Storm’s Dunking Phenom Dominique Malonga Can Do It All—and She Intends to

Seattle’s young center entered her second WNBA season as the future of the franchise. But the French star has always wanted her life to be more than basketball.

Long before Dominique Malonga became a critical element of the Storm’s rebuild … before she started dunking in games (as a teenager!) … before she was born, Malonga was playing basketball.

Her mother, Agathe N’Nindjem-Yolemp, competed professionally in Europe for more than a decade. Mom was a physical 6' 4" center. Mom grabbed boards. Mom suffocated opponents on defense.

Mom was Dominique’s first teammate.

For the 2004–05 season, N’Nindjem-Yolemp went to Spain, joining a team in Valencia. She hadn’t reached the midpoint of her career yet. But she needed a break. She’s not entirely sure why. She just remembers repeating the same prayer almost every night: “God, I just need something to stop basketball right now.”

Hair by Tanya Joseph; Makeup by Chanel Arielle | Jordan Naholowaa Murph/Sports Illustrated

At 25, she got pregnant with a fourth child. This baby would be fed basketball, same as all the others. Inadvertently, Dom gave her mother the desired break that season. But not before N’Nindjem-Yolemp competed for five months with a baby growing in her belly.

In the Malonga basketball universe, this all makes perfect sense. N’Nindjem-Yolemp met Dom’s father, Thalance Malonga, in Cameroon some 30 years ago. Thalance, who played semi-professionally, was born in France but studied in Africa. (Picture this next part as if delivered by a narrator.) Thalance speaks with a deep baritone, rich and soothing, every word measured.

Basketball is in our blood, is our tradition.

Every child was born into a basketball family.

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One afternoon, when Dom was 11 or maybe 12, she and two siblings went to a court near their home in Le Chesnay, about 13 miles west of Paris. The plan: hoist some jumpers, have some fun. Then another kid showed up. Malonga can’t remember if he was alone or with a crew. She does recall his skill set, best described then and now as vast. This was just park basketball, informal, goofing off. But this kid! She couldn’t guard him. He scored at will. She didn’t score a single point. His game, his fluidity, at that size, well, all Malonga can say now is, “It just messed with my eyes.”

She wasn’t alone in drawing that conclusion. This kid would grow to 7' 4", 235 pounds; would go first in the 2023 NBA draft; would realize, while still a teenager, the superstardom for which he had been destined. His name was Victor Wembanyama.

He was a basketball prodigy.

She—despite all her family’s history suggesting otherwise—was not. Malonga wouldn’t consider following her mother’s career path for another year.

Malonga’s parents still half-jokingly refer to her as their “blessed child.” She was born with a congenital condition called laryngomalacia, which doctors often refer to as “noisy breathing.” This forced an immediate, monthlong hospital stay. Both parents worried, but Malonga healed quickly.

As she grew up, everything came easily. Still does. Malonga loved school. Loved to draw and escape into anime, sketching her favorite characters. Loved to read, especially psychological thrillers. Took piano lessons. Taught herself songs by watching YouTube. Even then, she admits that she was, “I won’t say a really, really hardworking child.” The response, given her bona fides, is laughter. Malonga clarifies immediately: “No, really.”

Her path to an international basketball career: Circuitous. Born in Cameroon. Lived in France while N’Nindjem-Yolemp was still playing. Went back and forth—and often. When her mom retired in 2012, the family moved back to Cameroon. Her parents opened a training academy, in order to, Thalance says, “transfer [our] heritage of basketball to young people”—and on a continent he still believes desperately needs exactly that. Their children went to almost every training session. “But,” says Dom, “I wasn’t really into it.”

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The Accidental Prodigy is asked if there is one moment—something, anything—that pointed her toward basketball. She thinks. And thinks. Buys time.

“Not really,” is her response.

Years after playing a pick-up game against him while growing up in France, Malonga (center) and Spurs star Victor Wembanyama (right) cross paths. | Tim Heitman/NBAE via Getty Images

This is the closest thing Malonga has to an origin story. The family moved back to France in 2016. After her 13th birthday, many who knew basketball and made careers in the sport all sounded the same theme, that her potential far exceeded her nonexistent career expectations.

