thought she was getting a 6-foot-2 participant. “She was 5-foot-9,” Richardson says. “And a bean pole.”

Jones went from the airport straight to her first follow. She introduced shorts and a T-shirt, and Richardson’s husband loaned Jones his tennis footwear. Richardson threw her into follow, and Jones was all limbs and nerves. She reminded Richardson of a spider together with her lengthy, skinny arms.

“I used to be horrible,” Jones says. “I used to be positively behind.”

However she practiced for as many as six hours some days the summer season between her sophomore and junior years. She did every thing Richardson, now the pinnacle coach at Temple, requested of her after which did a bit extra. By her senior 12 months, Jones was a varsity starter. She gained Maryland’s Gatorade participant of the 12 months award and was named a WBCA All-American. By the tip of the season, she jumped from the No. 36-ranked prospect to No. 17.

Jones went on to play her freshman season at Clemson, the place McPhee-McCuin was on employees, earlier than transferring to George Washington. Richardson got here to D.C. too, becoming a member of the GW employees as an assistant coach for the rest of Jones’ collegiate profession.

Whereas she was creating her recreation, Jones struggled to reconcile her identification as a lesbian with the religion she grew up with and the traditions of her nation. She remembers being in center college — proper earlier than leaving to play at Riverdale — watching a basketball recreation the place a lady enjoying caught her eye. Jones could not cease trying, and she or he wasn’t positive why she instantly had these emotions. She practically jumped out of her pores and skin when her cousin ran as much as her. “Jonquel, it’s a must to inform this woman I like her,” he stated. And he proceeded to explain a set of emotions Jones felt fluttering in her personal chest and dancing within the pit of her personal abdomen.

The second of recognition was fleeting. She already knew how her father would reply, what her mom would assume, what her church would assume. “And so I used to be like, ‘Okay that is positively one thing that I mustn’t inform anyone,'” Jones stated to herself on the time. “‘I ought to simply preserve it to myself.'”

In highschool in America, Jones explored extra. She had a girlfriend that few folks knew about. “She lived in Florida,” Jones says. “I met her at a basketball match.” They typically talked for hours on the telephone, sandwiching their quiet conversations between follow and schoolwork. Jones even modified her fashion a bit, choosing the polo shirts all of the boys her age wore.

However that modified earlier than she went to varsity. She dumped the polos and broke off her relationship. “It is simply at all times been this battle between me being myself but in addition being a follower of Christ,” Jones says. “I simply made this drastic change. And I principally went by way of school preventing that and feeling like I needed to put that facet of myself sort of on the again burner.”

Relics of that battle dot Jones’ path: The slate blue costume she wore to the WNBA draft, the striped and form-fitting earth-tone costume she wore down the WNBA All-Star orange carpet for her first choice in 2017. “After I take a look at these footage, I cringe as a result of I do know it wasn’t me,” she says. “I used to be attempting too onerous to be one thing I wasn’t.”

As a substitute of warring inside herself, Jones tried to embrace all of who she is. She shared her identification together with her mother and father and her siblings, and likewise with the world.

“It was a dialog that developed over time,” Adderley says. “I advised her to simply be herself and I might love her both manner.”

Jones and her present girlfriend attempt to pray each evening, and she or he retains her Bible shut. However she’s nonetheless on the lookout for a full-time house for her religion. “It is nonetheless an ongoing factor,” she says. “However I in the end know who I’m. I simply must take the time to actually discover God for myself and never what different folks inform me who God is. After I do this, then it will be totally different.”

When she made her second WNBA All-Star Sport in 2019, Jones wore pants and a short-sleeve button-up on the orange carpet. Not fairly a polo, however fairly shut.

Jones believes her determination to embrace her identification as a lesbian and costume extra authentically got here with materials penalties. The Bahamas Telecommunications Co., she says, opted to not renew her contract regardless that her basketball efficiency in the USA and abroad had improved.

“The one distinction is that I am overtly out and dressing otherwise,” Jones says.


