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In her rookie season, Elena Delle Donne led the Sky to the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. A year later, the team was in the WNBA finals.

Delle Donne transformed her team—can she do the same for the WNBA? There’s reason to believe so.

Today’s NBA players are rock stars. On a first-name basis with the world, they appear in summer blockbusters and soda commercials and earn hundreds of millions of dollars on the court and even more off it.

But it wasn’t always this way. In the 1970s—30 years after the league’s inception—the league was floundering. Interest had dwindled to the point that the Finals weren’t even televised live.

That all changed when Magic Johnson and Larry Bird entered the league in 1979.

It wasn’t just that they were good, although they were immensely talented; it was that on the court, their games were dynamic in ways no one had seen. And off it, their personalities and rivalry caught national interest.

And who’s to say it couldn’t be done again?

“I want to see if I can grow my brand here, in America,” Delle Donne said. “So far, it’s been going well.”

Delle Donne is 6-foot-5, with a point guard’s game in a forward’s body. Two-time first-team All-American in college. WNBA Rookie of the Year in 2013, a WNBA All-Star in each of her three seasons and currently on pace to break the league’s single-season scoring record.

In just her third season, there is no question Delle Donne is a superstar. But the league has other stars, just as the NBA did in the late ’70s. The real question is whether Delle Donne can raise the WNBA’s profile the way Johnson and Bird—with no small assist from Michael Jordan—put the NBA on their backs.

Refusing to be left out of the conversation—by commentators and fans alike—is Delle Donne’s physical appearance. In terms of being taken seriously as an athlete, her good looks may be a blessing or a curse, and the last thing she wants is to be seen as a pretty face. But there it is, clear as day.

So what? Delle Donne hardly is the first attractive woman to lace up a pair of sneakers. People aren’t talking about what she looks like when she’s averaging 24.5 points per game this season and leading the Sky to one of the best records in the WNBA.

“There have been superstars in other sports that I won’t name that had a pretty face and not a game to match,” said Pokey Chatman, the Sky’s coach and general manager. “With Elena, she’s a great player then, oh yeah, and she’s beautiful. It’s not the other way around.”

NBA fans took to Johnson, Bird and Jordan in a way they didn’t take to other superstars. Each had “something,” and it had nothing to do with movie-star looks. Does Delle Donne have it?

She first captured national attention at age 18. The consensus No. 1 basketball recruit in the U.S. as a high school senior, Delle Donne enrolled at national dynasty Connecticut. But just two days after classes started, she withdrew from school.

UConn is the most accomplished women’s basketball program in the country, and it’s possible Delle Donne missed out on several national championships by leaving. Everyone in college basketball wanted to know what she was thinking.

Delle Donne opted to go a different way. She has a fiercely close bond with her family, especially her older sister, Lizzie, who has cerebral palsy and is blind and deaf. Delle Donne enrolled at Delaware to stay close to home. Rather than continuing her basketball career at Delaware, Delle Donne joined the volleyball team.

It wasn’t until her sophomore year in 2009 that Delle Donne returned to the basketball court at Delaware and in the process elevated the mid-major program to national prominence. She established herself as a star apart from the huge shadow cast by UConn and was selected by the Sky with the No. 2 pick in the 2013 WNBA draft.

Chatman said there was something appealing about Delle Donne’s decision to do things her own way.

“You look at the fact that she had the courage to say no to Connecticut,” Chatman said. “I don’t know many players that could have done that coming out of high school.”

Rather than a product of the system, her persona registered as undeniably human. This phenomenon has extended into her pro career, as she forgoes the typical choice to play abroad in the offseason to instead spend time with her family in Delaware, run youth camps across the country and serve as a Special Olympics ambassador in honor of Lizzie. Then there is the issue of her chronic Lyme disease, so taking time off to stay healthy is crucial.

For Delle Donne, the balancing act is key.

“I want [fans] to know what a competitor I am and that I try every day to improve my game and be the best me that I can be,” she said. “And then off the court, I hope they just see a really genuine person who cares about them and cares about people in general.”

Whether they’re in her closest circle or sitting in the stands, others do see that in Delle Donne.

“Everyone wants to give [her] the superstar treatment when they travel with us, [but then] they see her pulling the bags off the conveyor belt and helping the bus driver pack the bus,” Chatman said. “That type of persona, coupled with her play—people want to be around that. They see that, they appreciate that, they respect that. I think people want to lay eyes on it and be a part of it.”

WNBA president Laurel Richie is well-aware of Delle Donne’s strengths and what they could mean for the league. Delle Donne, Skylar Diggins and Brittney Griner made up a draft class labeled “the three to see” by ESPN, and Richie believes they could create a sea change. If they hit their shots and strike a chord with fans, things could look different for the WNBA in 20 years.

“My goal is to have the news media and general population refer to the WNBA as the fifth major sports league in this country,” Richie said.

It’s an audacious goal—one that has brought other leagues to their knees.

If Delle Donne is to be a central figure in a powerhouse WNBA, it won’t be enough to be good. It won’t be enough to be pretty. To accomplish what Richie outlines, it won’t even be enough to be both.

To convert the WNBA into a national staple, there will have to be players who captivate on every level, who draw people in even as they don’t fully understand the attraction.

Lucky for the WNBA, Delle Donne has been doing that all along.

Lauren Chval is a RedEye contributor. @lchval

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