The only player in NCAA history to accumulate at least 2,000 points, 1,000 assists and 1,000 rebounds during her collegiate career, former Oregon star Sabrina Ionescu is poised to be the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft Friday night.
The team that is going to select her, the New York Liberty, will make her the face of the franchise as the team shifts from playing in small arena north of the city to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.
Ionescu, who ended her Oregon career with 26 triple-doubles (more than twice as many as anyone other NCAA player, male or female), will instantly become the leader of a rebuilding team that has four more top-15 picks in Friday’s draft after the No. 1 selection. The unanimous National Player of the Year in 2020 and a three-time Lieberman Award (nation’s top point guard) winner, Ionescu caught the eye of Steph Curry, LeBron James and the late Kobe Bryant when she was playing for the Ducks and helping her team outdraw Oregon’s nationally-ranked men’s team in home attendance.
Talk about ENERGY 👑 @sabrina_i20
(via @_JordanJimenez)pic.twitter.com/ZCEGBen3dw
— WSLAM (@wslam) April 13, 2020
If — well, really when — the Liberty take her later tonight, Ionescu sounds as if she will be ready.
“I’m definitely, hopefully excited for the opportunity to play there at Barclays Center, and just the marketability that there is in New York,” she told The Wall Street Journal. “The hustle and bustle is something that I think could be not only beneficial to myself as a person but as a brand and for women’s basketball.”
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