Malonga feels a strange calmness. Like there is no question that she is supposed to be here: the youngest top-two draft pick in WNBA history.
Her black Louis Vuitton suit is perfectly tailored and her large Sabine Be glasses — transparent and chunky — glint under the auditorium’s bright lights. Her table is packed with family members — her father and older sister to her right, her younger brothers to her left. But she looks to the back of the auditorium, where her mother sits, and walks over to her. Agathe beams as Dominique, without uttering a word, wraps her arms around her.
Dominique walks back to the table and daps up her brothers and hugs her sister before enveloping her dad in a tight hug.
Propped up on the table are the flags of three countries: Congo, Cameroon and France.
She made sure her family brought all three flags to one of the most important nights of her career in a country where she hopes she will dazzle.
She walks up to the stage and receives a Seattle Storm jersey from WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert.
“I come from a long journey,” she tells ESPN’s Holly Rowe in a TV interview. “My family is here and they are witnesses to the work I’ve put in to be here today.
“I am happy to be representing France, but also Cameroon and Congo. I am a multicultural person. I have a lot of people behind me, and I am so proud to be here representing all of them.”
Her sister, Talancia, looks at their father and they share a smile. Goose bumps form on Talancia’s arms.
“We tend to forget, there is so much diamond in the rough in the motherland,” Talancia says.
She goes to the bench. Coach Quinn sends her into the game midway through the first quarter. Seattle trails by five. The Storm are down 14 when she scores her first WNBA points, a layup on a Diggins assist.
She returns to the bench until 4:02 remains in the game. Seattle trails by 21. She picks up a foul with about two minutes to go. Seattle trails by 25.
The buzzer sounds on her WNBA debut.
WEARING A GRAY sweatshirt with “WNBA” printed in orange on the side, Malonga plops into a chair on the front patio of her new Seattle apartment. She places her laptop on the coffee table in front of her. She plugs in her earbuds and logs onto Zoom. It’s a cloudy May morning in Seattle — two weeks since the start of the WNBA season — and Malonga has signed up to be a mentor for Voice in Sport, an organization focused on advancing gender equity in sports.
On her Zoom screen are 60 middle school girls from a basketball club in France. Malonga smiles and waves and the girls smile back. She’s running a session on self-confidence today.
She introduces herself and tells the girls that she picked the topic because much like everybody else, she struggles with self-confidence from time to time and has had to work hard to change the narrative in her head.
Speaking in French, she launches into her life story.
“My early years were driven by one mantra: If you don’t excel at what you do, don’t do it.”
As a young girl, Malonga was far more interested in books than baskets. She loved the process of learning and dreamed of going to college in America. Her father, Thalance, who played on the Republic of Congo’s national team and became a politician and then a doctor, instilled the values of discipline and hard work in his four children. Dominique woke up at 5 a.m., made her bed, studied before school and learned from a tutor after school.
“If we don’t work hard,” Talancia says, “it feels weird, you know?”
Agathe, who represented Cameroon in international play as a 6-foot-3 old-school center, remembers her daughter working hard even before birth. Agathe played until she was five months pregnant, and she recalls Dominique kicking in her womb almost every time she made a basket, as if it was her way of contributing. After Agathe retired, she ran a basketball club. Sometimes, after Dominique was done studying for the night, she made her way to her mom’s club, mostly to be around her as she coached other kids.
When Dominique turned 10, the family moved to France because Thalance figured that was where his kids could shine. He set up his medical practice in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris. When Dominique was 12 — and 6-foot-1 — Thalance and Agathe signed her up for basketball at a club in Paris called Mont Valérien. Coach Jean-Christophe N’Zambi watched her in disbelief. She was so agile and so fast. She could dribble with both hands, and dribble to the right and to the left.
“An exceptional case,” N’Zambi says.
N’Zambi rejected the idea of sticking her in the paint because of her size. He saw her athleticism and skill and knew he needed to nurture it all.
