{"id":657660,"date":"2026-05-09T06:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T06:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/657660\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T06:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T06:47:08","slug":"leger-walker-starts-wnba-career-with-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/657660\/","title":{"rendered":"Leger-Walker starts WNBA career with loss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/382be2_3436e384b53f411d87b116e70853b97e~mv2.jpg\" alt=\"Kiwi Charlisse Leger-Walker warms up for the Connecticut Suns opening game PHOTO: CONNECTICUT SUNS\" style=\"width:100%;height:100%;object-fit:cover;object-position:50% 50%;max-width:100%;position:absolute;left:0;top:0\" data-pin-url=\"https:\/\/www.nzsportswire.com\/post\/leger-walker-starts-wnba-career-with-loss\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/static.wixstatic.com\/media\/382be2_3436e384b53f411d87b116e70853b97e~mv2.jpg\/v1\/fill\/w_1198,h_676,al_c,q_85\/382be2_3436e384b53f411d87b116e70853b97e~mv2.jpg\" draggable=\"false\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Kiwi Charlisse Leger-Walker warms up for the Connecticut Suns opening game PHOTO: CONNECTICUT SUNS<\/p>\n<p class=\"dUraF _0Jf6a Nv1gb YXSPe\" dir=\"auto\" id=\"viewer-3qvey1789\">New Zealand basketballer Charlisse Leger-Walker has had a hard introduction to the WNBA, with her Connecticut Sun team being thrashed in their opening game of the season by New York Liberty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dUraF _0Jf6a Nv1gb YXSPe\" dir=\"auto\" id=\"viewer-mm6r1605\">Leger-Walker, the first New Zealander to be drafted into the WNBA, had close 21 minutes on court during the 106-75 loss.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dUraF _0Jf6a Nv1gb YXSPe\" dir=\"auto\" id=\"viewer-dvjde608\">The Tall Ferns representative scored four points in her debut, with two of them coming from a nice reverse lay-up. She shot two baskets from nine attempts, contributed one assist and took two rebounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dUraF _0Jf6a Nv1gb YXSPe\" dir=\"auto\" id=\"viewer-5bmwc611\">The 24-year-old Hamilton-born Leger-Walker took the court 29 years after fellow New Zealander Megan Compain played five matches for Utah Starzz in 1997. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dUraF _0Jf6a Nv1gb YXSPe\" dir=\"auto\" id=\"viewer-qsilx943\">Compain joined the Starzz as a free agent, while Leger-Walker was drafted by the Sun last month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dUraF _0Jf6a Nv1gb YXSPe\" dir=\"auto\" id=\"viewer-7fezl617\">The Sun lacked a number of regular first string players who were suffering injuries, but were outclassed by the Liberty, who are favourites for this season&#8217;s title.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dUraF _0Jf6a Nv1gb YXSPe\" dir=\"auto\" id=\"viewer-9aihf620\">Connecticut host Seattle at Mohegan Sun Arena on Monday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kiwi Charlisse Leger-Walker warms up for the Connecticut Suns opening game PHOTO: CONNECTICUT SUNS New Zealand basketballer Charlisse&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-657660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}