![]() They saw my vision and helped out, and from then on people not only started seeing me, but hearing my voice and the message I was getting through. Luckily, I had the early backing of HyperX. It all started with my Powerz Up NBA 2K20 Tournament and just started flowing from there. It’s about the skills you bring to the game, and that made me feel like I needed to use my platform and voice to change the perspective. So I started thinking “why is that? How do we make history and then go backwards when there are plenty of female players trying to get into the space?” That made me dig deeper into esports as a whole and I started seeing the same things I see in the WNBA, where everyone compares the girls to the guys and says stuff like girls aren’t fast enough, cool enough, and all those things.īut I also loved most of what I saw, because the beauty of esports is that you can take out most of the physical part, you can entirely take away the reality of being a man or woman because it is for anyone. But the only thing was, they had their first female player, Chiquita Evans. So when I got into the game, I thought it was really cool because I love to play the game and I fell in love with the community. But I only really started getting involved when I got into the 2K League.Įveryone knew about 2K the game, but not many people knew about the league at the time because it was so new. It was about a year ago when I started streaming on Twitch and a lot of people from my WNBA games started to go over to Twitch to see me play and just hang out with me after games. ![]() ![]() ![]() Powers: Let’s take it back to when everyone started to notice that I was into gaming. But what made you decide to jump into the battle for diversity and inclusion? The WNBA, HyperX, Team Liquid, and your own initiatives-that’s quite the list already. And as she continues to break barriers, Powers talked with Dot Esports about her gaming history, the importance of being visible, and how she’s trying to change the perspective of women in sports and esports. With legacy esports brands supporting her, Powers is constantly expanding her reach and making her voice heard while she works on increasing awareness for women and people of color across both sports and gaming. Powers, who launched her own Twitch channel during the 2019 WNBA season, is a brand ambassador for HyperX and Team Liquid, while also acting as the chair of the organization’s Diversity and Inclusion Task Force. But when she isn’t playing basketball, she’s active in fighting for diversity and inclusion in all spaces, including esports and gaming. First-year player Stella Johnson showed out with her opportunity by scoring 25 points in a win against the Dream.Aerial Powers is a WNBA champion. The rest of the roster consists of Leilani Mitchell and several young players and rookies that have yet to prove themselves in the WNBA. Earlier in the year against the Connecticut Sun, she set a career-high in points with 27 on 10-for-14 shooting. She had started every contest and had career-best averages in points (16.3), rebounds (4.8), assists (2.5), steals (1.5) as well as a 46.4% shooting clip. Myisha Hines-Allen is the fourth player who played last season that is still on the 2020 team.īefore Powers' injury, she was having a career-year in six games. That leaves only two of the top eight scorers (Emma Meesseman, Ariel Atkins and Tianna Hawkins) on the remaining active roster for the season. Three players did not return to the team in the offseason, two more players opted-out, Elena Delle Donne is out rehabbing her back, Shey Peddy was waived last week and now there is Powers' injury. ![]() Now losing Powers, means there are only four players left from last year's championship squad. RELATED: MYSTICS AREN'T FOCUSED ON PLAYOFFS, IT'S WINNING IN 2021 "I think she needs to start the healing process right now and she's got some structural issues that, not damage but structural issues that we can get to work on by getting her started with somebody right now." "She really wanted to try and come back and finish the last couple of weeks, but I think for her long-term health, there's no point in risking that," Thibault said. With a heightened chance to reinjure her hamstring with games basically every other day, it could cause longer issues for her and the team. For Thibault and his staff, they feel it is not worth pushing to bring Powers back. With the team not being in a position to focus on defending its maiden 2019 WNBA championship, the franchise is now looking to prepare for the 2021 season when all of the team's stars come back. Powers has been out since she suffered a hamstring injury on Aug. Head coach Mike Thibault told reporters on Thursday that the 26-year-old is "probably not coming back" this season. Roster woes continue for the Washington Mystics as it is expected for the team to be without guard/forward Aerial Powers for the remainder of the 2020 season. ![]()
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