SEATTLE — In the closest and final game of the Storm’s now-ended 11-game losing streak, Seattle center Dominique Malonga put on one of the best performances of this WNBA season. The 20-year-old French phenom scored a career-high 37 points with 14 made field goals on 58.3% shooting, plus tied her season-high with 12 rebounds, against the Wings on June 22. Seattle lost to Dallas 112-110 in overtime, but Malonga became the youngest 30-point scorer in WNBA history, the first under 21.
“It was probably the best game of my life, points-wise, but even the scenario of it, close game, game-winning shots, that’s my first time being in this position, trying to make a play to win,” Malonga told The IX Basketball at shootaround two days later. “I think I learned a lot from that game just in terms of intensity, being aggressive, just keep going back to what’s working.
“So yeah, I feel really good about it even if we didn’t win just because I think myself and the whole team, we really grew from that game, and I think after that we just know what we’re capable of, and we just want to show that in all games.”
Meanwhile, her teammates were left in awe, though not surprised by the athletic and agile 6’6 center with guard-like skills showing out as she did.
“It’s Dom’s world, and we’re all just living in it,” point guard Jade Melbourne told The IX Basketball. “She’s absolutely unbelievable with what she can do. It was threes, it was getting to the rim, it was right hand, left hand, fade away, hook shots. Like, Dom can literally do everything a basketballer wants to do, and she’s literally 20 years old, and not even scratching the surface with her ability yet. So just watching it [injured on the bench] was basically a courtside ticket to the future of the league. … This girl is a superstar, the French unicorn.”
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The lessons from that loss, compounded with the rest of the season, finally turned into two straight wins for the Storn. In the next game, a win against New York, Malonga recorded 20 points and 10 rebounds, becoming the youngest player in WNBA history to reach both 500 career points and 200 defensive rebounds. Most recently, in the Storm’s Pride Night victory over Atlanta, Malonga scored 16 points and pulled down 11 boards, becoming the youngest player in WNBA history to record eight career double-doubles, surpassing Lauren Jackson. She also tied her career high with three blocks.
“I feel like almost every other day we’re hearing some kind of eye-popping number that’s starting to happen with Dom. She’s a special player, she’s a special talent, she’s a special person,” head coach Sonia Raman said after her performance against Dallas. “Her commitment to growth, to getting better, but also just her commitment to the organization, and just wanting to do whatever it takes to try to pull us forward and try to come out with the win, and just kind of understanding that, for her, there’s so many ways that she impacts the game. It’s not just the 37 points, it’s not necessarily just the 12 rebounds, it’s the way that she can deter in the paint, the way that she finds her teammates, just her unselfishness, and just kind of the personality that she has.”
All of these performances are coming after Malonga missed eight games due to a concussion. She only played three games at the start of the season before her lengthy absence. Now she has been back for nine games. The 37-point performance particularly led Malonga to be happy that she felt back to herself.
“I’m just glad because since I got back, it was hard for me to get back in my rhythm, I struggled with confidence a lot, and [my teammates] never let me down,” Malonga said after the game.
Malonga first returned to the court on June 6 in Minnesota, and she recorded seven points, two rebounds and two steals on 37.5% shooting from the field in 14 minutes. It was the only game she didn’t start. In the game after that, she scored 19 points in 17 minutes at Las Vegas. But she wasn’t happy with those early performances.
Veteran teammate Ezi Magbegor says it wasn’t anything particular that Malonga was frustrated with when it came to her early performances, rather “a feeling when you come back, and maybe being like a step slower or missing a few easy shots.”
Malonga admitted she was, understandably, out of shape when she first came back from the concussion, but the confidence issues stem back long before that.
“I’m just really hard on myself,” Malonga told The IX Basketball. “I’m the type of person who thinks when I miss two or three shots in a row, I shouldn’t shoot again. I try to fight that because if I don’t shoot, we’re not going to win, like, I need to take those shots. So now I’m getting to a point where I’m okay to take 20 shots a game and have like 40, 50% efficiency. … So that’s where my confidence has grown.”
One of her best friends on the team, fellow post player Mackenzie Holmes, thinks that how hard Malonga is on herself is part of what makes her so special.
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“She holds herself accountable. She’s an extremely hard worker, and she just wants to be the best version of herself for the team,” Holmes told The IX Basketball before the game against Atlanta. “I think she felt like if she didn’t play well, then she’s letting us down, but I think she’s just hard on herself, but I think that’s also like what makes her so great. So, I think it’s just a matter of keeping reminding her how special she is, how young she is, and, you know, the records she’s breaking are incredible, and just don’t let her forget that.”
Malonga said she has really tried to work on that confidence and feels like she is getting there. While the work is on an individual level, she says her teammates have helped by never losing confidence in her, even when she was beating herself up. She knows they are behind her and believe in her. Now, instead of feeling she let her teammates down by shooting, she knows they need and want her to take the shot.
“I think that’s really helped, just knowing that even if I’m 0 for 20, they’ll give me the 21st shot, and I’ll make it,” Malonga said.
During games, Magbegor will remind Malonga to stay confident because the team needs her, and try to interrupt negative thoughts as soon as she can if she can tell the young star is down on herself. Holmes said she will note if it’s been a few possessions since she looked to score.
“Anything that I see, I tell her when she comes out of the games but she’s a great basketball player, high level, high IQ, very cerebral player, so there’s not much that I need to say to her but anytime I get the chance to pick her up or give her a laugh, then I try to do that the best I can,” Holmes said.
Malonga had to go easier on herself coming back from injury, and her teammates helped with that, too. Point guard Natisha Hiedeman said she made sure to remind her to give herself grace.
“I feel like since then she’s just been having so much confidence in herself, like, not getting upset over mistakes, or just understanding like we’re all human, we make mistakes as well,” Hiedeman told The IX Basketball.
