July 20, 2023
Locked on Women’s Basketball: Catching up with the Indiana Fever’s Amanda Zahui B.
By The Next
Howard and Amanda Zahui B. chat about her adjustment in Indiana, the growth of the WNBA draft and more
In the latest episode of Locked on Women’s Basketball, Amanda Zahui B. joins host Howard Megdal as the two discuss everything from the mechanics of getting traded and then facing your former team to whether she’d still wear the outfit she wore at the 2015 WNBA Draft. The pair also discuss how she’s found joy elusive in her WNBA experience and what it means for both her and the league that she’s captured it now.
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Zahui B. opened up about how her trade to the Fever went down and how her upbringing influences who she is today and what she brings to her team.
“I think the greatest compliment is that it goes to how my parents raised me. They’re my backbone and they have my front and my side,” she said. And it just makes me proud that I can make them proud in that way. … I’ve always said that my purpose on earth is not being whatever, a lawyer, a basketball player or whatever the case might be, but rather being a human that brings light and love to others. I’ve always said that. So having others see that and value that means a lot.”
The pair also discuss the 2015 WNBA Draft and how the draft has changed in the last eight years.
“It’s very glam. It’s very, it’s very cool. And honestly think I wouldn’t be as comfortable in today’s draft as I was then only because I am pretty reserved,” Zahui B. said. “But yeah, it was kind of backstage, but I liked it. It was intimate. And it was just a beautiful evening, celebrating everyone’s achievements and new chapters starting. And I think it’s also like it was the beginning of the draft becoming bigger. Both me and [Jewell Loyd], we left school early. So that was also something that was new.
Though, we also found ourselves like that was the beginning of adulthood, I think, where we were trying to figure ourselves out. … Imma sound old when I say this, but in today’s generation, these players and people are expected to grow up so fast. And there’s so much more on the table for them. So therefore, I think that the glamorous and the flashiness of the draft now suits them so well. I love looking at the outfits, hearing what they have to say, they got the jewelry, the heels, the dress. Everything is just on point. And I love that because most of the time they know exactly who they are. They walk on the orange carpet, and they know this is who I am and this is my brand. And I love that. And it’s helping the game grow for us, the ones that paved the way.”
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