{"id":72171,"date":"2026-04-20T07:56:38","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T12:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/20\/floods-baskets-and-billie-jean-king-how-the-rough-and-tumble-wbl-set-the-stage-for-the-wnba\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T07:56:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T12:56:38","slug":"floods-baskets-and-billie-jean-king-how-the-rough-and-tumble-wbl-set-the-stage-for-the-wnba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/20\/floods-baskets-and-billie-jean-king-how-the-rough-and-tumble-wbl-set-the-stage-for-the-wnba\/","title":{"rendered":"Floods, baskets and Billie Jean King: how the rough and tumble WBL set the stage for the WNBA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is 45 years since the Women\u2019s Professional Basketball League played its final game. But it laid the foundation for the stars of today<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2026\/mar\/12\/sign-up-for-wnba-30-a-limited-run-womens-basketball-newsletter\"><strong>Sign up for our WNBA 30 newsletter<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It was the night before the 1980 Women\u2019s Professional Basketball League draft in New York City and the Dallas Diamonds had the No 1 pick. But the team\u2019s top brass was split. Coach Greg Williams wanted to take the 6ft 5in Danish star Inge Nissen, and the team\u2019s GM Nancy Nichols prized Nancy Lieberman, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2025\/sep\/10\/lady-magic-to-an-aussie-gem-the-stars-who-helped-pave-the-way-for-the-wnbas-current-success\">the American point guard<\/a> people called \u201cLady Magic\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe argued for days about Nissen versus Lieberman,\u201d Nichols tells the Guardian.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2026\/apr\/20\/floods-baskets-and-billie-jean-king-how-the-rough-and-tumble-wbl-set-the-stage-for-the-wnba\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is 45 years since the Women\u2019s Professional Basketball League played its final game. But it laid the foundation for the stars of today Sign up for our WNBA 30 newsletter It was the night before the 1980 Women\u2019s Professional Basketball League draft in New York City and the Dallas Diamonds had the No 1 &#8230; <a title=\"Floods, baskets and Billie Jean King: how the rough and tumble WBL set the stage for the WNBA\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/20\/floods-baskets-and-billie-jean-king-how-the-rough-and-tumble-wbl-set-the-stage-for-the-wnba\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Floods, baskets and Billie Jean King: how the rough and tumble WBL set the stage for the WNBA\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}