""She's a unicorn. One of one," Storm coach Noelle Quinn said. "She's going to be a star," teammate Gabby Williams said."
""It's frustrating, for sure," Malonga tells me."
""Never have this negative faith or negative mood that can affect the team or the bench," she says. "That's not what I want to bring.""
""I want to breathe that energy," she says. "I'm not a dreamer," she says. "I'm a realist.""
Dominique Malonga settled into Brooklyn on a July 4 evening after arriving from Atlanta and practicing at Barclays Center. The 6-foot-6, 19-year-old played four professional seasons in Europe and became the youngest player ever drafted by the Seattle Storm with the No. 2 pick. She moved 5,000 miles from Nanterre to Seattle in May, dunked in her first practice, and received high praise from coaches and teammates. Early in the season she mostly sat on the bench, averaging 4.4 points and 2.3 rebounds in 9.1 minutes through 18 games. She acknowledged frustration but focused on positive energy, watching film, learning American basketball nuances, training harder, and feeding off veteran teammates, then delivered head-turning performances as the season progressed.
Read at ESPN.com
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