N’Zambi remembers watching his team goof around one day after practice when Dominique was 13. She grabbed the ball, dribbled to the basket, lifted off with the ball in her right hand and — with the grace of a ballerina — dunked it into the basket.
“My talent — it’s nothing compared to Dominique’s,” Agathe says. “I had to work really hard to create the little opportunities I had, but Dominique’s potential, her IQ, her skills … they’re immeasurable.”
Former NBA player Tony Parker saw Malonga for the first time when she was 15. She was 6-foot-4 and training at the National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance (INSEP). Parker, president of ASVEL Féminin, a team in the French women’s basketball league, introduced himself to her parents. “It’s like she’s playing with children,” they remember him saying. He told them she was ready to turn pro and urged them to send her to ASVEL.
Malonga was torn. She dreamed of studying computer science at Harvard or MIT or Stanford. That way she could still play NCAA basketball. But Parker’s offer was too good to pass up. At 15, Malonga turned pro.
She had been playing the game for five years when she started sharing a court with the best players in France. Her inexperience showed, and at first she spent most games on the bench. She wondered if she should have stayed a kid longer. She worried she wasn’t ready yet.
What helped her most during that time was focusing on the process. She told herself the coaches would have no choice but to give her a shot if she kept improving. So she poured her energy into figuring out the movement and flow of the game and working on her skills.
“When you coach her, she looks at you in the eyes, she shows you that she’s listening, and she shows you that she’s trying to apply it straight on the court after,” ASVEL Féminin head coach Yoann Cabioc’h says. “She goes step by step very quickly.”
In June 2022, Malonga led France at the U17 world championship. In the bronze-medal game against Canada, she finished with 28 points and 17 rebounds.
In 2024, she was named to France’s Olympic team, which won the silver medal. Though she spent most of her time on the bench, she shadowed the vets, asking them questions and nodding vigorously as they answered.
“She wants to be great all the time,” says the Liberty’s Marine Johannes , her French teammate. “She wants to learn everything, and then she is ready to step in.”
Malonga carried the Olympic knowledge back to ASVEL Féminin and led the team in points (18.5) and rebounds (11) and helped it to the EuroCup semifinals.
“She keeps everything — any advice you give her, it’s in her brain,” Cabioc’h says. “That makes her potential unlimited.”
Back on the Zoom, one girl raises her hand and asks Malonga how she’s adjusting to the league in America.
Malonga nods and pauses.
“I play a lot less here,” she says. Pauses again.
“Sometimes I ask myself: ‘Am I not playing because I’m average in training?’
“Sometimes I do really well in practice and I wonder why I’m not getting playing time, what am I doing wrong?”
She sits up taller and smiles.
“But I know I’m putting in the work,” she says. “I’m so happy to be in training.
“That’s how I move forward.”
MALONGA HAS CLOCKED less than an hour of game time on a WNBA court when she finds herself alone on the perimeter against “Point Gawd” Chelsea Gray .
It’s late and tight in the fourth quarter of a June 1 encounter between Malonga’s Storm and Gray’s Las Vegas Aces . The rookie, who has tied her career high with eight points, needs a stop against the shrewd 5-11 veteran who has the ball and the edge. The Climate Pledge Arena fans scream, “Defense, defense.”
Gray crosses over, goes between her legs, trying to find an inch of space. Malonga steps her right foot in. Throws her arms up.
With nowhere to go, Gray crosses over. Again Malonga is in her face. She dances in front of her, her feet moving swiftly and rhythmically. Her outstretched arms deter Gray. Again. Gray is running out of time now. Two seconds on the shot clock. She needs to find space. She has only one option: She releases a high-arching fadeaway. Malonga turns around, following the trajectory of the ball.
The ball finds the bottom of the net and zaps Seattle’s momentum.
Malonga swings her head back and clenches her fists. She claps her hands.
“S—, I almost had her,” she thinks to herself.
Almost.
“I was pissed because I did everything I can,” Malonga says. “It was a good ‘Welcome to the league’ moment.”
