‘Basketball is basketball’: Why Alexis Morris chose the Globetrotters over playing in Europe

Most professional women’s basketball players spend the winter playing overseas to stay in shape and earn additional income until the WNBA starts back up in the summer.

But Alexis Morris is blazing her own trail.

After stints abroad in France, Turkey, and Romania, Morris decided playing in Europe wasn’t for her. Instead, the captain of the 2023 national champion LSU squad signed with the Harlem Globetrotters earlier in February to help prepare her to make another run at the WNBA.

“I don’t think women should have to leave the country to do what they love to do, and that’s an issue in women’s sports today,” Morris told The Inquirer. “Me personally, I went overseas. I didn’t have the greatest experience. The Brittney Griner story, that story scared me. I was frightened when I went overseas. Obviously, our stories are different, but I’m still an American.

“I still had to leave my family, leave everything behind me to go across the waters. My mom can’t see me, she can’t come visit me as often. Taking this opportunity was an opportunity for me to stay home and play in the States, and show women that you can become a Harlem Globetrotter, because there’s very few of us, and blaze a trail.”

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Signing with the Globetrotters is unconventional. According to the team, Morris, who goes by “The Show,” is one of the first athletes ever to sign with the Globetrotters while still entertaining elite professional offers. But Morris is part of a growing group of women’s basketball players choosing alternate options instead of going overseas, like Villanova’s Maddy Siegrist, who also elected to stay stateside and work with her alma mater, and Philly native Kahleah Copper, who took an assistant coaching job at Rutgers.

The Globetrotters are known for their high-flying tricks and their focus on entertainment, but it’s still basketball — even if they never lose. The team still plays a full-length game, and plays a grueling schedule with games virtually every day. In order to hit the slam-dunks or make the fancy pass plays work, the athletes still need to train at a high level.

“The mechanics and fundamentals never change,” Morris said. “It’s the baseline that remains, so you have to be fundamentally sound and you have to have the mechanics; you got to have the footwork; you’ve got to be in shape to play. … It’s nonstop. We have some breaks in the show where we do a look through our act and our entertainment pieces, and then we’re back to playing, we’re back getting up and down the court. You have to be fit; you have to be in shape. Basketball is basketball — we just showcase the entertainment here. That’s the only difference.”

At LSU, Morris was known for her energetic personality, and she said she “brought that swag from LSU to the ‘Trotters.” Her upbeat energy made her an instant hit with the kids in the audience, but she found it harder than expected to loosen up and be flashy. Being a Globetrotter is encouraging Morris to unlock her creativity, with help from Cherelle “Torch” George, a Reading, Pa. native and fellow woman Globetrotter.

Morris made waves by calling out WNBA veterans after she was cut from the Connecticut Sun last summer, but said her relationship with George has helped her adjust to professional basketball.

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“It’s really tough finding good vets in a professional world, because everybody’s viewed as competition,” Morris said. “Are you here to come take my spot? Most people would gate-keep, and don’t want to show you the ropes or don’t want to show you how to be a good leader, or give you the cheat code, or make things easier for you for the transition. Torch, she has been the opposite of that.”

Being a Globetrotter wasn’t Morris’ childhood dream — she’s still hoping to make it into the WNBA. But she’s happy to help pave the way for more women’s basketball players looking for another path.

“When I go back to playing professionally, I’ll be more skilled,” said Morris, who hosted a basketball camp in Philly last summer. “I’ll have better hand-eye coordination, because even here, some of the things that we’re doing here, I find very challenging because I’ve never had to work and train on certain tricks and skills. Ballhandling, hand eye coordination, certain drills that we do here the ‘Trotter way.

“There’s pros to it, a lot of pros. I think a lot of people want to focus on the cons, but there’s not many.”

Local basketball fans will have plenty of chances to see Morris and the rest of the Globetrotters over the next few days.

They will be at the Liacouras Center on Thursday night and return to Philly for a pair of shows at the Wells Fargo Center on Sunday. In between, they’ll make stops in Trenton on Friday night and the University of Delaware on Saturday.