Kysre Gondrezick, the former WNBA guard, is vaulting from the hardwood to the glossy pages of Playboy as the magazine’s Miss June 2025, marking a historic and highly visible expansion of her personal brand.
The announcement is significant on multiple fronts. Gondrezick becomes the first professional female basketball player to be named a Playmate. More notably, she has publicly stated that she is the first Black professional athlete in history to ever grace the magazine’s pages as a centerfold.
Gondrezick, who was the fourth overall pick in the 2021 WNBA Draft, views this not as a pivot from her sports career, but as an embrace of her multidimensional identity.
“What people label as a transition, I embody as evolution,” Gondrezick told the publication. “I’m not stepping outside who I am. I’m building a multidimensional brand.”
The move highlights a growing trend among female athletes, particularly in the WNBA, to maximize their visibility and income through ventures outside of their sport. With the rise of NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) deals and soaring cultural attention on women’s sports, players are actively challenging traditional limitations imposed by leagues or endorsements.
For Gondrezick, who has played for the Indiana Fever and Chicago Sky and recently joined the Athletes Unlimited Pro Basketball league, the Playboy feature solidifies her image as a star who commands attention both on and off the court. Her feature, captured with a glamorous, retro aesthetic, is the latest statement in a movement in which female athletes are asserting control over their image and financial destiny.
The achievement has resonated across social media, where fans and commentators see it as a powerful cultural marker: the full autonomy and entrepreneurial spirit of the modern professional Black female athlete. Gondrezick, who comes from a rich athletic lineage that includes an NBA father and a national champion mother, is now writing a new chapter for herself that blends skill, beauty, and business savvy.
Flip the pages for more of Kysre Gondrezick newly released Playboy photos.
