WNBA playoffs: Sun star Alyssa Thomas is carving her own path to success

Alyssa Thomas has a job to do. She’s the kind of person who takes that seriously, no matter the task. Usually, Thomas enjoys the daily grind of getting things done. She likes the hard work it takes to prepare for a basketball game, or the monotony of cleaning fiancée DeWanna Bonner’s car on a day off. But this particular job is one that Thomas struggles to find joy in. Today, she has to sit down with a reporter, and what’s worse: She has to talk about herself.

The interview takes place in one of Mohegan Sun Arena’s winding hallways. It’s the morning before the Connecticut Sun are set to face off with the Las Vegas Aces in their last regular-season matchup, and a few minutes in, the Aces start walking past. Thomas stops to greet her opponents. She shares a moment with Olympic teammate A’ja Wilson and former Sun player Tiffany Hayes. Thomas says hello to almost everyone, with a wide, genuine smile. But in between hugs and handshakes, Thomas turns back, making eye contact as she mulls over how to respond to what she’s asked. She’s thoughtful and professional, taking care in every answer. Sometimes, she even seems to be enjoying herself.

And though she’s sitting down, Thomas has her feet angled to the exit. When our time is up, Thomas doesn’t linger. She says thank you and makes her escape.

“That’s her. She tries to disguise who she is and just go from place to place because she doesn’t want anyone to know,” says Tina Klotzbeecher-Thomas, Alyssa’s mom. “She’s not the person that’s going to want everyone to notice her. She’d rather be the fly on the wall.”

A once-in-a-lifetime season

The 2023 season was supposed to be Alyssa Thomas’ year. Her numbers were outrageous, the best they’d been in her Connecticut tenure, which began in 2014. She led the league in rebounds per game (9.9) and was second in assists (7.9), while also averaging 15.5 points. The Sun remained in contention for a title all season, and Thomas was atop the MVP conversation. And if that wasn’t enough, Thomas became synonymous with triple-doubles, recording six in the regular season and one more in the playoffs. In most other games, the point forward was an assist or rebound away from notching another. But she was never hungry to chase stats. If the game was in hand, Thomas happily retreated to the bench.

And while Wilson in Las Vegas and Breanna Stewart in New York had the big markets and national attention fixed on them, the Sun rallied around Thomas, never missing an opportunity to hype up the forgotten star.

Last July, after Thomas posted her third triple-double in 10 days, DiJonai Carrington spoke with intensity. Her thick-lashed eyes darted around the room as she delivered a message to reporters.

“I don’t want any of y’all to get used to and normalize what she’s doing out there, for real,” she said. “Like, that’s not normal.”

It’s still not normal, yet Thomas is still doing it.

In Game 1 of a first-round series against Indiana, Thomas recorded her fourth career postseason triple-double with 12 points, 13 assists and 10 rebounds. She’s the only player in the league to notch more than one.

A week later she was one assist shy of doing it again, leading the Sun to a 73-70 victory over the Lynx in the first game of the semifinals. She finished with 17 points, 10 rebounds and 9 assists.

“It’s crazy, right? We almost take it for granted,” Sun head coach Stephanie White said following the win over Indiana. “I hope that we remind ourselves not to. It’s not normal. It’s just not normal to have this many triple-doubles.”

Fifteen career triple-doubles is not a normal thing. Seven in one season is certainly not. And yet, as the Sun beg for the feat to be recognized, Thomas is quietly aware that it might not be, especially not after last season.

Connecticut lost center Brionna Jones to an Achilles injury just 13 games into the 2023 season, and without her, they were missing 15.9 points per game. In her absence, Thomas started at the five, but still initiated the offense. Without Jones, the Sun needed more from Thomas. More rebounds, more points and more assists. She didn’t just decide that 2023 would be the season of the triple-double. That was a side effect of her new role. And though Connecticut never wanted to play without Jones, her injury allowed Thomas to show off her full breadth of skills.

She received the most first-place votes in the MVP race, but because she didn’t amass enough second- or third-place votes, the award went to Stewart.

“It was like, ‘What more do you expect this woman to do?’ She’s literally done everything,” said Terrika Foster-Brasby, a longtime WNBA analyst and Sun sideline reporter. “She went above and beyond, and she was amazing last year. And I really don’t think that we’ll ever see that kind of season from anyone ever again.”

For those closest to Thomas, it was less outrage and more of a wistful disappointment.

“It just felt like to her dad and I, she works so hard, so why not give her the credit? Why not give her the flowers?” Klotzbeecher-Thomas said of the award snub.