Playing with aggression
Having confidence is key to Malonga’s success because it is what allows her to play aggressively, something she has identified as what worked well in her best performances.
“When I don’t fade away, when I go into people’s chests, when I stay in the paint, when I grab strong rebounds, it helps get me going,” Malonga said of what was working so well for her against Dallas. “So I really need to keep that up and begin sustaining that.”
Being aggressive doesn’t exactly come naturally to Malonga. Holmes describes her as a “pretty chill”, well-rounded, down-to-earth person with a huge heart. The duo often hangs out to just watch TV, play board and card games, grab coffee or dinner, or just go to the store together. The way she is off the court, including playing board games, is the same as who she is on the court – quiet, but still competitive.
“She’s pretty consistent all around,” Holmes said. “She’s the type of person who has it in her; she’s super competitive, so when she needs to be fiery, she will, but most of the time she’s pretty level-headed on the court. She doesn’t show much emotion. It takes a lot, I think, for that to come out of her.”
Holmes thinks that one of the best things about their friendship is that they are so different in personality. Malonga is more introverted and shy, while Holmes is extroverted and yelling from the bench all game. They balance each other out well.
That balance can also be found for Malonga with some of her other more extroverted teammates like Flau’jae Johnson, Melbourne and Hiedeman, and in the aggressive mindset she is trying to find. Magbegor saw that balance on her career-high scoring night in how calm she seemed – even when she missed a few shots, she never got too high or too low, she stayed steady. Hiedeman also noted the balance of making the right reads within all the attention she draws on defense because being aggressive opens things up for her teammates, so she needs to be aggressive but also finds her teammates at times.
Magbegor is similar to Malonga in that she is on the quieter side. She went through periods of her Storm career where she talked about the same adjustment to trying to be more aggressive offensively and says it takes an intentional shift.
“I think with the player I am, and probably the player that Dom is, we’re just naturally pretty unselfish. So, understanding that it’s not selfish to be aggressive, and knowing that the team and the coaches have the trust and the confidence in you to be more aggressive offensively,” Magbegor explained. “So it is an intentional thought pattern and mindset that we have to take, but I think Dom is doing a great job of that.”
From 6POY candidate to No.1 scoring option
Much of this adjustment has to do with the significantly different role Malonga is being asked to play this year. In her rookie season, after being picked No. 2 overall in the 2025 WNBA Draft, Malonga was the young bench spark on a team full of All-Star veterans. Then-head-coach Noelle Quinn purposefully limited her minutes early on and tried to keep pressure off of the 19-year-old. Now, still just 20, she is the future of the team and the primary offensive option.
To her credit, Malonga has quickly stepped up. This season, Malonga is averaging 17.4 points, 7.6 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 1.3 blocks and 0.9 steals in 26.4 minutes per game. All of those are increases from last season’s 7.7 points, 0.9 assists, 0.7 blocks, and 0.4 steals in 14.3 minutes per game. She also improved her 3-point shooting percentage from 22.2% to 40.9% while still shooting 52.4% from inside the arc.
Putting on massive performances and consistently contributing at a high level comes as no surprise to her teammates, though. Magbegor feels it was just a matter of time as she got more comfortable with the WNBA and her team, while Melbourne is just enjoying watching a blooming superstar embracing her role.
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“Now, she’s kind of owning that, like ‘I’m here, I’m Dom Malonga, like this is who I am,’ and it’s really cool,” Melbourne said. “Throughout training camp, she was still trying to get people involved, and we’re like, ‘Dom, shoot the ball, you’re wide open,’ … Her ability to now believe in herself and translate that, I still think like there’s another level to it, which is really exciting. We’re gonna back her in 100%, and she’s starting to believe it too, which is really cool.”
At the same time, the team does not want to put pressure on her to always put up 20+ point scoring performances. Instead, Raman is focusing on seeing the consistency of aggressiveness amid her growth and development.
So far, that seems to be working, as Malonga said she doesn’t feel any sort of negative pressure to prove herself as a lottery pick, just the consistent pressure of wanting to win games as a professional athlete.
“It’s just pressure because I want to win, I want to be successful,” Malonga said. “It’s not necessarily about what’s expected of me, it’s just like I want to win and just want to play the best game that I can.”
The adjustment from her rookie to sophomore season wasn’t hurt by last season’s approach because the seasons are so completely different. Both were helped by Malonga’s overseas and international experience. This season isn’t her first time being the No. 1 option, and last season wasn’t her first playing with All-Stars, so she knew kind of how to navigate it. This year, she also knew the situation this team was coming into at the start of this season.
“We had this conversation –we know it’s a rebuild, we know where we want to be, and we know that it will take time,” Malonga said. “This year, it’s really just about growing with this team. We want to build something long-term; this is not just a one season thing. So I’m really buying into that, and if I can be successful this year with being the first option, building this team, and building something that can last, that’s really what I’m focusing on. So yeah, it’s a lot of pressure because you want to win games, but at the end of the day, it’s not about the result today, it’s about what we’re building.”
The biggest adjustment within those changes, however, has really been Malonga’s next-play mentality. Tied back to how hard Malonga is on herself, she used to really soak in her mistakes, but she can’t do that when her team needs her for the next play. She has had to work on not allowing herself to think about mistakes too much and quickly shifting from one play to the next.
“I think that’s the biggest lesson because I used to really, after bad games, after losses, just sit in my room in the dark for a day, and now I’m like, ‘no, I need to keep showing up, keeping showing the right way,’ because I’m the leader now so I need to lead by example,” Malonga said.
As things start to click for the Storm, and Malonga continues her rapid return to top-tier level play, her teammates following her example sets the Seattle franchise up for increased success this season and far beyond.