IF MALONGA HAD had an actual welcoming committee to the WNBA, Ogwumike would be Madam President. The Storm’s MVP post player, 14-year veteran and 10-time All-Star has become Yoda to her young teammate over the first few weeks of the season.
The questions never stop.
“How did you approach your career early on?”
“How do I build a long-lasting career in the WNBA?”
“What were the differences in playing for clubs overseas?”
“Who did you play with and what lessons did you learn during your time away from America?”
Ogwumike finds her teammate’s curiosity admirable. And her experience remarkable.
“She perhaps might have a little bit more worldly experience than even someone like me,” says Ogwumike, who is 16 years her elder.
But it’s the wisdom that comes from curiosity and experience that separates Malonga from every rookie, pretty much ever, Ogwumike says. “Lean into that,” she tells her younger and taller shadow.
“Dom is very mature,” Ogwumike says, notwithstanding her teammate’s budding obsession with applesauce. “The way she handles herself as a professional is very mature. There’s a lot of preparation that goes into just being available on the court every day, and she does it every day.”
Ogwumike marvels at how quickly Malonga has absorbed the Storm’s playbook and her understanding of where to be on the court and when. Malonga, after all, has been in America for all of 38 days.
“That maturity also expands to how quickly she’s able to pick things up as she’s learning this new system,” Ogwumike says.
Just you wait.
AMERICA’S INDEPENDENCE DAY this year is also Malonga’s two-month anniversary in the country. In her Brooklyn hotel room, she’s gesturing her arms in a circle as she talks about how she’s adapting to life in the United States.
I ask her what her biggest adjustment has been.
“Groceries.”
She says she freezes when she walks into American grocery stores. She has no idea how to pick out produce for some of her favorite African recipes — fufu and peanut stew. Food is an important connector to home, but she hasn’t had the time to root herself, she says. So she hasn’t been cooking much. But, thankfully, team meals are delicious, she adds. And, oh, that applesauce.
Every day, she feels like she’s experiencing something new.
“I’m just so happy because everything that’s happening. I’m just like, ‘Wow, wow, wow,’ every day,” she says.
The last experience that amazed her? She has a story.
The day before, after the Storm beat Atlanta 80-79 (Malonga played only two minutes), Erica Wheeler invited the team to her house for an early Independence Day cookout.
“It was my first cookout ever. There were only Black people there. I was like ‘OK, this is what a real cookout in America is,'” she says as her grin broadens.
Every bite of food, every conversation, every fist bump invigorated her. Eyes bright, she took it all in, she says.
Her energy is infectious. Even veterans can’t help but learn from her attitude.
“She’s very innocent, very childlike, eyes wide open, ready to take the world in,” Williams, her teammate on the French national team and in Seattle, says. “It gives [me] a new motivation to see things from that point of view.”
IN HER LAST game before the All-Star break, Malonga goes scoreless in Seattle’s 74-69 loss to the Washington Mystics . Fellow rookies Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen combine for 27 points.
After the game, Citron and Iriafen travel to Indianapolis to play in the WNBA All-Star Game. No. 1 pick Paige Bueckers of the Dallas Wings was selected, too. Malonga spends the weekend with her parents on a Las Vegas vacation. They sing carpool karaoke and cruise the Strip.
In Malonga’s first game after the break, Bueckers has 14 points, 6 assists and 4 rebounds in Dallas’ 87-63 win over Seattle. Malonga goes 0-for-6 from the floor.
Storm coach Noelle Quinn holds her ground.
“We had the No. 2 pick with a team with a lot of vets, and [the] ability to take it to the playoffs,” Quinn says. “Her trajectory in this league is very high. She just needs to be patient and be a student of the game.”
Then comes July 24. Storm vs. Chicago Sky . Malonga grabs an offensive rebound. Puts it back in. Malonga sprints down the court. Lays it in. Malonga turns underneath Kamilla Cardoso . Drops the ball in. Malonga, hands outstretched, stymies Elizabeth Williams on her way to the hoop. Malonga steps beyond the arc. Makes her first 3-pointer. In 17 minutes, she has 14 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocks. She becomes the youngest player in WNBA history to reach 100 points and the youngest to post a double-double.