To blatantly say Alyssa deserved an individual award isn’t really in the Thomas family DNA. During the Olympics, when her hometown was buzzing with excitement, longtime coworkers of Klotzbeecher-Thomas were shocked to find out Alyssa was her daughter. Bragging isn’t in their repertoire.

In the Thomas family, it doesn’t have a place in basketball, either.

That’s why you’ll never see Thomas force a shot or steal a rebound from a teammate in order to pad her stats. Sometimes, Klotzbeecher-Thomas and Alyssa’s dad, Bobby Thomas, will be watching in anticipation of another triple-double, but if a victory is in hand, they know it won’t happen.

“We will be like, ‘Oh my God!’ And then she goes to the bench and we know it’s not happening,” Klotzbeecher-Thomas said with a laugh. “She could need just three points, but it’s irrelevant to her.”

They shouldn’t be surprised. Both former Division II basketball players at Millersville University of Pennsylvania, her parents taught Thomas to play basketball the right way.

Even now, Thomas can hear her mom’s voice in her head during WNBA games, instructing her to make the right pass. Klotzbeecher-Thomas coached Thomas from youth basketball through Central Dauphin High School in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

And she knew if she turned Thomas loose, her team could beat any competitor by 50 points. But what good would that do in the grand scheme of things? She was here to coach, and Thomas and her teammates were there to learn, some of them, begrudgingly.

It was the typical youth basketball roster. Kids with parents who thought they were the next basketball prodigy when they obviously weren’t. Kids who were there because their parents forced them. Kids who cared but weren’t very good. Kids who just wanted to hang with their friends. And Thomas.

She was instructed to make the right basketball play, no matter what.

“There was always a huge chance they were going to miss the shot,” Thomas said with a laugh. “But they were open, and two people were on me, so I needed to pass the ball.”

Thomas wanted to win. She wanted her lackadaisical teammates to make the open shots. But she also understood the bigger picture. And through the process, Thomas found that she loved to pass.

Even then she did a little of everything on the court, but nothing satisfied Thomas quite like finding an open teammate. She loved watching Steve Nash, and tried to emulate his visionary play, fixating on his MVP season in 2004-05.

Through her admiration of Nash, eventual appreciation of the Phoenix Suns as a whole, and the way Klotzbeecher-Thomas approached the game, Thomas developed her basketball identity.

She would play hard, she would prioritize defense, and she would always, always make the right basketball play.

An unconventional star

As a kid, Thomas was so shy that Klotzbeecher-Thomas signed her up for basketball in the hope that she would come out of her shell. But when they got to the court, Thomas would cling to her mom, hugging Klotzbeecher-Thomas’ thigh and hiding her face behind her mom’s legs.

You have to go play, Klotzbeecher-Thomas would tell her. And she did come out of her shell, just not in the way her mom expected.

“She was a holy terror on the court,” Klotzbeecher-Thomas said. “And she absolutely loved it.”

But the moment the final whistle blew, Thomas was back hugging her mom and hoping not to be seen.

The contrast between her on- and off-court personas hasn’t changed. Everything Thomas does on the court is intense, from the way she plants her feet to set a screen, to the way she furrows her brow when she doesn’t like a call. Thomas even chews her gum like it’s done something to piss her off.

But when Thomas isn’t playing basketball, there’s a lightness to her. Her off-court activities aren’t what you’d expect from a basketball star. Instead, they are more suited to a suburban dad. The perfect day for Thomas involves a cooler of beer — Miller Lite is her favorite — a chair on the porch and R&B music. Sometimes she sips whiskey in the evening, and she always makes sure her fiancée’s car is clean.

“I never have to lift a finger,” Bonner said with a smile. “She’s always taking care of me.”

When the two got together, Thomas had to work to form a relationship with Bonner’s now 7-year-old twins, Cali and Demi. They were so young that every time Thomas saw them, it was like meeting again for the first time. But eventually, they warmed to her. Now, Bonner says Thomas is the first person the twins go to when they need something, and if she’s not with them, they have to talk to her on the phone every morning before school.

“They have a dope connection,” Bonner said. “Alyssa is like a big kid herself, so she’s literally like their best friend. They always want her around.”

The tenderness that Bonner sees every day doesn’t reconcile with the perception people often have of Thomas.

She’s called a bully or a dirty player, judgments Thomas believes come because people don’t understand the way she plays.

“People saying I play bully ball is funny,” Thomas said. “I think just because you’re physical, everyone thinks you’re a bully. But there is strategy to what I do. I don’t shoot orthodox. I don’t play orthodox. And a lot of what I do when I hit people is to create numbers for my teammates. I like to facilitate and create numbers with just how I play.”

