CHICAGO — The lights flashed in Sabrina Ionescu’s face as she answered the reporter’s question with a wry grin.
“I really didn’t know you were supposed to dress this nice for this,” said the first-time WNBA All-Star. “So, if that doesn’t sum my life up, I don’t know what else does.”
The New York Liberty guard had just finished walking her first Orange Carpet, All-Star weekend’s version of the red carpet. It kicked off what was a weekend of firsts for Ionescu: her first carpet, her first skills competition and her first WNBA All-Star Game.
Of the three places — the carpet was the only one where the newbie looked even slightly uncomfortable. Everything that has to do with basketball, Ionescu left no doubt she belongs among the league’s best.
On Saturday she won the skills competition, becoming the first Liberty player to ever win the event.
On Sunday she drained a four-pointer, taking advantage of the game’s unique rules to show off her range. She finished with 19 points, six assists and six rebounds, helping Team (A’ja) Wilson secure a 134-112 win against Team (Breanna) Stewart at Wintrust Arena.
For the former Oregon Ducks star, All-Star weekend is a tangible point along a long journey to finding her place in the pros. After suffering a season-ending ankle sprain in the third game of her rookie season, Ionescu spent her sophomore season getting the feel of the pace of the league. But her third season is the one where the Ionescu playing point at Barclays Center looks a lot more like the one who dominated the court at Matthew Knight Arena.
“Now that I’m healthy, I’m seeing a lot of things that I wasn’t able to see last year,” Ionescu said.
That vision is helping the NCAA record-holder for most triple-doubles in a season (eight) and a career (26) set even more triple-double records in the pros.
Team Wilson’s Sylvia Fowles, second from left, celebrates with Sabrina Ionescu, left, Candace Parker, right, and A’ja Wilson after dunking against Team Stewart during the first half of a WNBA All-Star basketball game in Chicago, Sunday, July 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh) APAP
Just 48 hours before her All-Star debut, Ionescu became the first player in league history to score at least 30 points in a triple-double game, breaking the mark of 29 points center Lisa Leslie set with the Los Angeles Sparks in 2004. Just shy of the halfway mark in her third season, Ionescu also tied Chicago Sky forward Candace Parker’s record for most triple-doubles in a career with three.
“It’s amazing to watch,” Parker said of seeing her All-Star teammate come back from her injury. “I’m all about bounce back, I’m all about getting back up and she’s done that.”
It’s a bounce back Parker played a role in, starting with a comment at the free throw line last summer.
“Yo, you need to get yourself right. You can’t play hurt,” Parker said she told Ionescu last summer at Barclays during a game between Ionescu’s Liberty and her Sky.
“To have someone come up to me like Candace Parker and talk to me was something I’ll never forget,” Ionescu said. “She had someone I could go see and to be able to have someone like that in the league is huge because, at the end of the day, we’re all competing for spots, we’re all competing to try and be the best. And sometimes you lose sight of things on a human level and what people are going through.”
“It’s so hard because you’re a competitor,” Parker said. “I’ve played hurt many years of my career and people only judge you based off what they see, they don’t know the behind story. Sometimes you just need people to tell you it’s better to be patient and get healthy than to play through that stuff.”
For Ionescu, the patience is finally paying off. And even as she thrives in her first WNBA All-Star weekend, she’s working to ensure it’s not her last.
“What’s even more exciting,” she said, “is that I have so much more that I want to accomplish.”
— AJ McCord for The Oregonian/OregonLive