![\"North](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Kahleah-Copper.jpg\")
North Philadelphia native Kahleah Copper, making a move against Kelsey Plum on Sunday, and the 3-on-3 league Unrivaled will play in front of a sold-out Xfinity Mobile Arena on Friday night. Getty Images<\/p>\nPhiladelphia is set for a professional women\u2019s basketball revival Friday.<\/p>\n
The city, which has not hosted a pro women\u2019s team since 1998 when the Philadelphia Rage and the American Basketball League ceased operations due to bankruptcy, has Unrivaled coming to town \u2014 and North Philadelphia native Kahleah Copper is thrilled to help bring pro hoops back.<\/p>\n
The Miami-based 3-on-3 league, which was founded by Liberty star Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier and is currently in its second season, will make a tour stop at Xfinity Mobile Arena for one night featuring two games, along with community events leading up to the doubleheader.<\/p>\n
North Philadelphia native Kahleah Copper, making a move against Kelsey Plum on Sunday, and the 3-on-3 league Unrivaled will play in front of a sold-out Xfinity Mobile Arena on Friday night. Getty Images<\/p>\n
The opening game pits Paige Bueckers\u2019 Breeze against the Phantom, whose roster includes Liberty guard and Philadelphia-area native Natasha Cloud. Copper\u2019s Rose close the show against the Lunar Owls.<\/p>\n
The barnstorming stop was announced in October, and on Jan. 14 the league announced a 21,000-seat sellout.<\/p>\n
That was enough for Copper to interrupt The Post\u2019s question during a phone interview about how ready Philadelphia \u2014 which is slated for a WNBA expansion franchise in 2030 \u2014 is for pro women\u2019s basketball.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really set the tone, and it really shows everybody that we\u2019re ready and we\u2019ve been ready,\u201d said the Mercury guard, a four-time WNBA All-Star. \u201cFor sure, we\u2019re ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city was previously home to the Philadelphia Fox as part of the short-lived Women\u2019s Professional Basketball League (WBL) in the late 1970s. The Rage \u2014 who featured Dawn Staley, now a Philadelphia icon and three-time NCAA national champion coach \u2014 played two seasons in the city after relocating from Richmond in the late 1990s.<\/p>\n
From there, Philadelphia has only lived off of the women\u2019s college game. Philadelphia was home for Staley when she coached at Temple and Cloud when she played at Saint Joseph\u2019s, as well as Maddy Siegrist\u2019s run at Villanova, where she became the Big East\u2019s all-time leading scorer.<\/p>\n
Copper didn\u2019t have many professional Philadelphia-based women\u2019s basketball influences growing up, but is honored to be a part of the city\u2019s legacy and to put professional roots in the ground. To the 31-year-old, her legacy ties back to when she did everything to follow in the footsteps of a former WNBA player.<\/p>\n
While attending a preparatory boarding school, Girard College, from first grade through 10th, Copper would ask permission to leave the campus on Tuesdays and Thursdays to train with Philadelphia native Keisha Hampton and play in a competitive league outside of school. Hampton, who is four years older than Copper and retired from playing in October, took the guard under her wing at the time when she was the \u201cbest player in the city,\u201d Copper explained. The pair still remain close and continue to give back to their Philadelphia community through their basketball development program, 2K Skills and Drills Academy, to inspire young women. It\u2019s something they both never had while growing up.<\/p>\n
![\"Paige](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Paige-Bueckers.jpg\")
Paige Bueckers\u2019 Breeze team will be playing in one of the two Unrivaled games in Philadelphia. Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m from a city where nothing was given to me,\u201d Copper said. \u201cKind of gotta work for what you want, and then it\u2019s just an inspiring story for little girls in Philly who don\u2019t have an easy route but can look to someone who is from where they\u2019re from and look like them and it just gives them the inspiration and the belief in themselves that they can accomplish anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unrivaled\u2019s visit will be a first taste, and the Prep Charter graduate said it\u2019s coming at the perfect time, comparing it to the WNBA exhibition game in Toronto in 2023 (with the expansion Tempo set to join the league this year).<\/p>\n
Copper \u2014 the \u201c#JustAKidFromNorFPhilly\u201d who uses the hashtag on social media and uses the saying on a personalized briefcase \u2014 will continue to bring notice to her city as one of the foundational pieces of its expanding professional women\u2019s basketball legacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just excited for the love from the city. People can really see this as a basketball city. One of the best cities in the world,\u201d Copper said.<\/p>\n
Of course, Copper also has been a tour guide for her Rose teammates in Philadelphia this week. First stop: Dalessandro\u2019s for a cheesesteak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Philadelphia is set for a professional women\u2019s basketball revival Friday. The city, which has not hosted a pro…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":553190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2471,2830,1311,62,67,586,132,5230,3506,68,2969,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-553189","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-paige-bueckers","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-unrivaled","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa","21":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115982307841311654","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}