UNCASVILLE, CONN. — Elena Delle Donne was the kind of player you hadn’t seen before.
That’s how UConn coach Geno Auriemma described her in 2008: a 6’6 forward who could shoot, pass and dribble.
She ultimately expanded the possibilities of the forward position, helping set the template for the “big guards” who dominate the game today.
Maybe what made her most special, though, was choosing not to play for Auriemma.
Delle Donne left UConn almost as soon as she arrived, returning home to Delaware. She just wasn’t loving basketball anymore. More than that, she was struggling to be without her sister, Lizzie, who is deaf and blind and has cerebral palsy, and with whom Delle Donne can communicate only in person.
She felt everything crashing down at once.
Now, at 36 and headed into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, Delle Donne is proud of the 18-year-old who had the courage to step away.
“Luckily, because I was brave enough to … give it up, I was also able to realize I’m blaming the game of basketball for a lot of other things I haven’t figured out in life,” she said.
Listening to Delle Donne reflect on her career, one thing came through most clearly: She really, deeply loves basketball. She just wanted to make sure that love was her own.
It was.
When Delle Donne got the call about the Hall of Fame, the first memory that flashed wasn’t from college or the WNBA. It was shooting in her backyard over a ladder, trying to perfect the arc of her shot.
“It was just me, the little girl falling in love with the game,” she said.
As the years went on, she became obsessed with the process of getting better.
That obsession, combined with her basketball IQ, produced one of the most efficient offensive players in history. In 2019, Delle Donne became the first WNBA player to shoot at least 50% from the field, 40% from three-point range and 90% from the free-throw line in a season.
That same year, she led the Mystics to a championship. But Chicago is where she feels like she proved herself.
Drafted second overall by the Sky in 2013, Delle Donne led the franchise to its first WNBA Finals appearance a year later and won MVP in 2015.
“I feel like a lot of people were questioning if, first of all, I could leave home, and then also, was I going to be a good basketball player outside the small state of Delaware,” she told the Sun-Times.
Delle Donne also wanted to prove to herself that she could keep growing outside of basketball.
In 2016, she started a woodworking business with her wife, Amanda, whom she met in Chicago. She loves the craft for many of the same reasons she loved working on her game: the creativity, the focus, the satisfaction of losing herself in a process.
There is one major difference, besides the possibility of chopping off a finger.
Woodworking is solitary. It doesn’t come with the locker-room fun.
“It’s much lonelier when you don’t have a group of teammates every day to joke around with and have a good time,” she said.
So even with the shop at home, she has kept the game close. Delle Donne is the managing director of USA Basketball’s 3×3 program, where she got an early look at Sky rookie phenom Sydney Taylor.
She also serves as an adviser for the Mystics, doing everything from scouting players to occasionally jumping into a pregame drill to guard rookie center Lauren Betts.
Whether Betts realizes it or not, Delle Donne helped open the door for a generation of players more willing to speak about their struggles. Betts has written about her depression and become an advocate for mental health.
Delle Donne was having her own version of those conversations years ago. She wrote publicly about her chronic Lyme disease, offering a window into how the pain shaped her daily life. She played through severe back problems as well — injuries that ultimately cut her career short.
She’s still sharing what the pain taught her.
Like: Not every day is going to be OK.
“It’s OK to be vulnerable in those moments and be real,” she said. “I think keeping things pent up only makes you feel more pain and feel sicker.”
And: Nobody knows your body better than you.
“A lot of times when you’re feeling pain or you’re feeling sick, you want to just lay in bed all day,” she said. “But for me, activities are actually what has rejuvenated me and made me feel better.
“So, the importance of moving.”
Though she doesn’t play anymore, Delle Donne still does two heavy lifts each week.
Not because she’s obsessed with getting better. She just knows it’s going to make her feel good.
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