Is Anna Bright the Kevin Durant of Pro Pickleball?
Authored by Gritty – as a caveat for this post, this is a question that the two of us fundamentally disagree on. The sentiments expressed in the article are from one perspective so please keep that in mind when reading.
Is Anna Bright the Kevin Durant of Pro Pickleball?
The question was posed by Jimmy Miller on X on Monday following the announcement of Anna Bright as Anna Leigh Waters’ partner for the remainder of 2025. If you scour through social media comments on the partnership switch up. And it’s more than a fair question.
As we made note of yesterday in our first half review takeaways, people don’t like the idea of super teams, us included. No one wants a foregone conclusion. The Golden State Warriors were a foregone conclusion to win the Championship when Kevin Durant chose to sign with them. At this moment, it sure feels like a foregone conclusion that Anna Leigh Waters and Anna Bright will dominate women’s doubles for the rest of 2025 and potentially beyond.
Still, the comparison of Bright to Durant is more nuanced than simply signing with a previous rival to create a super partnership.
The public discourse on this topic has not been all that favorable to Bright because she has been seen as the ultimate competitor from the moment she dipped her toes into the waters of pro pickleball. Her fiery intensity resonates with fans at both tour and MLP events. She has been viewed as a rival for Anna Leigh Waters and the best option to dethrone the teenage phenom.
The partnership with Anna Leigh Waters was a kick in the you know what to the possibility that Bright could dethrone ALW and devalues the competitive aspect of Anna Bright that resonated most with fans. The Girlies became a thing because they were a made from scratch partnership that developed into the biggest threat to compete with the dominance of Waters.
Anna Bright is well aware of this too. There may not be a ton of upside for her in making this switch from a pickleball standpoint as she alluded to on her appearance on the ‘Talk Pickle to Me’ podcast. If she wins with ALW, it is expected. If she loses, it is her fault.
From that standpoint, this decision is very Kevin Durant-esque, minus the burner accounts to argue with fans on Twitter.
Where I think Bright’s situation differs from the Durant situation is what the move represents to each player. For Durant, the move to Golden State was supposed to be about cementing his legacy as a champion in the sport. He desperately wanted to be one of the greats and did not want to be left holding the bag without a championship when his career was finished a la Karl Malone or Charles Barkley. What Durant failed to grasp was that not all championships are made equally when it comes to sports debate legacy discussions.
Anna Bright is in a very different position from where Kevin Durant was when he signed with Golden State.
In 2023, Anna Bright signed a lucrative, relative to pro pickleball, six figure guaranteed contract for 2024 through 2026. She probably has a very good sponsorship deal with JOOLA that is somewhere in the 6 figures annually not including performance incentives. More recently, she has become an ambassador with The Picklr that has provided us with some nostalgic, SportsCenter-like advertisements.
The point I’m trying to make is that the move to partner with Anna Leigh Waters isn’t simply a legacy decision for Anna Bright. She played her first pro event in 2022 and is not even close to generationally wealthy through the sport. Although she is earning far more than the average American and pro pickleball player, there is no chance she has earned enough to be able to set up herself up for life, much less any future generations.
Keeping in mind this is purely a speculative exercise into the mind of Anna Bright, I don’t think it is fair to view this decision solely from the lens of how this reflects on her as a competitor.
The problem for Bright is that the optics aren’t good. She recently created ‘The Girlies” brand with Rachel Rohrabacher only to drop some $90 plus shipping sweaters and then skipped town. More importantly, instead of trying to beat Anna Leigh, she has gone the “easy” route and joined her instead. When it comes to sports, people don’t like the idea of “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”.
We often have an idealistic perspective of athletes and when they don’t meet the vision of what we had for them, there is inevitable disappointment. This is what is happening for Anna Bright right now and I have to think she knew this was going to happen, unlike Kevin Durant.
I think we have to remind ourselves that pro pickleball players are not the same as other professional athletes we are used to watching. They are not generationally wealthy. Legacy in the sport isn’t front of mind for the great ones, at least not yet. These players are trying to figure out how they are still going to be able to make a good living when their guaranteed contracts expire in 2026.
