Making a WNBA roster is tough. With only 12 teams with a maximum of 12 roster spots each, it's become the hardest professional sports league to break into. Due to salary cap constraints, most teams only carry a maximum of 11 players bringing the true number of roster spots down from 144 to about 136. For Dallas Wings center Kalani Brown, she's knows all about how hard it is make the final roster. After being cut in training camp, the Wings brought Kalani Brown back on a hardship contract.

In the WNBA, teams are allowed to sign players to hardship contracts when they fall below ten available players. Once a player returns to the active roster, a player on a hardship contract is then cut. The Wings were awarded a hardship contract when it was announced that Diamond DeShields and Lou Lopez Senechal would not be available to begin the season. DeShields is out indefinitely while dealing a knee injury while Lopez Senechal is not expected to play this year as she also recovers from a knee injury.

Enter Kalani Brown. The Wings were familiar with Kalani Brown from having her in camp. There was also a connection between Brown and Wings new head coach Latricia Trammell. When Brown was a rookie with the Los Angeles Sparks in 2019, Trammell was an assistant coach on Derek Fisher's staff. It was that familiarity with Trammell that's helped allow Brown to fit in rather seamlessly with the Wings. Following a recent game against the Sparks, Brown reflected on her role so far with the team.

“My job is to be a post presence. I didn't do a very good job of that today, but you know what, we have another game coming up,” Brown told ClutchPoints. “This is just a good, easy system for me to slide into as a five. Having LT who was my coach in LA, she understands my game and puts in me in a good position.”

Brown began her WNBA career when the Sparks selected her with the No. 7 overall pick in the 2019 WNBA Draft. She came into the league as one of the top players in the country having just won a national championship at Baylor. In the championship game against Notre Dame, a nail-biting 82-81 win in which current Wings teammate Arike Ogunbowale missed a clutch free-throw that sealed Baylor's win, Brown put up 20 points, 13 rebounds, two blocked shots and looked like she was ready for the WNBA.

Brown played 28 games in rookie season off the bench for the Sparks in about 13 minutes per game. She averaged 5.1 points per game and 3.5 rebounds with splits of 47.8 percent shooting from the field and 78.3 percent shooting from the free-throw line. While she showed flashes of being a strong post presence and a capable rotation player, the Sparks apparently thought otherwise.

That offseason the Sparks underwent a radical change in the front office letting go of longtime general manager Penny Toler. Fisher was given the dual role of head coach and general manager and during the offseason Brown was traded to the Atlanta Dream in exchange for Brittney Sykes and Marie Gülich.

She joined the team for the 2020 WNBA bubble season in Bradenton, FL on the campus of IMG Academy. She appeared in ten games for the Dream with averages of 3.0 points and 1.2 rebounds in only six minutes of play before she suffered an injury. She shot 52.2 percent from the field and 60 percent from the free-throw line. 2020 was a weird season regardless and when 2021 brought a little more sense of normalcy, the Dream cut her after only appearing in one game. It was Brown's introduction to just how difficult it can be to secure a WNBA roster spot.

“I've dealt with a lot, from injuries to mental health these last couple of years. It was really hard,” Brown said. “But I kept with it, stayed at it. A couple of players in passing kind of kept my belief alive and believing that I belong on a roster. And I just kept that in the back of my mind, on my journey. And now I'm finally here and I finally got a real chance to really play and impact the game.”

Brown spent the 2022 offseason playing for the newly created Athletes Unlimited, a professional basketball league designed at giving players an opportunity to stay home rather than go overseas. Following her strong showing, the Las Vegas Aces brought her training camp ahead of the 2022 season. She was one of their roster cuts, however, after she suffered a meniscus injury and she did not appear in the WNBA last year.

Now fully recovered, Kalani Brown joined the Wings for training camp. Once again, she was one of their final roster cuts. But the Wings opted to bring her back on a hardship contract when starting center Teaira McCowan went down early in the season with a knee injury. She made an immediate impact in her first game with 12 points, seven rebounds and two blocked shots off the bench. Due to ongoing injuries on the Wings roster, Kalani Brown remained with the team even after McCowan returned.

On June 7 in a win against the Phoenix Mercury, Brown put up 17 points and 15 rebounds. She had perhaps her best performance of the season so far against the Sparks on June 14 with 21 points and 11 rebounds. In 12 games so far, she's been averaging 7.9 points, 7.2 rebounds and 1.0 blocked shots with splits of 52.3 percent shooting from the field and 79.4 percent shooting from the free-throw line.

In today's day and age when the game has become more perimeter oriented and three-point shooting has become a must, Brown has managed to remain relevant as a true low post presence with a strong back to the basket game.

“Fives are still effective. Fives are still needed, I won't stop saying that,” Brown said. “When they establish us early, we can dominate. Those mobile fours and mobile fives don't want to guard big bodies either.”

Aside from Brown being healthy and finding a good situation for her, it was her play overseas this past WNBA offseason that's helped her be able to make such a big impact this season. She most recently suited up in Israel for Maccabi Bnot Ashdod. She averaged 22.3 points per game, 9.5 rebounds and 1.7 blocked shots. Being overseas, Brown was thrust into more of a focal point role in the offense, a role that she initially had to adapt to but that she believes has helped her tremendously.

“You're that person, they pay you to be there, they pay you to score, every day you have to go to work,” Brown said. “I think that plays a huge part in the maturity of your game. You're put in situations, those game-time situations where you have to make the last shot, where you have to pull your team through. You have to be kind of the vet to your squad and get your squad going. It's just you and normally one other American and you're just working through it.”

Many WNBA players head overseas once the season is over. As a result, Kalani Brown ran into several fellow WNBA players while playing abroad. They noticed her game and wondered aloud why she wasn't on a WNBA roster. Her peers belief in her helped fuel her belief in herself.

She also believes that playing overseas gave her an advantage when she arrived in training camp this season. Most overseas leagues run right up until the start of the WNBA season and so most players aren't afforded any down time to rest before having to jump right into play again. It helped get her prepared to seize this latest opportunity.

“That's how I made ties in the W, playing overseas and playing in AU. They were like, ‘wow, why aren't you on a roster, we play so well together and the pick and roll is like your favorite thing to do,'” Brown said. “Overseas matures you, it makes you tougher and more physical. It's way more physical than the league. By the time you're done with that, you come into training camp and you're pretty much already booked up and ready to go.”