That got Malonga’s brain churning. She’d always enjoyed playing basketball. She’d just never enjoyed watching or reading about it. Soon, France’s top training program, INSEP, offered her the chance to develop her game and remain in school. Its leaders told her she was meant for basketball. “You gotta start believing,” her coaches said.

She joined INSEP, which is the closest French equivalent to American college basketball, before her last year of middle school. They train, practice (twice a day), play and study—nothing else.

Despite her age, even on that first day, her mindset had already completely shifted. Basketball wouldn’t become her life. But it would become her main focus, to see how far she could go. She would approach development with understated, clinical, typhoon-like force.

For two years, Malonga practiced and honed a disciplined training schedule. That came naturally to her, too. She loved every part of this newfound hoops-first paradigm. Then, Tony Parker called. Yes, the NBA Hall of Famer. No, she did not expect that. 

It was really him. Parker had seen her play and wanted her to join another academy—his. Parker, one of France’s most transcendent sports stars, wanted the accidental prodigy to turn pro. And not just soon or down the road. He wanted her to turn pro, right then. At 15.

While competing in her second WNBA season, Malonga is also working toward a computer science degree. | Jordan Naholowaa Murph/Sports Illustrated

Parker was comparing Malonga to the prodigy who had decimated her in that friendly pickup game at their local park. His comparison stuck, immediately, which only bolstered her self-confidence. If Tony Parker says that about me, it might be true, she told herself.

Malonga immediately enrolled at the Tony Parker Adéquat Academy and moved to Lyon in 2021. She joined ASVEL Féminin and spent two years there alongside many of France’s top female hoopers.

That team would loan Malonga to another outfit in France’s First Division, its highest level of basketball competition. Tarbes Gespe Bigorre was not a perennial playoff contender but had finished closer to the postseason the previous year. Most of her teammates weren’t as young as she was. But they were also just beginning their pro careers.

Their squad wasn’t expected to make the playoffs but did, and also made the French Cup semifinals. Malonga was named the league’s Best Young Player and one of its five best players, regardless of age.

Four pro seasons in her teens taught Malonga how to approach a game like a job. She became more versatile, in lockstep with her understanding of basketball’s technical nuances, like how to set a proper screen. She summoned fluid movements more naturally each week. And discovered she already possessed great hands.

The Wemby comps no longer seemed so far-fetched.

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Malonga’s full embrace of basketball created ever-deepening connections to the game. She found out she’d been selected for Olympic competition about two weeks before the 2024 Paris Games and was the youngest player on France’s roster. “The best basketball experience of my life,” she says.

“Right now,” she adds, quietly and quickly. She does add that, though, and the subtext, of what’s possible, is the important part.

At just 19 years old, Malonga was drafted No. 2 in the 2025 draft. | Melanie Fidler/NBAE/Getty Images

This transformative portion of her career began on April 14, 2025, when the Storm drafted her with the No. 2 pick. All the Malongas gathered in New York City. Thalance still can’t find words to describe that night, spent inside the WNBA’s green room, everyone together, same as always, and yet entirely different than ever before.

The family celebrated with a quiet dinner. “It’s happening,” she told them.

Malonga had never visited Seattle, didn’t know anything about Seattle. Couldn’t find it on a map. She did not yet understand the Emerald City and its infatuation with women’s basketball. The Storm franchise, run by an all-female ownership group. Attendance, essentially locked. City and future superstar, the fit, like a glove—and not to be confused with The Glove, Gary Payton, another dominant basketball force who called Seattle home.

Her rookie season felt like one giant blur. Malonga adjusted to the pace of WNBA basketball and the league’s travel schedule—more games than she’d ever played (she was used to just a game a week in France), which robbed her of the practice time she needed. She set out to add “tools to my bag,” she says—post moves, pick-and-roll expertise, rhythm and flow. And she began working with a sports psychologist, focusing on breathing techniques. She made the WNBA All-Rookie team and her 55.1% field goal percentage was eighth in the league.

