- Nneka announced today that her 15th WNBA season will be her last, and she’s going out averaging 16.9 points and 8.7 rebounds per game at 36 years old. After 15 seasons, an MVP, a championship and 11 All-Star selections, she’s very much leaving on her own terms.
- She didn’t just play in the WNBA. She helped change what playing in the WNBA looks like. Nneka has served as WNBPA president since 2016, leading players through two CBA negotiations and advocating for everything from compensation to travel and working conditions. Her final season comes just months after the players secured a landmark new CBA, quite the mic drop on a decade of leadership!
- Basketball wasn’t even Plan A. Nneka’s first sport was gymnastics, until an instructor told her parents she was getting too tall for the equipment. She pivoted to basketball at 10, became a volleyball phenom too, and was so good that Stanford’s volleyball program wanted her, until basketball coach Tara VanDerveer essentially said absolutely not.
- Nneka went No. 1 overall to the Los Angeles Sparks in 2012; two years later, her younger sister Chiney was selected No. 1 by the Connecticut Sun. Nneka then won Rookie of the Year, and more than a decade later she’s finishing her WNBA career exactly where it began, back in Los Angeles.
- Plot twist: she’s retiring from the WNBA, not necessarily basketball. Nneka has already committed to play in Project B, the new global professional basketball venture in which players can also receive equity. So while this is the final chapter of one of the WNBA’s most influential careers, we apparently haven’t seen the last of Nneka hooping just yet.