WNBA Superstar Sabrina Ionescu is on top of the world right now: winning her first WNBA championship, entering her fourth straight all-star game, releasing a massively successful second shoe with Nike, and is renowned as one of the best players in the league. Everyone knows what she’s doing right now—but how did she get here?
Ionescu was born in Walnut Creek, California, on December 6, 1997 to her Romanian parents. From a young age, she was molded into a fierce competitor by her twin brother, Eddy, and older brother Andrei. Playing with her brothers taught her to be scrappy and fight for every opportunity on and off the court. When her brothers played in boys leagues growing up, Ionescu shrugged off their physical advantages and would frequently play in their games to dominate against the frustrated boys.
Ionescu had the utmost confidence in her game, taking offense and proving wrong to anyone who doubted her abilities. Once, her brother trash talked her left hand, and she responded by only using that hand for days. Her AAU and high school coach summed her up simply with one word. “Swagger.”
Once Ionescu got to high school, things got serious. She made varsity as a freshman, but didn’t start on the team until halfway through the season. She didn’t care, though, and started to play better and better every game with the support of her parents behind her. However, everything wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows for Ionescu.
In the playoffs of her freshman year, she missed a free throw in the semifinals against another good high school team, which shattered her team’s chances of winning the game. Ionescu was crushed. But nothing could ever stop her. Instead of moping, she went and shot free throws in the gym for hours on end.
For the rest of her high school years at Miramonte, Sabrina obliterated her competition, going 119-9, and breaking the school record with 2,606 points. She made it to the top of high school basketball game, playing as a McDonald’s All American, an honor shared by the likes of those like LeBron James, Michael Jordan, and Kevin Durant. She hit seven threes, and won the MVP, gaining the attention of almost every single school in the country.
Described as an “indecisive person” by her parents, Ionescu took quite a long time to commit to a college—and actually never really did—at least in a traditional sense. She wanted to go to the University of Washington or the University of Oregon, and decided to go to Oregon—after she got on the road to go to college. One day, she got in the car and started driving away from home, having only decided where she wanted to go during the drive.
In college, Ionescu had to redevelop her game completely. She says she had never used on ball screens before, and had to learn those while adapting to the new team and constantly self-critiquing her own skills. Ionescu’s work ethic proved worthy of the college game, and she got her first triple double just seven games into the season, the program’s first since 1988. Ionescu becomes a “legend,” as said Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors, and took her team to multiple Elite Eight placements in the NCAA tournament.
Instead of declaring for the WNBA draft, she took one final season to aim for the national championship. Unfortunately, that year was 2020, and the league was shut down indefinitely, ending her college career prematurely but sending her on a path to the WNBA. Later that year, she was selected first overall in the draft by the New York Liberty, and the rest is history.
