Elena Delle Donne, a two-time MVP and 2019 champion, just made a triumphant return to the winner’s circle at All-Star Weekend in Chicago, cracking jokes about her new hardware. She teamed up with Shakira Austin and high school star Jezelle “GG” Banks to help Team Washington claim the inaugural Shooting Stars competition, and get this: Delle Donne said, “This is the best trophy I got in my whole career. This is nice.” Yeah, you heard that right, the best in her entire career! It might have been a joke, but it speaks volumes about the incredible energy and growth happening in the WNBA right now.
From “Folding” to Full Blown Expansion
This win, and Delle Donne’s presence, really highlighted how much things have changed since she was drafted number two overall in 2013. The league now boasts 15 teams, with three more on the way, and a new collective bargaining agreement has pushed salaries way up. It’s a complete turnaround from the early days when Delle Donne was entering the scene. She told us that from 2013-15, not a single team was even drawing 10,000 fans per game. Some teams were pulling in fewer than 6,000 fans, with the 2015 San Antonio Silver Stars averaging a measly 4,800 a night. Can you even imagine? She reflected on being told, “You need to do this or this league is folding. There was never talk of expansion or anything. It was like we gotta do everything we possibly can to make this continue to happen.” That’s intense!
The Next Generation Is Ready to Blow Up
Delle Donne openly talked about making the choice early in her career to stay home and focus on marketability, even though she could have made a lot more money overseas. She felt like the league was losing the market in the offseason, and she wanted a signature shoe, wanted to do all those big things. She admitted there were “a lot of moments where it was like, ‘This is hard, I don’t know if this is gonna happen.’” But she kept her “head down, kept working and trust[ed] in the process.” And that process has paid off huge, because she’s “so proud of where this league is and where it will continue to go.” The Shooting Stars event brought together the league’s past, present, and future as part of the WNBA’s 30th anniversary celebration. It was Jezelle “GG” Banks, the high school star who earlier led Team USA to a gold medal at the U18 AmeriCup, who hit the championship-clinching shot. Delle Donne absolutely loved it, hoping the viewers did too, saying it was “really cool when she’s in this down the road when she’s a WNBA All-Star.”
The league’s growth has been wild, and Delle Donne is “thrilled that that conversion is over with and everybody gets to see how incredible this game is and where it’s gonna go.” With the league expanding and new talent like Banks ready to explode onto the scene, the future is looking incredibly bright. Get ready for more fireworks, because the WNBA is just getting started.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by CBS Sports.
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