Charlisse Leger-Walker has spent six years building her basketball career away from home.<\/p>\n
Now, the Pacific star is coming back and she will finally get to play alongside her sister Krystal again.<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old Connecticut Sun guard in the Women\u2019s National Basketball Association (WNBA) has signed with Wellington\u2019s Tokomanawa Queens for the Tauihi season, giving New Zealand fans the chance to see the historic WNBA draft pick back on home soil.<\/p>\n
The New Zealand Herald reported the chance for Leger-Walker to reunite with Krystal was a big part of her decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t played with her since Washington State,\u201d Leger-Walker says. \u201cI thought I would probably get a chance here in the Tall Ferns, but obviously different things happened. I got injured, she\u2019s had a baby, and the paths just didn\u2019t cross as we planned out.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, when I was thinking about what I wanted to do in the off-season, I knew that would always be a possibility for me. Going through the talks with different teams and Krystal, I was seeing where she would end up, and that just happened to be the Queens.\u201d<\/p>\n
The move also gives Leger-Walker something she has been missing while building her career overseas, time at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, they\u2019re an amazing organisation. I\u2019m really excited to be a part of everything they\u2019ve created, and I think that the other side of that is I haven\u2019t been home for longer than two weeks at a time throughout my past six years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat opportunity to come back, play in front of my friends, my family, reconnect with everyone back in New Zealand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leger-Walker, who hails from the Whakat\u014dhea iwi, and Nofoali\u2019i in S\u0101moa, has made a strong start to her rookie WNBA season with Connecticut. <\/p>\n
She has made 39 appearances for the Sun, averaging 7.0 points and 3.6 assists per game.<\/p>\n
She also scored a career-high 17 points against the Golden State Valkyries last week.<\/p>\n
Her return comes just months after she made New Zealand basketball history.<\/p>\n
In April, Leger-Walker was selected 18th overall in the WNBA Draft after helping University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) win the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championship.<\/p>\n
The former St Peter\u2019s Cambridge student announced her return to Aotearoa on Instagram, writing: \u201cIt\u2019s been a minute, NZ. I\u2019ll see you on the court in September.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Tauihi season starts on September 25 and runs for 12 weeks, with the grand final scheduled for December 13.<\/p>\n
Leger-Walker will finish the WNBA regular season with the Sun before joining the Queens.<\/p>\n
Connecticut\u2019s final game is scheduled for 25 September while the Queens host Northern K\u0101hu in their home opener, two days later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charlisse Leger-Walker has spent six years building her basketball career away from home. Now, the Pacific star is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-333476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}