WNBA: Remembering the impact of Elena Delle Donne, from Delaware to DC

I feel like I’ve told the story 1,000 times, because the one time I told it publicly, I was a little embarrassed to be sharing it in such an emotional way.

It was just one trip to the University of Delaware. To this day, the only time I’ve been there.

My sports writing career is filled with experiences that haven’t repeated much, if at all. In person, there’s been one women’s NCAA Tournament, one WNBA season, one NFL training camp, one NBA game, one MLB game, one women’s NCAA selection show, one FCS selection show and one year’s worth of New Hampshire state championships for high school soccer, basketball and lacrosse. I’ve gotten one feature published by USA TODAY. One of my few brushes with Maryland men’s basketball was interviewing Gary Williams over the phone.

Yet the brevity of these experiences makes them mystical (yes, Mystical) in my memory. The perfect anecdotes. Yet the only one I’ve written about in a memoir-like fashion is my night at The Bob.

When Elena Delle Donne announced her retirement on Friday, I knew I was inevitably going to reflect on that night. Upon reflecting on it, I’ve realized that one of the biggest reasons I am so enamored with it is not because my grandfather was involved and died a year later, or because it marked the beginning of my time at the outlet (Swish Appeal) I called home the longest, or because it was my first time covering my beloved Terps. Rather, it’s because I got to see Delle Donne play in her home arena. A home that, in a way, will always be even closer to her heart than Capital One Arena or the Entertainment and Sports Arena (it’s only 20 minutes away from where she grew up). A home that she made a point of representing, instead of UConn, because it meant being closer to her sister. The home of mid-major underdogs to whom she was the Goliath who decided to team up with them, David.

It was the December of 2012. The season of “Three to See”: Baylor’s Brittney Griner first, Delle Donne second and Notre Dame’s Skylar Diggins (now Diggins-Smith) third. The three were different, and I witnessed the difference in Delle Donne that night. She went 5-for-20 from the field but 2-for-3 from deep and showed flashes of the dominant offensive skill set that would wreak havoc across the WNBA for years to come. She led all scorers with 19 points, despite it being her first game back from a Lyme disease-induced absence. Though it wasn’t her best night, her career college stats would speak for themselves: She nearly went 50-40-90 (48.1 percent from the field) for 3,039 points (26.7 per game).

At the postgame press conference, Delle Donne was asked: Would Delware have won if she had been 100 percent? I’ll always remember how head coach Tina Martin interjected, not allowing her superstar answer.

“We’re in the here and now,” Martin said. “And right now, Maryland is the ninth-ranked team in the country. They’re a very good basketball team. We’re still trying to find our way. (Elena’s) not 100 percent, we stay in the here and now and no we cannot beat Maryland, they just beat us on our home floor and they played better than we did and they rebounded the basketball.”

Thing is, Delaware would get a No. 6 seed in the Big Dance and Maryland would get a No. 4 seed, but Delaware came a whole lot closer to the Elite Eight, losing by seven in the Sweet 16 compared to the Terps’ 26-point loss (albeit to a team in UConn that went on to win the first championship of four in a row). That Sweet 16 appearance for the Blue Hens meant a whole lot. To this day, it’s the furthest the Delaware women have been, and it solidified Delle Donne’s legacy in her home state.

The rest is, of course, history. The No. 2 pick in the WNBA Draft, who would outshine No. 1 pick Griner—which is saying a whole lot. Two MVP awards (one of only eight players with multiple). The ONLY player to accomplish 50-40-90 in the W. A scoring title. Five-time All-WNBA First Team. And a champion. She brought DC—her second home, which is of course close to Delaware—its first chip and got the monkey off then-Mystics head coach Mike Thibault’s back. In 2021, she was considered by ESPN to be the 11th-best player of all time.

A moment from Delle Donne’s pro career that really stuck out to me is when she was denied medical leave for the 2020 Wubble season and went on SportsCenter (see video below) to explain that she was taking 64 pills a day to keep Lyme disease at bay. The discipline that it takes to do that, and the courage it takes to face the risks that come with it in order to play the sport you love, are incredible to me.

She’s one of the greatest offensive players to ever play the game, woman or man. She holds the best career free throw percentage of any WNBA, NBA or ABA player at a 93.7 percent clip, comfortably ahead of Steph Curry’s 91.11 percent.

The game will miss you, Elena. It’s awesome to see you staying close to the Mystics organization as a special advisor to Monumental Basketball because you mean so much to Mystics fans like me. You are a true DMVD (DC, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware) legend.