Dominique Malonga has spent much of her young pro career moving from one challenge to the next. The 20-year-old Seattle Storm center, drafted second overall last year, said she is now adding a bachelor’s degree in computer science to a life already crowded with basketball, travel and recovery.
Malonga, who was the youngest player in the league when Seattle took her with the No. 2 pick, said the online program at Southern New Hampshire University will take five or six years to finish. She chose computer science after Googling the subject and deciding it could fit the rhythm of a professional athlete’s life. “When I can stay at home, I stay at home. I'm not really going to go anywhere,” she said. “My dad is obsessed with this game.”
The timing matters because Malonga’s basketball calendar has hardly paused. She underwent wrist surgery in October, spent the first two months of this year in Miami competing in the Unrivaled 3-on-3 league, then went home to France for the FIBA World Cup Qualifying Tournament before a concussion two games in sent her back into recovery mode. In April, she said she had just arrived in Seattle ahead of training camp and was already thinking about how to keep her education moving while her playing career keeps speeding up.
That balance has been part of Malonga’s story since she was 16, when she began playing with ASVEL Féminin in the Ligue Féminine de Basketball and the French national team. She has already become the youngest player ever to post a double-double and reach 100 career points, and the 6-foot-6 center has made clear she does not see basketball and school as competing demands. She said the room with a piano that Storm players call “Dom’s Room” is where she settles in: “I spend my life there.” And when the pressure builds, she turns back to the game itself. “When my mind is full and I need to reset and calm myself, I just go play,” she said.
Her path also reflects the different route international players can take into the WNBA. Malonga was eligible for the draft at 20 because she is from France, while domestic players must be 22 and have exhausted college eligibility. She excelled at math and science in school, and now the same curiosity is shaping what comes next. For Seattle, that means Sunday’s matchup against Connecticut will again feature a player whose future is still being written, on the court and off it. More on that game is here: Storm Vs Sun: Dominique Malonga leads Seattle into Sunday matchup.