Perhaps the most unorthodox aspect of Thomas’ game is her shooting form. It’s more of a push than a shot, something she does out of necessity. She also never shoots anywhere past the free-throw line.

Thomas never liked shooting 3-pointers, even growing up. No one could stop her going to the rim, so why bother with long-range attempts?

“She would rather guarantee two points than jack up a 3,” Klotzbeecher-Thomas said.

Now, Thomas can’t shoot 3s. It’s not a skill issue but a physical one. For most of Thomas’ career, she’s struggled with shoulder injuries that eventually resulted in two torn labrums.

Thomas had surgery on her Achilles in 2021, which led to a long and difficult rehab process. Labrum surgery, Thomas has heard, is even more of a challenge, so she’s opted not to do it. Instead, Thomas has adapted. It’s been nearly 10 years of her signature push shot, and her game hasn’t suffered from the change.

Eventually, she had to switch from shooting left-handed to right-handed, because the extent of her left shoulder injury got much worse.

“I still had my touch like I’ve always had, and I just played around with the angles of my shots,” she said matter of factly.

The ease in which Thomas shifted from her left to right hand was no surprise for Klotzbeecher-Thomas. Growing up, her daughter was virtually ambidextrous. Originally, she even favored her right hand.

But when Thomas was 2-years-old, her cousin, a sophomore in high school, moved in with the family. She worshiped him, Klotzbeecher-Thomas said, and wanted to do everything he did. He was left-handed, so Thomas decided she was too.

Then in fifth grade, she started going back and forth between hands when she shot free throws. The confusion was too much for Klotzbeecher-Thomas, so she made her daughter pick. Left-handed it was. But the process helped Thomas’ overall game, making it easy for her to finish at the rim, or pass with either hand.

And now, because Thomas can still do virtually everything on the court, she sees no reason to have surgery until after she retires. Besides, sitting out for a season would be an agony worse than dealing with two torn labrums.

As a sophomore in high school, Thomas broke her foot. Doctors decided to opt for a boot instead of a cast, but Klotzbeecher-Thomas advised against it. Thomas couldn’t sit still, and a boot wouldn’t be enough to slow her down.

“She would have been running with a boot on her foot,” Klotzbeecher-Thomas said. “It never would have healed. So I made them cast it.”

Klotzbeecher-Thomas expects something similar would happen to Thomas if she decided to have surgery on her shoulders.

“Alyssa is not a kid that can sit still and not play basketball for a year,” she said. “That would be torture for her.”

Quiet but not silent

Thomas never expected to go to Maryland or to be in the WNBA or to win a gold medal. She thought she would play at the same Division II college as her parents. It would have been much more low-key than the path she took, something Thomas wouldn’t have minded.

From her freshman year in high school until she graduated, the same local reporter interviewed Thomas after every game. At first, she gave one-word answers to all of his questions, but by her senior year, the reporter gleefully told Klotzbeecher-Thomas that he was finally getting full-sentence replies.

These days Thomas always speaks to reporters in full sentences, but she still struggles to talk about herself. Playing in Uncasville, Connecticut, it’s easy to be overlooked. But Thomas doesn’t care to rectify the situation.

“We continue to work hard and do what we do up here,” she said. “And if people start to pay attention, then they pay attention. If they don’t, we aren’t too worried about it.”

There are certain things that Thomas is ready to speak about, she just needs to be prompted. Like the comments she made before her team played in Boston about the Sun needing better facilities for their players.

“If you ask my opinion, I will give you an answer, but I’m not gonna just outwardly talk on social media or things like that,” she said. “That’s never been my style.”

Other things, even more important things, require Thomas to be bold. Like she was Wednesday, when she responded to the racist abuse she and her teammates had been getting this season during their matchups with the Indiana Fever.

Those things matter to Thomas. Whether people respect her game doesn’t matter. And so, she often goes unnoticed.

“She would much rather give a shine to her teammates than to keep the shine for herself,” Foster-Brasby said. “Her selflessness in some ways has also been her downfall as it relates to public opinion, because she doesn’t feel like she owes anybody an explanation.”

She’s quiet. She has an unconventional style of play. She’s selfless to a fault.

If she were louder, would it change things? If she had perfect form and healthy shoulders, would that help? If she talked about herself more, would Thomas get the respect she’s long deserved?

The answers to those questions don’t matter. Not to Thomas. If people see her, they see her. If they don’t, they don’t.

“I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing,” she said.

For Alyssa Thomas, that’s all there is to say.