SPORTS ARE OFTEN thought of a meritocracy. The most effective gamers get the very best salaries. A participant’s price is set on the court docket.

The utmost 2022 wage for a WNBA participant like Jones — who has been within the league for at the very least 5 years and performed with the identical staff for the earlier two seasons — is $228,094 (for everybody else, it is $196,267). Jones’ wage is reportedly $205,000.

With the typical WNBA profession lasting 5 to 6 years, in keeping with the league, many gamers complement their revenue by enjoying abroad throughout the offseason. Jones has performed in South Korea, China and Russia, and she or he signed to play in Turkey this upcoming offseason. She additionally performs for the Bosnia and Herzegovina nationwide staff.

“When you consider the months that we do play, we’re truly getting paid fairly nicely,” Jones says. “However I simply really feel like I’d be loopy to depart that sort of cash when it is on the desk and it is out there abroad, ?”

Others select to spend their offseasons constructing their manufacturers by filming commercials, making appearances and specializing in their social accounts. Whereas male skilled athletes additionally search alternate revenue streams, there’s an added urgency with WNBA gamers.

“Even in case you’re not a significant hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars NBA participant, and even in case you’re an abroad [male] basketball participant, you may make sufficient out of your base compensation to not must take care of advertising,” Excel Sports activities Administration agent Erin Yates Kane says. “I’ve labored with guys who’ve deactivated their social media. They’ve that prerogative. On the ladies’s facet, it is a lot tougher to stroll away from that as a result of it is extra alternative to complement your revenue.”

At the very least for some. The cash within the endorsement bucket dries up rapidly, Engelbert says, contemplating that lower than 1% of sponsorship {dollars} goes to ladies’s sports activities.

“And a variety of that cash goes to people and never team-sport athletes,” says Engelbert, who grew to become commissioner in 2019 after serving as CEO on the accounting agency Deloitte.

In her position, Engelbert tries to boost the profile of the league, its groups and its gamers. She employed the league’s first chief advertising officer in Phil Cook dinner, who joined the WNBA from Nike. Beginning with the 2020 season, the league provided annual advertising agreements to a choose few gamers, committing to pay them $250,000, however they could not play abroad. Jones was provided a spot, however she declined, opting as a substitute to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg, the place her wage was “six figures per 30 days,” she says.

The league signed three gamers to the agreements for the 2021-22 offseason: Betnijah Laney, Napheesa Collier and Dearica Hamby, who had been showcased incessantly on the WNBA social handles, together with to its 1.2 million followers on Instagram.

Gamers’ private social media accounts drive endorsement alternatives at each the skilled and collegiate stage. “We’re positively nonetheless in an influencer financial system,” Kane says. “There is no doubt about that.”

With social media, measurement of following is necessary. A participant with one million followers goes to fetch extra curiosity (and {dollars}) than a participant with 30,000 followers. However attracting a big following — and even an engaged following — is less complicated for some than others.

“In relation to constructing a model, constructing a extremely seen persona for a WNBA participant or feminine athlete, it is a lot tougher for my athletes which might be homosexual,” says agent Jade-Li English, head of Klutch Sports activities’ ladies’s basketball division.

The listing of girls’s basketball gamers who’ve efficiently drawn massive followings reveals some uncomfortable traits. Parker has 1 million followers on Instagram, however she can be a visual TV persona as an NBA analyst with Turner Sports activities. Skylar Diggins-Smith additionally has one million Instagram followers, as does Liz Cambage. However after these three, the lineup is noticeably white: Paige Bueckers (1 million), Hailey Van Lith (719,000), Ionescu (690,000), Hen (660,000), Delle Donne (462,000) and Plum (431,000). On TikTok, the development is analogous. College of Oregon senior Sedona Prince has 3.1 million followers. College of Miami seniors Hanna and Haley Cavinder have Four million followers on their shared account (along with the 412okay and 411okay respective followers every of them have on Instagram). Bueckers boasts 371,000 on TikTok.

