Floods, baskets and Billie Jean King: how the rough and tumble WBL set the stage for the WNBA

It is 45 years since the Women’s Professional Basketball League played its final game. But it laid the foundation for the stars of today

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It was the night before the 1980 Women’s Professional Basketball League draft in New York City and the Dallas Diamonds had the No 1 pick. But the team’s top brass was split. Coach Greg Williams wanted to take the 6ft 5in Danish star Inge Nissen, and the team’s GM Nancy Nichols prized Nancy Lieberman, the American point guard people called “Lady Magic”.

“We argued for days about Nissen versus Lieberman,” Nichols tells the Guardian.