Nancy Lieberman, another of the Big3’s star coaches, provides some of the most valuable insight into Clark’s potential double duty in the WNBA and Big3.
Split decisions
Fans have already seen the connection between Clark and Lieberman.
During each of her last three seasons at Iowa, Clark received the Nancy Lieberman award as the nation’s best point guard in women’s college basketball, a trophy that’s been handed to legends in the game, including recently retired WNBA player and Deep Blue agency partner Sue Bird, Phoenix Mercury and Team USA veteran Diana Taurasi and Nike ambassador and NBA All-Star three-point challenger Sabrina Ionescu.
Beyond the namesake hardware, Lieberman also split time among leagues during her career.
After winning multiple national championships during her collegiate career at Old Dominion, Lieberman played in the now-defunct Women’s Pro Basketball League (WBL) and Women’s American Basketball Association (WABA) before brief stints with the WNBA.
However, she also joined the Los Angeles Lakers summer league team under coach Pat Riley in 1980. (“I was his first point guard, not Magic [Johnson],” Lieberman noted.) She’s played several seasons in the men’s United States Basketball League (USBL) and played for coach Frank Layden on the Utah Jazz’s summer league team.
Named to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1996, Lieberman came to Big3 with the promise that she’d make the same amount as contemporaries like Dr. J and Gervin—and receive the same Hall of Fame treatment.
“[Ice Cube] knows what that next level is, and the expectation,” Lieberman said. “We’re not eating off paper plates. Every time we walk out there, we’re at a five-star restaurant … these are former NBA athletes who gave their lives to give their families generational wealth, and it’s important that they’re treated in this next step of their career with the same respect that they had.”
Now an announcer for both the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder and New Orleans Pelicans—also recently coaching in the NCAA’s first women’s all-star game—Lieberman sees the $5 million offer to Clark as an illustration of how the Big3 values women at the top levels of its sport. She noted that, in business, leaders typically want to know if a prospect can make their company better, increase its impact on people and make everyone more money along the way.