That massive commitment to basketball remains. This winter, she stayed stateside and joined Unrivaled. Its three-on-three format forced her to create shots with ball in hand, to carve space and twist her body and charge at or slip by opponents. Her rhythm felt even more natural afterward. Malonga created better scoring opps for herself and teammates, while bolstering her one-on-one defense. Malonga says she gained physicality this winter and perfected rolling off screens, too. “It started to be really fun for me,” she says. “Because I changed my mindset.

“I really worked for [this]. But I didn’t plan it at all.”

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Malonga exits an SUV in downtown Seattle and strolls into a café. It’s the best kind of spring afternoon—that strange yellow orb makes a rare, glorious appearance overhead.

Inside Mirabelle by Orphée, Malonga is greeted by name, in French, with hugs. She would never say this next sentence. But Dom knows the owner. She discovered Mirabelle on an endless search for the best French food in Greater Seattle. Plus, Parisians consider croissants essential items, more water than breakfast.

“Like a little religion,” she says.

For unnecessary proof, Malonga, 20, orders four favorites for the table—three pastries (croissant, chausson aux pommes, kouign-amann) and a ham-and-cheese baguette. Her explanation of the order unspools like a college thesis paper, heavy on details and history. (For the record: delicious.)

Her parents long ago developed what Thalance describes as an “image” for each of their six children. Those images formed from individual interests, aptitudes, dreams. “It is a vision,” Thalance says. “A global vision for the future.”

Malonga’s parents have standards, and those standards are exacting. Beyond that, they’re adaptable and supportive. In their own careers, her parents played sports, trained athletes, became doctors and entered politics. “My parents,” she says, “had like 10 lives.”

So far this season, Malonga is averaging 15.1 points and 6.4 rebounds per game for the Storm. | Troy Wayrynen/Imagn Images

They see their daughter, her success and her potential, and they also consider future aims, which are international in scope. That’s a college degree. That’s more Storm championships. (The franchise has won four, while showcasing some of the league’s best players: Sue Bird, Lauren Jackson, Jewell Loyd, Breanna Stewart.) That’s a statue in Seattle for her exploits, just like Bird. And that’s Dom, that’s all their children, returning to Africa.

That’s where her parents believe Malonga’s largest future impact lies, in amplifying women’s basketball in Cameroon and throughout Africa. But Malonga’s not thinking like her parents, not considering statues or intercontinental impacts. She’ll compare where she is to what they’d all mapped out when she pivoted her focus to basketball seven years ago. That’s proof of concept. Imagine what it’s going to be like?, Malonga will ask herself.

She’s already working on completing her computer science degree through online classes. One current class focuses on digital communities and digital literacy. “Basically,” she says, “it’s kind of boring, but I love it!” For their next project, students will analyze a specific community. Hers: sports fandoms. A case study, in other words, within a case study—her career. Specifically, where it’s headed.

Malonga didn’t rush her rookie year. She notched two double-doubles in last season’s playoffs against Las Vegas. How about 20 more of those? Or half that many dunks—she had three this winter in Unrivaled.

BREAKING: Dominique Malonga just threw down the first @Unrivaledwbb dunk of the season. pic.twitter.com/rAb2qiDi8d

— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) January 25, 2026

This season Malonga aims to be more aggressive. She wants to create space for teammates, fashion her own scoring opps and continue her other studies—the on-court dissertation. 

She will need to. After the Storm’s top five players from last season left in free agency, the team has stepped into a new era. Seattle used its No. 3 pick on Awa Fam, a 6' 4" post player from Spain, and re-signed Ezi Magbegor, a veteran 6' 4" forward/center. (Talk about a towering frontcourt.) Team brass also got Flau’jae Johnson, LSU’s former star player and a Roc Nation–signed rapper, on draft night.

At the center of it all is Malonga, who had two 21-point performances in the season’s first week (she averaged 7.7 last year). And yes, she watches basketball now. But only because she must. Part of the gig. 

On the night she joined the WNBA, Malonga felt … joy. For her family, career, ambitions. For the present and the future. She has hardly begun to realize her potential, let alone whatever her top potential will look like. 

Soon, more fans across the world will love her as Malonga continues to broaden her impact. And yet, she herself says she won’t work in basketball after she retires. Malonga loves a lot of things. And she doesn’t achieve anything by accident.               

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