For comparability, consensus collegiate 2021-22 participant of the 12 months Aliyah Boston, who’s Black, has 105,000 followers on Instagram and Jones has 34,100.

It is also price noting that coming from a big-time school program is useful in constructing a big following that always stays loyal when gamers transfer on to the WNBA. Jones, who was comparatively unknown in school, didn’t profit from such a lift.

“Lots of people actually did not learn about me, so I did not have that fan base that might actually have the ability to sort of drive income and assist me in that manner,” Jones says. “And so abroad was the best choice. And I believe it nonetheless is for me, actually.”

The rise of NIL, which permits collegiate gamers to monetize their followings, could exacerbate a few of these points at earlier phases of athletes’ careers. In response to Opendorse, an organization that works with 120 faculties to attach athletes with manufacturers, 49.9% of complete NIL compensation went to soccer, adopted by males’s basketball (17.0%). Girls’s basketball was third with 15.7%. Total, the biggest revenue-generating exercise throughout sports activities was posting content material on social media (34.2%). However when it comes to complete NIL actions by sport (posts, appearances, and so forth.), ladies’s basketball ranked No. Eight at 4.5%, which means comparatively few gamers made a lot of the cash.

The numbers level to a high-stakes competitors for faculty ladies’s basketball gamers, who’re simply as weak to the forces WNBA gamers discuss in relation to alternatives. How that may have an effect on LGBTQIA+ school college students as they discover and specific their identities like Jones did stays an open query.

“I do assume being who you’re and being comfortable in your pores and skin results in a extra steady life,” South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley says. “Sure it can affect their pockets. I might relatively for it to affect their pockets than to affect their psychological well being.”


WEARING AN OPEN-BACK, spaghetti-strap black costume and white sneakers, Bueckers took the stage in New York on the 2021 ESPYS. Her blonde hair cascaded previous her shoulders as she held her award for finest school athlete in ladies’s sports activities.

“With the sunshine that I’ve now as a white lady, who leads a Black-led sport … I need to present a light-weight on Black ladies. They do not get the media protection that they deserve,” she stated. “For the WNBA postseason awards, 80% of the winners had been Black however they acquired half the quantity of protection because the white athletes, so I believe it is time for change.”

Bueckers was citing a examine led by Risa Isard, a analysis fellow on the laboratory for inclusion and variety in sport on the College of Massachusetts Amherst. The examine examined how the variety of media mentions for WNBA gamers was affected by race, sexual orientation and/or gender expression. It tracked mentions of WNBA gamers in tales on ESPN.com, CBSSports.com and SI.com throughout the shortened 2020 bubble season.

As Bueckers stated, white gamers obtained greater than double the mentions that Black gamers obtained. Wilson, the 2020 MVP, was the most-mentioned Black participant, however she was talked about half as many instances as Ionescu, who suffered an early-season ankle damage and performed simply three video games after being chosen first out of the College of Oregon within the 2020 draft. Sexual orientation and gender expression didn’t have a significant affect independently, in keeping with the examine, however when seen intersectionally with race, a sample emerged.

“We discovered that Black gamers with extra masculine gender expressions obtained the least quantity of protection,” Isard says. Black gamers obtained significantly much less protection than white gamers, however Black masculine gamers obtained even lower than their extra female friends.

“I believe I am positively extra on the masculine facet [with] the clothes that I put on,” Jones says. “I don’t need to be a man. I don’t need to be a person. I am very snug in who I’m.”

Whether or not or not a participant receives media protection can, after all, have a ripple impact. For the 2021 season, the WNBA introduced the highest jersey gross sales as follows: Ionescu, Hen, Taurasi, Wilson, Stewart, Parker, Diggins-Smith, Delle Donne, Maya Moore and Cambage. In a league that’s 80% folks of coloration, 50% of the top-10 jersey gross sales belonged to white gamers, and none of them sit at Jones’ particular intersection of Black, homosexual and masculine.

