Elena Delle Donne put up one of the greatest careers in WNBA history … one that almost never happened.
UNCASVILLE—Basketball history may have shifted for good in 2008. This particular hallowed happening occurred not on any form of hardwood but rather the Delaware home of Elena Delle Donne.
At the time, Delle Donne was destined for the more traditional historic shifts, word of her work at Ursuline Academy in her native Wilmington had reached Storrs and she was the latest Husky pup set to continue the University of Connecticut’s near-monopoly on collegiate team titles.
Delle Donne’s sneakers, however, never traversed Gampel Pavilion on game day. In fact, it wasn’t clear then whether any of her game gear would ever be used again.
Delle Donne Done
There’s no use trying to hide spoilers: Delle Donne obviously returned to action and such endeavors have yielded a spot at the Naismith Basketball Memorial Hall of Fame in Springfield, CT.
Fans of the Delaware Blue Hens and Washington Mystics are no doubt grateful for such a reversal: Delle Donne guided both establishments to their respective finest hours in the form of a 2013 Sweet 16 showing and the 2019 WNBA championship. Her name headlines most chapters in each team’s record book and both amateur and professional voters have been quick to acknowledge her impact with a well-stocked trophy case.
“It’s hard to even like put into words,” Delle Donne said before her official induction at Mohegan Sun. “There’s so much going on. I’m trying to soak it all up and slow down and enjoy this moment with my family and the people who’ve been with me throughout the journey … Once when the weekend is over, that’s when like everything is going to sink in and hit. Even today, we’re doing our autographs, and I’m writing ‘HOF 26.’ I’m like, this is just crazy and so cool.”
2019 MVP Elena Delle Donne tough shotmaking pic.twitter.com/KPduxmLM7r
— Pitless (@pitlessball) April 4, 2025
There would be some extra real estate in Springfield had Delle Donne gone through with her plans at age 18.
Delle Donne lasted less than a week in the UConn program, ready to give it all up in the name of returning home to her family, namely her sibling Lizzie. Her older sister was born blind and deaf and she also lives with autism and cerebral palsy. The bond they share has long been established as one of the reasons why Elena left UConn and returned to Wilmington, her self-exile lasting a year before she settled with the Blue Hens in nearby Newark.
“I was in a point of turmoil in my life with not loving the game, feeling a little bit burned out. But then my person is home,” Delle Donne recalled. “She’s deaf. She’s blind. I can’t communicate with her unless I’m in a room with her. That just [made] it all kind of came crashing down and I was like ‘I know where I need to be because anytime I go through anything tough, it’s with her that I learn whatever it is I need to learn in the moment.'”
Like many on-floor opponents would learn the hard way, Delle Donne had a plan, one that still involved swatting considering she was an equally accomplished volleyball player. Instead, she decided to stop bestowing blame to the game she was destined to dominate.
“I swore to myself I would never pick up a basketball again. I was so sure that I was so right at the age of 18,” Delle Donne said. “I’m like, I’m not doing this. This isn’t right for me. I’m going to do something else. I’m going to be a volleyball star. But, luckily, because I was brave enough to take the step to give it up. I was also able to realize that I’m blaming the game of basketball for a lot of other things I haven’t figured out in life.”
“I just needed to step away and find who Elena was outside of the game and realize I can have other passions and all these other things, and not everything is on a win or a loss in the game of basketball. I needed that and I needed to step away to come back and find the passion again that the little girl had, who was out in the backyard shooting hoops, and because of that, that’s why I was able to get here.”
While making her professional fortune as a Mystic, Delle Donne has yet to master time travel. If that day comes, her 18-year-old self will land the ultimate emotional kudos.
“I’m so proud of you,” Delle Donne said when asked what she would tell that teenager. “It was really hard to take that step and to decide that I was going to steer my own ship. People thought I was crazy. People called me crazy. People called me a lot of things, and it was really tough. But because of her bravery, I was able to grow so much as a human being, and then, yes, come back to basketball. But it was the human part, and that learning all those lessons is what has built me to the person I am today.”
Jacket on, legacy showing
Elena Delle Donne shows off her Class of 2026 Hall of Fame jacket at tonight’s Enshrinement Gala. pic.twitter.com/jShVC81v4O
— WNBA (@WNBA) August 15, 2026
Call From the Hall
Delle Donne is part of Springfield’s illustrious Class of 2026, one that features fellow hybrid trailblazer Candace Parker and the United States’ 1996 Women’s National Basketball Team.
It’s the culmination of a career where some of Delle Donne’s finest victories have come in off-court battles, whether it was the homesickness issue at the top of her career or her battle with chronic Lyme disease, which she expounded upon in a 2020 posting on The Players’ Tribune.
“Not every day you’re going to feel great and it’s okay to be vulnerable in those moments and be real and talk about it,” Delle Donne said of what she learned about herself amidst these moments. “I think keeping things pinned up only, you know, makes you feel more pain or feel sicker. Reaching out to those around me, having a great support system, but also knowing [that] some days it’s okay not to be okay, and then tomorrow we get up and do the best we can.”
“[These are] all messages I learned from my sister. She’s battled far more than I will ever battle in my life. So being able to look to her and being like how’s she doing it day in and day out helped.”
Delle Donne was with her wife Amanda Clifton when she received confirmation of her Springfield coronation and the news quickly made its way to her parents, Ernest and Joan, and her older brother Gene. When it came to Lizzie, Delle Donne instead found peace in a far more meaningful communication.
“The greatest thing about Lizzie is she doesn’t know I’m a basketball player,” She doesn’t know I’m her sister. She just knows I’m a person in a room who, when I sit next to her and she touches me and she smells me and she feels my hair, it’s love. So that’s, again, a reason why you come back to her and it’s like she doesn’t even know I play basketball. Like that’s greatest thing about her. She puts life in perspective.”
Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags
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