While attending the 2023 NCAA women’s Final Four, amid an electric atmosphere that would soon tip into national conversation, Nneka Ogwumike thought: Now this is different. That weekend in Dallas saw Caitlin Clark and Iowa pitted against Angel Reese and LSU. And it set up the WNBA for explosive growth a year later.
The league changed on almost every level in 2024. Just ask Ogwumike. With the Storm, the 13-year veteran forward was named an All-Star for the ninth time in her career, while moonlighting as the president of the WNBA Players’ Association, a job she’s held since ’16. In all that time, she never imagined playing in a league that looked as it did last season. Ogwumike has steered her fellow players through a variety of challenges—but never one as exhilarating as this.
