As Oregon point guard Sabrina Ionescu racks up triple-doubles, she’s driving attendance, selling jerseys—and drawing raves from LeBron James “For a long time, one of the things that has held back the popularity of women’s basketball is this sense that male sports fans have that they are better than women’s basketball players,” Having learned the game partly on the playground makes Ionescu stand out in a landscape of young players, especially girls, who are reared on highly structured play, said Carol Callan, women’s national team director at USA Basketball. Rather than look to a coach for direction, players who play...