Soon-to-be No. 1 WNBA Draft pick Sabrina Ionescu is being heavily courted by one of her NBA idols to join Under Armour. Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors is hard at work, hoping to convince the University of Oregon star to join the UA family of athletes.
Ionescu, who owns the NCAA record for career triple-doubles, also has offers from Nike and Puma, as well as ambitions to have her own signature sneaker — a tall order for a WNBA player.
“I think he texts me almost every day,” Ionescu revealed this week on NBC Sports Bay Area's Runnin' Plays Podcast. “He's working hard.”
Only Lisa Leslie, Dawn Staley, Cynthia Cooper, Nicki McCray, Rebecca Lobo, and Chamique Holdsclaw have had signature lines with Nike, Reebok, Adidas, and FILA during the early days of the WNBA. Mostly, star players wear some of the popular signature lines from NBA players.
Ionescu, however, is as big a star as the WNBA has seen come into its ranks in the last few years, matching and even surpassing the likes of Candace Parker and Brittney Griner.
That ambition is rather palpable for Ionescu:
“I think before this all happened, I never thought about it because I didn't think it was even a possibility because women don't usually have signature shoes,” said Ionescu. “And then I think listening to a lot of these companies and the goals and visions that they had to have a signature shoe down the line, I was like, “Oh, actually that would be pretty cool.
“And I feel like a lot of individuals would want to buy that shoe and wear that shoe. And so I think now taking kind of two weeks, fast forward what I had thought before starting this, I do think a shoe would be really cool or like a clothing line or something, which would be awesome, and would be kind of beyond belief just because I'm so used to buying other people's shoes, and kind of looking up to them. And so kind of having that reciprocated would be awesome.”
The four-year senior has looked up to the Warriors star since growing up in the suburbs of Walnut Creek, CA, but she wore Nike sneakers on the court all four years of her career at Oregon.
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