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Satou Sabally knew.
Even before this season officially began, the 25-year-old Dallas Wings forward knew. She could feel it. She had worked for it.
In fact, shortly after new head coach Latricia Trammell arrived, Sabally shared it with her.
“I remember when I first was hired and was talking to her, she said, This is my year,” Trammell recalled. “And she’s kept that same mindset. She’s a determined young lady. She’s a competitor. I’m so very proud of her. “She’s taken the excuse away from everyone else not to join that bandwagon.”
By the way, the line for that bandwagon forms to the right and is already several miles long. And with good reason.
Sabally, the Wings No. 2 overall pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft, is finally fully healthy and enjoying her best season in the League. So far, the “Unicorn,” named so due to her unique playing skills and versatility, became the first player in Wings/Shock franchise history and the eighth in WNBA history to record seven straight double-doubles in a single season.
“I’m just focusing on being dominant, and this is a way to be dominant. It’s a way to show that I’m more than just an offensive player and the other things that come with it,” Sabally says. “Just continuously wanting to be better. Obviously I am a scorer and I’m also a defender this year which has been nice, and I feel it has given me some type of control of the game without having to rely on if my shot falls or not. So that has been really good.”
Sabally leads the League in rebounds per at 11 and is fourth in the League and second on the team in scoring at 20.9 ppg. She also ranks second on the team in steals (1.5 per).
In June, she earned her first career WNBA Player of the Week honor after leading the Wings to two wins over the course of three games, averaging 19.3 points and a League-leading 12.3 rebounds. And she was named an All-Star for the second time—but this time as a starter.
At 6-4, she’s an imposing figure with the look and feel of a center. She impacts the game the moment she steps on the court—scoring, defending multiple positions, passing, rebounding and shooting threes. Teams double-team her instantly and often resort to physicality to try and stop her. But never fear—she returns it decidedly, as a recent game against the Phoenix Mercury shows, when Sabally ended up with a bloody face and still continued to play.
But there’s no pity party here. Sabally’s on top of the world right now, playing the game she adores, on a team with teammates she loves. She’s controlling the game, controlling the pace, helping the team win and—most importantly—she’s healthy and having fun.
“Staying healthy is something you can control to some extent. I haven’t been able to control some things in the past, but I’m healthy now. I’m in a good spiritual mindset as well,” she says. “I am just having fun and not letting myself get into a state of ever not believing in myself. I just completed a chapter that has been really hard, but I learned from it and I’m moving on.”
It was a chapter that included battling back from multiple injuries that threatened to derail her young WNBA career and left her in a dark emotional state, taking the joy out of her passion.
“After last year, it was really, really hard for me emotionally. I didn’t want to touch a basketball. I associated basketball with pain,” Sabally says. “It was a really sad thing, and I promised myself to never have to go through that again.
“Athletes learn to play through pain, but I pushed that line and I didn’t see joy in basketball anymore. But I think it was good—it was a moment for me to realize that this is where I never want to be again, and I will always protect my body. I do know this is my destiny and my purpose, and I knew the whole time I just needed a short break and [I’d] be back.”
So she set about getting her body back in shape through strength training, rehab and practice. And as she’s done the past couple of years, Sabally also played overseas, viewing it as a “training camp” for the WNBA season.
“I do think that that experience, especially this year going from January to April, is important. I was on a mission,” she says. “I wanted to win the EuroLeague and I wanted to enter the WNBA season in my prime form, and that is what I worked toward.”
She was successful in both. Her Fenerbahce Alagoz Holding squad won EuroLeague and the Turkish League championship this year, and her WNBA season is speaking for itself.
“I just tried to get my body to where I could step onto a basketball court and feel good. I started shooting, and I had joy because I didn’t have to think about everything,” she says. “I just gave my body time, and that’s the hardest thing to do as an athlete, but you have to.”
Sabally, who often arrives to practice up to four hours early, is also adhering to a structured daily schedule that includes lifting weights, doing yoga and pilates, and rehabbing.
As passionate as she is about basketball on the court, Sabally is just as passionate off the court, where she serves as vice president of the WNBPA. “I feel that this is a way to protect players’ rights and ensure we are well taken care of and still in a position to learn,” says Sabally, who previously served on the union’s Social Justice Committee.
She adds that she’s looking forward to having a seat at the table during the next CBA negotiations and focusing on “ensuring charters for everyone, just protection of players, player comfort” and the W’s policy on prioritization, which affects players who compete overseas and report to training camps late.
To relax, Sabally sits on her couch, puts up her feet and reads. “I love to read, I am actually reading The Covenant of Water from Oprah’s Book Club. I love Oprah and want to meet her one day.”
She also supports her younger sister Nyara, who was the No. 5 overall pick in the 2022 WNBA Draft and plays for the New York Liberty. Satou considers her greatest achievement being able to play against Nyara when the Wings recently faced the Liberty. They both went to Oregon but never played together due to injuries. The sisters hope to get a chance to play together in the future on the German national team.
Until then, it’s clearly Satou Season in the W. The signs are everywhere. There’s the looming, no-brainer, second All-Star nod; the imposing physicality on the court; the improved defense; the growing chatter around the League that she could be a candidate for both MVP and the Most Improved Player awards; the large smile displaying the faint outline of dimples, and the stylish pre-game outfits. It’s all adding up.
She was named Finals MVP in the EuroLeague, and she’s looking to do the same in the WNBA.
“Yes, of course,” she says, when asked if an MVP is in her future. “If I don’t get an MVP, I want an MIP. I think that I can be [MVP] one day, and I am definitely working to that point.”
Meanwhile, she is focused on building her legacy (“global greatness,” she calls it), putting together wins with her teammates and staying in her happy zone.
“I am happiest when I can play basketball and I’m in my zone. When I don’t think about anything else but basketball, I can just flow and be free on the court,” she says. “It’s when I can enjoy my teammates’ success…I’m just really happy how we’re evolving as a team. It’s been so much fun playing, and I really want to get out there and play 100 percent every day. I’ve been really enjoying playing here.”
Sabally—who says the unicorn nickname has been around since her college days—is much more than that now. She’s a unicorn in beast mode. She laughs at that analogy and explains why she’ll always be a unicorn.
“It’s like a magical creature. I think so many people see a beautiful thing when they see a unicorn, and that is what I want people to feel like when they see me play basketball,” she says. “That is just like, wow, something they haven’t seen before, and I want to give them that.
“I love the unicorn analogy because they are just so pretty; sometimes it has a soft side to it and people do think I’m soft a little bit, then they see me play and it’s surprising.”
Photos via Getty Images.
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