Some of the 2021 WNBA uniforms on pre-sale to the public contained a glaring spelling error for one of the league's most dominant players. The jersey for Elena Delle Donne, two-time MVP and star of the 2019 WNBA Finals, included a hyphen in her unhyphenated last name. The error appeared on at least some of the jerseys made by Nike bearing the name of the Washington Mystics' superstar, leaving one of Donne's teammates displeased with the spelling mistake.
"Y'all would never see a mistake like that to a franchise player on the men's side," Natasha Cloud wrote in a post to Twitter. "DO BETTER."
A spokesman for the Nike brand told Complex that "unfortunately, an error was made on the uniform and it will be corrected" before the start of the WNBA's 25th season later this year. While some commenters noted that jerseys have been misprinted for NBA players in the past, there are nearly four times as many players in the NBA than WNBA.
Donne, 31, has been a star in the leagues since she was selected by the Chicago Sky with the second overall pick in the 2013 WNBA Draft. She played four seasons for Chicago before she was traded to the Mystics in 2017. She has averaged over 20 points a game throughout her career, and her career free throw shooting percentage is the best of any player in both the WNBA and NBA. Her 93.8 percent success rate is over three percentage points better than NBA All-Star and future Hall of Famer Steph Curry, who holds the NBA career record at 90.7 percent.
She married Amanda Clifton in 2017. Donne's best friend and assistant at the time introduced the two, correctly thinking they might be a good match. They hit it off almost immediately, first at a casual dinner with friends and then on a second date walking their dogs, Rasta and Wrigley, on a nearby beach. It was on this beach while walking their dogs that Clifton proposed on June 2, 2016.
"We went to the place where we had our first date and she found a way to get the ring around Wrigley's collar and somehow got me to look at the collar," Donne told Weddings Today Magazine. "I was completely shocked."
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