There is built-in brand value for being part of the #1 women’s doubles team in pro pickleball, regardless of whether ALW gets most of the credit for winning. We don’t know what Bright’s JOOLA contract has for incentives, but we are generally aware that there are incentives in these JOOLA deals for certain PPA rankings. I wouldn’t put it past Bright to have negotiated an incentive for being ranked #1 in to her JOOLA contract.
There have been reports out there that the PPA is keen to move to more of an eat what you kill, traditional prize money model for its events. We’re not sure how this would happen before the expiry of these guaranteed deals but, if this happened sooner rather than later, it would make a ton of sense for Bright to lock down ALW before someone else like Jorja Johnson was able to.
I’m not saying there isn’t major risk involved in making this decision for Bright. She stands to possibly diminish the brand she has created in pickleball over the past 3 years, even if things go as well as she expects on the court. However, if all that mattered was competition and being a competitor, I don’t think Anna Bright would be making this decision.
I think this is about more than competition. It’s about the long-term upside to her brand and bank account that could come from being part of the #1 doubles team in the world. There is clearly an argument the other way that there is more upside than downside to making this decision, but I’m not on that side of the fence.
It’s easy to forget in the moment how little these decisions can matter in the long run. Winning didn’t cure everything for Kevin Durant, but it typically does in these circumstances. LeBron James remains a polarizing debate topic, but the decision to go to Miami is mostly forgotten as other topics like Bronny James and Luka Doncic dictate the Lakers headlines these days. As we noted in our takeaways yesterday, everyone has long forgotten that Catherine Parenteau tossed Allyce Jones to the side of the curb when Anna Leigh came calling at Nationals, among other sub-par partnership treatment that others noted at the time.
The broader point for this AB vs. KD discussion is that their respective situations are so different as professional athletes. Kevin Durant wanted to be remembered as a champion and, rightly or wrongly (definitely wrongly), made the decision to do that in Golden State. Anna Bright wants to be a champion too, but taking the “easy” KD-ish route is about more than being a champion.
It’s about cementing her ability to make a very good living as a professional pickleball player. At least, that’s how I am understanding it to be.
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Good for Anna Bright and Anna Leigh Waters to join forces. They will make a fantastic duo, would all other Ladies refuse to team up with either ALW or AB. I don’t thing so.
They should be a force out there
First of all, glad you all are back! PB is better with NML input.
Now… Firstly, I think your take in the third to last paragraph (“It’s easy to forget in the moment…”) is interesting. It’s been well documented how fast pickleball news come along and how worked up everyone gets about a recent development and how quickly people forget they were once worked up. CP was in the cross hairs of public opinion when she dropped AJ, way more than AB is now. Now CP is being defended, seemingly across the board, as a class act. If history is any indication, AB will move from crosshairs to class act as well…
Why can’t AB’s decision be both about a very good living and championships? It can be argued that Durant got his championship, will be remembered as one, will have the large bank account AND the scrutiny of his decisions will fade with time. If you have to choose between championships and making a good living it seems that a good decision is, “I’ll take both.” It should also be noted that playing with the best in the sport is always attractive, even for the high level players. There is only one Jordan, Curry, Lebron, etc. And yes, it’s part of the highly competitive psyche to want to dethrone them. But if there weren’t salary cap restrictions wouldn’t there be super teams made up of KD, Lebron, Curry, Giannis, Jokic, etc?!? They want to win and it’s fun to play with the best. Look at MLB.
Lastly, I think it’s vital to recognize how unique ALW is to this sport. ALW is 7 years younger than AB. That’s an eternity in PB! When ALW is AB’s age, AB will the age of Lucy K and that with seven more years of the sport getting younger, faster, more athletic and globally competitive!! A strong argument can be made for a 25 year old player to get 1-2 years in with ALW before they can’t keep up and that’s ZERO disrespect to AB, that’s simply a testament to the presumed growth of the game over the next 24 months!
