As many of you know, our Cuts & Covers series is a special for those in the Ball-Knowers tier. It dives into the creative process of past No Cap Covers (if you missed our April cover, we profiled Dominique Malonga and her rapid ascent towards becoming the WNBA’s next international superstar) and how we put together the stories.
This month, we decided to do something different.
Joining me on a special Cuts & Covers podcast is one of, in my humble opinion, the pre-eminent sportswriters in the game right now: Mirin Fader of The Ringer. She’s written two books — one on Giannis Antetokounmpo and another on Hakeem Olajuwon — as well as countless features on some of the biggest stars in sports. One of her most recent features was an exploration into the mind of Paige Bueckers, which you can find here.
She was kind enough to drop in and chat with me for about an hour about a whole host of topics ranging from her storytelling and interview strategy to the evolution of women’s sports coverage and the changing landscape for longform writers. It’s a must listen for any up-and-coming journalists or those that are just interested in how the sports journalism sausage is made.
We discuss a lot and I appreciate Mirin’s time and willingness to hop on the show and divulge a bit of how she puts together her features.
But in keeping with the main theme of Cuts & Covers, I’ll dive in quickly to how our feature on Dominique Malonga came together….
Building A Feature Across An Ocean
This one was going to be tricky for a couple reasons, I knew that much already. Most of Dominique Malonga’s circle and support system is abroad and I wasn’t sure initially how much substance there was to her. Given the fact that there just wasn’t a lot written on her beyond ‘she’s tall, she’s athletic, she can dunk, female Wemby’, I went in a little blind. Initially, my hope was to build a story around her from a scouting perspective.
Last fall, I started to interview coaches and people in the WNBA to put something together that seemed a bit more rooted in her projection as a player. But a phone call with her ASVEL Lyon coach, Yoann Cabioc’h, changed my approach. He told me that she was one of the smartest people he’d ever coached and that she possessed a unique wisdom beyond her years. So, very quickly, the feature evolved into something about her specifically instead of just her potentially transformative game.
It took about two and a half months to set up an interview with the Lyon folks and there are some people I wish I could’ve gotten. ASVEL was pretty quick in telling me Tony Parker wouldn’t be available and, with the benefit of hindsight, I would’ve loved to have talked to someone in Paris at the academy she played at as a teenager. But she was the prize, first and foremost, so it was a boon to get an opportunity to chat with her at all.
I’ll be honest here and I don’t say this to blow smoke up my own ass: I’m not easily impressed by people anymore. Over about a decade in journalism, that’s been beaten out of me. I’m also a bit of an asshole by nature so skepticism and a scoff at achievement comes a bit easier to me than it should. But we’re working on that in therapy…
Anyway!
I say all that because I want to be clear when I say that Dominique Malonga *is* impressive. We talked over WhatsApp for about 35 minutes while she was in transit for Euroleague play and I couldn’t believe how introspective she was for a 19 year old. Our discussion about her early life in Cameroon brought up an interesting storyline that I wanted to follow. For those that are well-versed in the world of men’s soccer, France has a rather complicated history with its’ dual-national players. Colonialism and Imperialism netted the French (and other western European nations) jewels and resources beyond count but it also, in later years, would be a pipeline of elite athletes. The nation’s best player at the international level, Zinedine Zidane, is of Algerian descent. So is Karim Benzema. Patrick Vieria was born in Senegal. Marcel Desailly is from Ghana. While they’ve brought untold glory to France, they’ve also been the subject of racist discussions of purity and national identity.
Interestingly, that situation hasn’t been as above-the-fold in basketball where there are significantly more expat colonial players that are wearing French colors. Joel Embiid, a Cameroonian like Malonga, famously decided between Team USA and Team France in this Olympic cycle and brought up that exact conversation of identity. Nearly every member of the men’s Olympic team have at least one parent or grandparent that is not of French origin.
So I tried to approach the question carefully. National identity is a tricky thing to ask about, doubly so when you’re not only a white man but an American white man at that. Typically, I try to leave the door open for two types of answers so as to not give the wrong idea about my intention. When I inquire the framing is more…
“Here’s the subject and why I’m asking you this. Do you feel this way or do you feel differently?”
I was really surprised to hear her speak with such conviction and nuance in how she reckons not just her Cameroonian heritage but her connection to the Congo as well as France. What impressed me the most was the idea that she can be none of these things and all of them at the same time and a victory for her on the international stage is a win for all three components of who she is.
You just don’t hear a lot of 19 year olds talk that way.
The big swings I wanted to take and couldn’t make work were getting in touch with Dominique’s parents as well as her French national teammate, Gabby Williams. But Yoann was a phenomenal source on the basketball scouting side given that he worked for (and won a ring with) the Chicago Sky before he ended up back in France. It would’ve been nice to get some added color from her mom and dad but, to be honest, she was so good that all I really needed to do was fill in the blanks with historical context that made her quotes all the more powerful.
As many of you know, I love writing at the intersection of history, sports and personal identity. In a lot of ways, cultural history feeds into how we interpret sports and in turn how athletes see themselves within the broader world. I don’t think I’ve gotten a young player on the record to speak on it with the grace and candor that Dominique did. If she ends up reaching the ceiling everyone believes she has, she may be an international ambassador of the league and the game on the level of Caitlin Clark.