The Basics
Position: Center
Current Team: Chicago Sky | #45
Draft: 2014 | Spain | 2nd round (16th overall)
Key Accolades: MVP of FIBA Women’s EuroBasket (2019); EuroBasket All-Tournament Team, MVP (2019), WNBA Champion (2021)
WNBA Profile | Stats | Instagram | Twitter
The Down Low
Astou is a EuroBasket star and five-time FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup champion. Here is a picture of her sitting in a throne kissing a trophy and wearing her MVP medal. Astou is from Senegal and a basketball-playing family: both her parents and her grandfather also played basketball, although not professionally, and her brother plays too. She began her pro career in Spain when she was 16, earning the FIBA Europe Young Women’s Player of the Year Award in 2013 when she was 19. When she first joined the WNBA, there were growing pains since she used a translator while learning English (which is why it is so fucking frustrating that she worked this hard and announcers still don't do the bare minimum of pronouncing her name correctly).
Astou has established herself as one of the best three-point shooting centers in the league and an all-around competitor. Her play got her a big payday for the 2020 season, when the Dallas Wings offered her a $185,000 contract (this is pathetically a lot in the WNBA). Bizarrely, the Wings basically paid her to sit on the bench during the 2020 season, which is maybe a crime, but now she is back in Chicago.
Off the court, Astou runs a youth foundation to help children through sports, although its focus has shifted to providing basic food and aid during the coronavirus pandemic. She also recently got married.
Know Your Meme
Unfortunately for Astou, in 2019 she inadvertently became part of the definitional picture of fragile white male masculinity when she was ejected from a game after a ref walked into her. The league later retracted the ejection, but the damage was done.
More on Astou
- 'Rice & Sugar': WNBA's Ndour In Senegal Helping With COVID-19 Fight (Dorothy Gentry, FanNation)
- Who Is Astou Ndour? The WNBA Player Everyone Should Be Watching (Alana Glass, Forbes)