Additionally telling is whose jerseys are even in the stores. Within the on-line WNBA retailer as of this writing, the one two Seattle Storm jerseys out there are Hen’s and Stewart’s. Second-leading scorer Jewell Loyd‘s jersey is unavailable. The one player-specific jersey out there within the Chicago Sky retailer is Parker’s. 2021 WNBA Finals MVP Kahleah Copper‘s jersey is nowhere to be discovered. A fan can not buy the jersey of 2022 No. 1 draft decide Rhyne Howard within the Atlanta Dream on-line staff store. Granted, any identify and quantity could be placed on a jersey, however it prices an additional $30 to customise it.

The shortage of jersey availability is not one thing that solely impacts Black gamers — and there are many Black gamers whose jerseys can be found — however it’s notable that the traits in jersey gross sales mirror the traits in media mentions.

ESPN is without doubt one of the main WNBA media rights holders. Matt Kenny, who’s a vp of programming and acquisitions, spearheads the day-to-day scheduling and enterprise actions for skilled basketball, together with the WNBA. Along with broadcasting video games, ESPN added a number of studio reveals for the 2022 season: a draft lottery present, a WNBA free company particular, a WNBA draft preview present, and a devoted WNBA expertise problem throughout the All-Star break. Such programming has lengthy been a staple throughout ESPN’s protection of premier males’s sports activities, however it’s new to the WNBA. On the time of publication, WNBA scores are up greater than 15% on ESPN networks.

“We’re beginning to see us develop the WNBA in quite a lot of areas throughout the group that we imagine goes to have the final word rising-tides-lifts-all-boats impact,” Kenny says.

A rising tide could, in reality, raise all boats. However the query stays whether or not the entire boats will rise equitably.


JONES CATCHES A bounce go on the left wing and swings the ball by way of to sq. up towards Wilson in a June 2 marquee matchup in Las Vegas between the league’s final two MVPs. Wilson acquired the higher of Jones two nights prior, when she scored 24 factors, grabbed 14 rebounds and helped the Aces beat the Solar by eight. Tonight is the rematch, and Jones is set to flip the script.

She jabs left, earlier than taking a dribble proper, towards the elbow. She spins towards the baseline, leans again, and launches a fadeaway jumper over Wilson’s outstretched fingertips. The ball swishes by way of the online. It is her first two factors en path to a team-high 20 on the evening. And the Solar get the win — their first of 4 straight to begin June — which is basically what Jones was after.

“She deserves far more consideration than she’s gotten as a WNBA MVP,” Stewart says. “She’s a three-level scorer and makes an affect on the defensive finish. It is powerful to match up together with her as a result of her measurement first, after which the talent she has.”

“A humble celebrity,” Miller says. “She’d surrender any particular person accolades to try to cling the primary banner right here.”

Jones was a free agent after the 2021 season, however opted to return to the Solar (and take rather less cash) to chase a championship. Jones and the Solar made it to the Finals in 2019, however have not been in a position to get again since. Final season, after profitable 14 consecutive video games and having the league’s finest regular-season file, the Solar misplaced to Chicago within the semifinals. “It simply damage,” Jones says.

Jones is aware of this season could possibly be totally different. Possibly will probably be the one. The one when she could be herself, the one when she will be able to win a title, the one when her variety is rewarded.

“I need it to have the ability to get to the purpose the place we are able to simply share these tales and permit ladies of our league to simply actually thrive and flourish,” Jones says. “And so, if me sitting up right here telling my fact and being open and sincere goes to try this, then I actually do hope it’s higher for girls sooner or later.”


Pictures by Bronson Farr | @bronson.picture. Manufacturing by Runway 4. Wardrobe styling by Erika Golcher. Prop styling by Natalia Janul. Hair by Rahnaisa Foster. Make-up by T’nasia Ward. Athletic put on by Nike. Black and white prime by Marc Jacobs. Inexperienced jacket by Willy Chavarria. Earrings by Shashi. Eyewear by ChuCHuNY.com.

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