The rapper and league co founder opened up about BIG3’s move to go public.
The origin story of BIG3, the three on three professional basketball league co founded by Ice Cube, traces back to a moment of genuine frustration and, fittingly, it happened in Atlanta.
Ice Cube was in the city filming the movie Fist Fight when Kobe Bryant played what turned out to be his final NBA game, a legendary 60 point performance that Ice Cube missed entirely. Unable to get to the arena that night, he found himself wrestling with a simple but powerful question: what happens to elite players when the full NBA grind becomes too much, but the talent clearly hasn’t disappeared?
That question became the foundation for BIG3. Rather than the traditional five on five format, Ice Cube landed on three on three basketball, a format he describes as the smaller, faster cousin of the full game, and set about professionalizing it. Nine seasons later, the league is still standing and, by many measures, still growing.
Going public and opening the door to everyday investors
One of the most significant recent developments for BIG3 is its move to go public, giving fans and everyday investors the opportunity to buy into the league’s future. For Ice Cube, the decision reflects a broader philosophy about who sports leagues should belong to and who gets to benefit when they succeed.
The league’s long term ambitions are considerable. BIG3 currently has four team owners based in Houston, Miami, Los Angeles and Detroit with four additional teams available for purchase. The expansion roadmap calls for growing to 12 teams, then 16, then 20 and eventually 24, with the goal of building a truly national footprint.
Atlanta is on the wish list
Atlanta does not yet have a BIG3 team, but Ice Cube made clear the city is very much on his radar. He pointed to Atlanta’s deep intersection of basketball and music culture as exactly the kind of environment where BIG3 thrives, noting the league has consistently drawn strong crowds there whenever it has passed through.
The path to an Atlanta franchise, he said, comes down to finding the right ownership group with the money, the vision and the commitment to build something in the market. The door is open it just needs someone to walk through it.
Dwight Howard is back, and so is the star power
One of the more recognizable names suiting up in BIG3 this season is Dwight Howard, who spent three seasons with the Atlanta Hawks across his NBA career. Howard joined the league last season and is back for his second year, a return that surprised even Ice Cube given how competitive and demanding the format remains.
Howard fits squarely into BIG3’s broader approach to roster building, which has attracted names including Allen Iverson, Joe Johnson, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf and Cuttino Mobley over the years. The league’s pitch to veterans is straightforward: it wants players who can still genuinely compete, not just recognizable faces looking for a final curtain call.
Ice Cube on Angel Reese’s undeniable star power
Asked about Atlanta Dream forward Angel Reese, who has become one of the most talked about figures in women’s basketball, Ice Cube was unambiguous in his admiration. He described her as a physically gifted post player with genuine skill, not someone coasting on personality or celebrity, and predicted she would only continue to rise.
On the question of whether BIG3 could one day include women players, Ice Cube noted the decision ultimately rests with the league’s player captains, who are responsible for building their own rosters each season. The format, he suggested, leaves room for that possibility if a captain believes it gives their team the best chance to win a championship.
The biggest basketball league in the world
Looking further down the road, Ice Cube‘s vision for BIG3 extends well beyond American borders. He envisions a global tournament structure something along the lines of soccer’s World Cup model where the best three on three leagues from around the world compete for a major championship. He calls it the Big Cup, and he speaks about it not as a distant fantasy but as a destination the league is already moving toward.
For a league that started with a missed Kobe game in Atlanta, that is quite a trajectory.