Keep the good work!
Appreciate it and really love the thoughtful insight in the comment. How CP is being portrayed currently is the best example of how history can be written. And it’s usually written by the winners.
Good point on AB’s decision being both about winning and money. That’s something missed in the article that should be pointed out. Winning is a big deal and she is putting herself in the best spot to be a winner. While it is disappointing for fans and parity, it makes a lot of sense for her to want that even if it means being in the shadows.
The longevity in the sport comment also probably wasn’t fleshed out enough in the article. We have no idea how long AB will be at the top of the game. It could be 1 or 2 years, or it could be 5 or 10. She also has no idea and you have to maximize your prime in the sport especially when you have no idea how long that prime will last
To continue the conversation… “While it is disappointing for fans and parity, it makes a lot of sense for her to want that even if it means being in the shadows.”
In the short term, absolutely, but I wonder if in the long run (6 months? 12 months?) this doesn’t create even more parity? The sport will get better because of these two teaming up due to other teams having to get better to compete. Look at the ALW/Ben and Ben/Colin partnerships. Seemingly no parity, but when the competition starts to get close (JW/Dylan, Riley/Matt, JW/Jorja, Christian/Tyra), it gets real interesting really fast. I for one will be watching when Tyra/Jorja get a crack at the A’s. I started watching the sport 5 years ago and Ben was must see pickleball every time he played. He was doing things that were so utterly dominant (remember that singles run?!) you couldn’t help but watch and admire, even knowing the outcome.
Not sure there is agreement on this. What you’re talking about seems to be more a product of time rather than changing partnerships. What may happen to AB and ALW is that they are too good to start but teams get better over time. That’s not because they teamed up, though, it’s because the field is catching up
Greatness and some level of dominance is needed in sports, but not to the point where it becomes unnecessary to watch because the result has already been determined before the match.
Where we might differ and therefore our takes sound a little different, is the degree of dominance that ALW/AB will have on the field. I’m not sold on them being unstoppable… #1 for sure, but not sure they will be so dominant that the result is determined before the match (assuming some hyperbole in your statement). When ALW/AB were partners back in 2023 the game and opponents were very different.
Never thought I would say that I wish the PPA had another tournament this weekend!
Atlanta and OC will be very interesting. This is part of the risk for AB. If they aren’t close to a 100% winning record, you could see this partnership end sooner rather than later and then things get dicey
Thank you for pointing out how people forget CP dumping AJ. She didn’t have the courtesy to notify Alyce personally. Not to be forgotten. After watching ALW and CP lose last Sunday I thought CP might get replaced but I did not think it would happen the next day.
Neither did we!
Continuing the Kevin Durant metaphor: Super teams with KD fail more often than not.
KD lost the NBA finals in 2012 when teamed with Russell Westbrook and James Harden.
KD won NBA championships in 2017 and 2018 when teamed with Steph, Klay, and Draymond, but lost in 2019 to the Raptors with the same core. KD teamed with Harden and Kyrie Irving in Brooklyn from 2021 to 2023 where they accomplished nothing. Currently, KD is teamed with Devin Booker and Bradley Beal in Phoenix where they missed the play-in tournament.
Super basketball teams don’t work out that often. Will be interesting to see if two alphas in AB and ALW work can as a team. There is more pickleball parity than formerly, which is great for the game. Watching one triple crown after another was boring. Hope to see Jorja and Tyra, the Kawamotos, and other teams, in the mix.
PS. Gritty wrote that his NML partner disagrees with him. What does Slim think?
The dual alpha thing has proven to be somewhat useful problematic in pickleball as well. At least in the short term, that seems unlikely to be an issue but as time goes on it may be more of a concern for ALW and AB
Slim is the other side of the risk. Not a lot of upside from a financial or playing standpoint. Winning with ALW will diminish what AB has accomplished and her brand is not helped all that much by being #1. Not to mention the risk that this doesn’t work at all and they don’t dominate.