This past April, Dominique Malonga became the youngest woman drafted in the history of the WNBA. Just 19 years and five months old, her size and athleticism made her just too enticing to pass up for the Seattle Storm, who selected her second overall after the Dallas Wings drafted Paige Bueckers first.
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The Storm brought Malonga up to speed slowly in her rookie year, playing her just over 14 minutes per game in the regular season. In the playoffs, though, her potential began shining through as she put up two double-doubles in expanded minutes over the soon-to-be WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces.
Malonga was born in Cameroon, but she and her family emigrated to France when she was young. Oddly enough, on the way to WNBA, she crossed paths with another young phenom, Victor Wembanyama. On her recent appearance on The Young Man and the Three podcast, she spoke about that connection.
“It’s a funny story, because Victor and I are from the same town in France,” she said, adding,“First meet we met randomly, I think I was 12 or something, we met randomly at a playground in our city, and we just played playground basketball, so that’s actually how we first met.”
“After, we crossed each other in all the tournaments that the city organized, or when we’re representing our region to other tournaments, we would both represent the 92 department,” she revealed.
Malonga played for the girls team while Wemby played for the boys team, but they still got to see plenty of each other, even after Victor moved on to play for ASVEL, a pro team based out of a suburb of Lyon.
Young Man and the Three host Tommy Alter marveled at the long odds of two special players coming out of the same town, and Malonga admitted, “It’s actually a crazy story when I think about it.”
Wemby had great individual success in his first year in the NBA, and though his sophomore season was cut short by a blood clot, he still showed a ton of growth and raised his numbers almost across the board.
Entering his third season, people around the league are expecting his Spurs to become a real problem, as he’s now surrounded with a quality supporting cast that includes De’Aaron Fox and No. 2 overall pick Dylan Harper.
Malonga didn’t burst onto the scene in the same way that Wemby did, but at 6’6″, she has tremendous potential that she’s only beginning to scratch the surface of. Her playoff performances were a sign of things to come, and the Storm are counting on her to be a franchise cornerstone as they try to get back to their championship ways.
