Quietly, Delaware’s Elena Delle Donne Justifies the Hype

Followers of women’s college basketball (and I consider myself one) know that often, superstar players swing titles. That’s why Baylor’s Brittney Griner is going to receive truckloads of speculation, why Candace Parker won her fame as the difference-maker for Tennessee two years ago, and why UConn’s Geno Auriemma could utter “We have Diana (Taurasi) and you don’t” and usher a phrase into legend during Taurasi’s heyday as a Husky.↵↵All of this is probably part of why Elena Delle Donne won’t follow in their footsteps. A celebrated high school player who drew comparisons to LeBron James and originally committed to Connecticut, Delle Donne reneged at the last moment, choosing to go to the local University of Delaware and play volleyball. She was happier, presumably, freed from the kleig lights of that stage and the harassment of recruiting. And then she changed her mind, and joined the Delaware Blue Hens of basketball for this season.↵

↵↵She’s back, some say, because it’s where she wants to be, because it makes her happy to play basketball. It’s clear her talents never left: Her 19/7/5 line in her first collegiate game, on the heels of a 50-point performance in a scrimmage against St. Joseph’s, is evidence that she can still be as great as she was forecast to be.↵

↵↵But it’s the narrative of Della Donne’s story that is remarkable. ↵

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↵↵Here you have possibly the most coveted recruit in a sport’s history, ticketed for stardom at the game’s highest level with one of its best teams, having the spine and maturity to choose for herself the route that made her happiest. What she did would be the equivalent of LeBron choosing to go to Akron for a year instead of leaping directly to the NBA.↵

↵↵Obviously, things are different because of disparities in digits: A single year in college would have cost LeBron millions in lost salary and endorsements at age 18, while Delle Donne’s opportunity cost was only whatever hype and skill she would have garnered from a freshman year at UConn. Chances are, she’ll still be a top WNBA draft pick when she finishes with college, and her eventual financial rewards top out in the high six-figure range (when adding endorsements and salary from overseas play), so it’s not as huge a loss as LeBron would have taken.↵

↵↵Taken together, though, the stories of Delle Donne and Zack Greinke, another athlete reconciling magnificent talent with massive expectations, show that at least a couple of people seem to be better off, by their own admissions, with less hubbub around them. I smell a trend that will bubble to the surface of sports discussion by about 2013.↵

↵↵For Delle Donne, the discussion is probably extraneous. Her focus in the near future is playing basketball as adeptly as she can. I have faith that she will do just that, either in the spotlights or the shadows.↵

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