When asked what clicked for her, she deflects and praises her teammates.
“I can’t do that by myself,” she says.
But Quinn puts the spotlight right back on the rookie.
“Dom has worked extremely hard up to this point,” Quinn says. “We see it every day, and we want to show that on the court.
“It’s kind of not a surprise anymore.”
MALONGA SQUATS IN the paint, her arms up in the air. Indiana Fever center and No. 1 pick in the 2023 WNBA draft Aliyah Boston , ball in her hands, spins around to face Malonga.
It’s late and tight in the third quarter of the Storm’s Aug. 3 game against the Fever. Boston dribbles, her body angled against Malonga. She tries to find an inch of space. Malonga steps her left foot in, nudges Boston’s elbows with her left arm. Boston steps her right foot forward. Malonga raises her arms and dances into Boston’s space. Smothered, Boston leans back and brings the ball over her head. Malonga stretches her arms. Boston releases the ball and it arches over her head. It doesn’t get far. Malonga’s left palm makes contact and she swats it back down.
The Climate Pledge Arena erupts.
MALONGA PLONKS INTO a chair next to Diggins. It’s minutes after the Storm defeated the Sky 94-88 on Aug. 19. Malonga came off the bench and had 15 points, 7 rebounds and 3 blocks in 19 minutes. Now she’s at the news conference listening to one of the best players in the league.
Reporters ask Diggins about Malonga’s trajectory this season. And for the next two minutes, the veteran waxes lyrical about the youngest player in the league.
“Every night she breaks records,” Diggins says, smiling. Malonga looks down at her hands and smiles coyly.
“She’s literally just scratching the surface,” Diggins says.
“She’s going to be a star for the next 20 years in this league,” she adds, first looking at the reporters. Then she turns to Malonga and gently punches her arm with her palm. “I’m not just saying this because I’m here.” She looks at Malonga, who is now shaking her head and smiling widely.
Directly talking to Malonga, Diggins says, “You know it: If these cameras ain’t pointed around, I say the same s—.” Malonga nods vigorously.
“She’s playing behind two All-Stars — and she’s an All-Star in her own right,” Diggins says.
Then, she looks down at her palms. She grows serious.
“We need what she brings to the table.”
ON AUG. 22, Malonga has 22 points, 9 rebounds and 3 blocks in a 95-60 win over Dallas. Bueckers, the overwhelming favorite for Rookie of the Year, has 11 points and two rebounds. It’s the fourth time Malonga has had at least 15 points and five rebounds, the most by a WNBA reserve this season. On Aug. 24, Malonga has 17 points and 10 rebounds — her fourth double-double of the season — in an 84-82 win over the Washington Mystics. Citron and Iriafen combine for 26 and 12.
The No. 2 pick in the WNBA draft, the generational talent, the unicorn has arrived just in time for Seattle’s push to the playoffs.
“I love the work,” Malonga says. “I don’t want to be that person who is just talented and relies on her talent. I want to be the girl that stays in the gym because she’s not taking her talent for granted.”
MERE MILES AWAY and hours removed from Joey Chestnut’s victory at Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, Malonga gestures with her arms in her Brooklyn hotel room. She’s recalling one of the earliest lessons she learned from basketball.
She was 12 and she loved to get on the court and show off her best moves. The thing was, her coaches didn’t always think her best moves were the right moves. Sometimes they gave her a direct path to the bench.
She remembers huffing and puffing and fixating on her mistakes.
“Everybody was talking to me about, ‘OK, you have such a big potential,'” Malonga says. “But I’m not playing, you know?”
So, she listened to her coaches. She watched her more experienced teammates execute plays. She reined in her crazy offensive moves. She got in the weight room and watched her muscles grow.
In the process, she fell in love with basketball.
“You know why?” she asks me.
“I love to have a story to tell,” she says. “Where I can say, ‘I did that! I made it!’ You cannot tell any stories if you just have the result and you didn’t experience nothing, you know?”
She breaks into a big grin. Just you wait.
