Don't take Nneka Ogwumike for granted: How the WNBA veteran keeps proving her value on -- and off -- the court

Sunday night's game between the New York Liberty and Los Angeles Sparks, a rematch of the first game in WNBA history, was always going to be a monumental affair. Exactly 30 seasons and 29 years after that June 21, 1997, showdown (a 67-57 Liberty win at the Great Western Forum), a sold-out crowd of 18,043 packed Crypto.com Arena to watch Lisa Leslie and Kym Hampton re-create the inaugural tip-off, honor trailblazing Sparks of yesteryear and celebrate how far the league has come. The game itself was almost an afterthought, especially since the Sparks have been struggling this season.

But then, Nneka Ogwumike, a 15-year WNBA veteran drafted No. 1 overall by the Sparks in 2012 and the long-time president of the WNBA Players Association, capped off a 17-point second-half comeback by the Sparks with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to give the underdogs a 98-97 victory.

And suddenly, a game about honoring past legends turned into a moment to celebrate an active one and a stark reminder to all of us to appreciate Ogwumike's greatness in real time.

'You couldn't have scripted it any better'

It was, in so many ways, a poetic moment. Ogwumike brought a championship to Los Angeles in 2016, the same year she won league MVP. She stuck with the Sparks through some lean years before leaving in 2024 to play for the Seattle Storm. But while she was gone, Sparks' ownership stepped up their investment, and Ogwumike signed back in free agency, hoping to bring glory back to the franchise. This offseason, she was also the driving force behind the historic new CBA, which took the sport to new heights with a 364% increase in salaries and a revenue-sharing system that Ogwumike herself said "redefines what it means to be a professional in this league."

There is no player more worthy of the spotlight on a day devoted to the history of the Sparks and the growth of the league.

"It feels really good. I've been with the Sparks for so long. It's emotional seeing all these legends in this building, people that didn't get paid their value and they're still out here supporting us. I'm so grateful," Ogwumike said after the game, before being overcome by tears in a rare display of emotion.

"I think everyone in our locker room wouldn't have picked another person to hit that shot," Sparks coach Lynn Roberts said, adding later: "You couldn't have scripted it any better."

Ogwumike finished the game with 24 points, six rebounds, three assists and three steals, going 61.6% from the field and 50% from outside. Twelve of her points came in the last 4:03 of the fourth quarter, and both of her 3-pointers came in the final 90 seconds. She was, as she so often is, her best when her team needed her the most.

Watch the WNBA on Paramount+ all season long. Paramount+ and CBS are airing a record 20 games during the 2026 regular season, including Mercury at Tempo and Sparks at Fever this Saturday.

'She is just steady'

While Sunday night was certainly one of Ogwumike's better games of the season, and her buzzer-beater among the most memorable shots of her career, it was hardly an outlier of a performance.

Despite being almost 36 years old, the Stanford alum shows no signs of slowing down. This season, she is averaging 15.8 points, 8.7 boards, 2.2 assists and 1.2 steals per game in efficient fashion, shooting 51.8% from the field and 42% from outside. 

She's been in the top 20 in the league in points and rebounds per game in all but one season of her career (2020), and has been in the top 10 in points in three of the last four years. She has averaged more than 13 points in all 15 seasons of her career, fewer seasons than only Diana Taurasi (19) in league history.

"She is the most respected person in our league for a reason," Sparks teammate Kelsey Plum told ESPN about Ogwumike. "She is just steady. The boat got rocky a lot, and she was always steady ... you can't be that consistent as a player or as a leader if you are not that consistent as a person."

She is fourth all-time in points (7,542) and rebounds (3,399) and fifth in steals (686). Seemingly every time Ogwumike takes the court, she makes history. On Sunday, she passed Lisa Leslie for ninth all-time in offensive rebounds. She is a 10-time All-Star, four-time All-Defensive First Team and three-time All-Defensive Second Team, one-time All-WNBA First Team and seven-time All-WNBA Second Team. And, as already mentioned, she was league MVP in 2016, the same year she had the game-winning shot to win the Sparks the WNBA championship.

She's willing to try new things, too. Last season in Seattle, she shot 180 3-pointers, more than twice as many attempts as in any previous year of her career, and made 36.7% of them. This season, she's not on pace to match those attempts -- she's averaging 3.3 attempts, down from 4.1 -- but she still could match the number of makes, considering she's making 42% of her tries from outside through 15 games.

'She makes everybody better'

The numbers make it very clear: Ogwumike is one of the best WNBA players in history. Because she is so understated on and off the court, it is easy to overlook her when discussing the greats, and hopefully Sunday's magical moment will help hammer that point home.

"She amazes me every day, just her ability to lead and just be a super caring human, but also just a killer on the court," her teammate Cameron Brink told reporters after a game earlier this year.

And yet, when all is said and done, she will probably be remembered more for her work as a leader, both for her teams and for the league as a whole, because she's singular in those areas.

"It's hard to articulate all that she's done," Roberts said Sunday. "She has a presence to her. There's gravity to when she speaks, you know. You see it on the court, but in the (locker room), she's just steady, reasonable, competitive, holds people accountable, but does it in a way that everybody listens. She makes everybody better, and she does it with, as I've said before, this combination of confidence in who she is and how she does things, but a humility of how do I make this team better, what can I do to make the team better, how do I make my teammates better, and so that kind of balance is unbelievable."

Ogwumike took over as president of the WNBPA in 2016, back in a different era for the league. In the previous CBA, WNBA players saw the overall salary cap decrease and individual salaries were stagnant at best. Owners were either disinterested or, worse, discarding their teams on the side of the road, as James Dolan did with the New York Liberty in 2017. Nobody thought the players had any leverage to move things forward, and yet Ogwumike kept the players together and fought for historic CBAs in both 2020 and 2026, ushering in this era of multi-million dollar contracts and billion-dollar television deals. 

Before the game, Ogwumike said that Sparks legends spoke to the players and told them "not to take this for granted." That's great advice for the rest of us when it comes to Ogwumike.