It wasn’t until Courtney Williams, the all-star guard for the Minnesota Lynx, sat down at her locker before a game on July 3 that she realized something was missing. The logos on her multicolored basketball sneakers were gone.

Someone had carefully colored in and taped over the brand icons, camouflaging them so that they would not be visible to fans, television cameras or still photographers. It was a tiny redecorating job, performed by a team employee, but without it, Williams might not have been allowed to play in the game.

It was all part of a quiet but escalating tussle within the W.N.B.A., the most prominent women’s sports league in the world, which has a strict uniform policy. By rule, players are allowed to display the logos of any sneaker brands they want — as long as those companies have contracts with the league.

Williams’s sneakers were made by Moolah Kicks, a relatively new women’s basketball shoe company started by Natalie White, a hoops player from Manhattan — and Moolah has no such agreement. So on June 25, after a game against the Washington Mystics, the W.N.B.A. fined Williams $100. She was fined four times in all, the amount doubling for each offense.

If Williams did not switch to an approved shoe brand, or at the very least obscure the logos on her Moolahs, she would face more fines and “possible suspensions,” according to a memo sent by the league to the Lynx head coach, Cheryl Reeve.

But Williams, who is paid to endorse the brand, likes the shoes a lot. So they remained on her feet, minus the logo, as she helped lead the Lynx to the best record in the league so far. On Saturday, Williams is scheduled to play in the All-Star Game, and she plans to wear her logo-obscured Moolahs.