For the first time in nearly two years, Shakira Austin is healthy. The Ole Miss product, who was picked third in the 2022 WNBA Draft by Washington, is currently playing in the inaugural season of Unrivaled, the new 3-on-3 league founded by W colleagues Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart.

Unrivaled features six teams playing a 14-game schedule three nights per week between mid-January and mid-March 2025, with all games played in the Miami area.

“It’s been great. My team’s undefeated,” said Austin, who is averaging 7.1 points, 3.6 rebounds and one assist for the Lunar Owls. “It’s a new game, so it’s a little adjustment of course, but overall, the atmosphere and the energy has been fun and exciting. It’s a new energy we’ve really used well.”

In November, she was part of a 3-on-3 camp with the U.S. National Team, a nice lead-in to Unrivaled, which takes Austin back to an earlier time.

“It reminds me of street ball, playing pickup. Obviously, when you put the best players in the world in a pickup game, it looks a lot better,” Austin, 24, said. “This has been fun. It’s been competitive.”

Austin spent her final two college seasons in Oxford, twice earning the Gillom Trophy as the top women’s player in the Magnolia State and earning first-team All-SEC honors as a senior in 2022. After starting her collegiate career at Maryland, she knows finishing at Ole Miss was the right call.

“My decision to go to Ole Miss was to create a new energy and establish a program. I think my time there was well used,” she said.

In 2022, Austin averaged 8.7 points and 6.4 rebounds for Washington, playing all 36 games as a rookie for the Mystics. And after playing in Israel that offseason, she was poised for a big sophomore campaign. However, a hip injury limited her to only 19 of 40 games. Last season, she reinjured the same hip and suffered an ankle injury, missing 28 of 40 games.

However, Austin is now fully healed and showcasing her skills in Unrivaled.

“I’ve harped on this since I’ve been injured, I truly appreciate going through this injury at such a young age. I obviously wasn’t happy when it happened, and it was hard as hell to go through, but to learn the things I’ve learned about the business, my body, taking care of being a pro, those are all things I feel a lot of us might not learn until our late 20s and 30s,” Austin said. “To be 22, 23 and going through this experience, I took advantage of it with the lessons I was able to learn. I’m appreciative and know in the end, it’s going to make me a way better athlete.”

Close to home

And as someone who ventured overseas earlier in her professional career, before Unrivaled was an option during the WNBA offseason, she clearly appreciates having the option of playing in the U.S. this winter instead of returning abroad.

“As someone who’s been through an injury, possibly due to playing year-around my rookie season, it’s definitely a relief to see these opportunities and know that the dollar’s getting bigger over here so we don’t have to go play year-round, be away from our families and in a whole different country,” Austin said.

“That (playing year-around) is a whole new lifestyle, and it takes a toll not only on your physical but your mental (side, too). I’m really excited for the younger generation. I think they’re going to be a lot more spoiled than some of the older girls who aren’t used to this, but it’s nice. It’s nice to see the vets be able to take advantage of this opportunity and being able to stay home and compete.”

With Unrivaled concluding in mid-March, the new league provides a great bridge between offseason workouts and the start of WNBA training camps in April and the start of a new season in May. This season, the W welcomes an expansion team in the Golden State Valkyries, and in 2026 the league welcomes new entries in Portland and Toronto. Athletes Unlimited, another player-driven league in the winter, is now in its fourth season of play, all proof of how strong the women’s game continues to be.

“One thing we always say is when you give us the opportunity to be seen, people will capture that and gravitate towards that. People are investing in women’s sports and specifically in women’s basketball right now,” Austin said. “We also have some of the best talent right now coming out. They’re exciting, they’re entertaining. We have all this motion, this attention, but we have players who are backing it up. That’s great for our league. You can see from Unrivaled with the 3-on-3, players are showing out and it’s fun. I’m excited to bring in more fans and more money in general.”

Stephen Hunt is a freelance writer based in Frisco, Texas.