Awak Kuier (born 19 August 2001) is a Finnish

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

player with the

Dallas Wings The Dallas Wings are an American basketball team based in Arlington, Texas. The Wings play in the Western Conference in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). The team is owned by a group which is led by chairman Bill Cameron. Gre ...

and the Finnish national team. Selected by the Wings with the second overall pick in the

2021 WNBA Draft The 2021 WNBA draft was the WNBA's draft for the 2021 WNBA season. A draft lottery was held on December 4, 2020, and the New York Liberty were awarded the first overall pick once again in the draft. The draft was held on April 15, and televised o ...

, she was the second Finnish player in the history of the league after Taru Tuukkanen to be drafted, and she became the first Finnish player to play in the WNBA in May 2021.

Career

Growing up watching

Candace Parker Candace Nicole Parker (born April 19, 1986) is an American professional basketball player for the Chicago Sky of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). She was selected as the first overall pick in the 2008 WNBA draft by the Los ...

highlights on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

, she joined her first organised basketball team at age 11 in

Kotka Kotka (; ; la, Aquilopolis) is a city in the southern part of the Kymenlaakso province on the Gulf of Finland. Kotka is a major port and industrial city and also a diverse school and cultural city, which was formerly part of the old Kymi parish ...

, the only girls' club in the town. She then went on to join Peli-Karhut. At the age of 14, a video of her dunking went viral online. At the age of 16, she joined the Helsinki Basketball Academy. She then later declined offers from American universities to sign a professional contract with Passalacqua Ragusa in Italy. Selected 2nd overall in the

by the Dallas Wings, she was the first non-American player since Australia's

Liz Cambage Elizabeth Folake Cambage (born 18 August 1991) is an Australian professional basketball player who last played for the Los Angeles Sparks of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). Cambage currently holds the WNBA single-game scorin ...

in 2011 to be selected in the first five picks of the draft. After missing the first few games of the 2021 season, she made her debut for the Wings on 27 May 2021, scoring a point, a rebound, and an assist in seven minutes of game time in a 101–95 loss to the Atlanta Dream. In addition to her speed and resilience, Kuier's features also include an exceptionally large, about seven-feet long lap space. On June 10, 2022, in a game against the

Seattle Storm The Seattle Storm are an American professional basketball team based in Seattle. The Storm competes in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) as a member club of the league's Western Conference. The team was founded by Ginger Ackerl ...

, Kuier became the 8th woman in WNBA history to dunk a basketball.

International career

She represented Finland at the 2019 U18B FIBA Women's European Championship, winning the championship and being named tournament MVP. She was then named to the All-Star Five at the 2019 U20B FIBA Women's European Championship, helping Finland to a second-place finish.

WNBA career statistics

Regular season

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Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

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Postseason

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Personal life

She was born in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo met ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...

and is of

South Sudan South Sudan (; din, Paguot Thudän), officially the Republic of South Sudan ( din, Paankɔc Cuëny Thudän), is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the ...

ese origin. She moved to

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bo ...

as a refugee with her family when she was two years old, first settling in the city of

. Today, her family has settled in the coastal town of

Uusikaupunki Uusikaupunki (; sv, Nystad, ) is a list of towns in Finland, town and municipalities of Finland, municipality of Finland. It is located in the Southwest Finland regions of Finland, region, northwest of Turku and south of Pori. The municipality ...

and she holds dual Finnish and Egyptian citizenship. She speaks Italian, Arabic, Finnish, and English. Kuier has four older brothers and her parents are

Jehovah's Witnesses Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved ...

References

2001 births Living people Dallas Wings draft picks Dallas Wings players Egyptian emigrants to Finland Egyptian people of South Sudanese descent Finnish people of South Sudanese descent Finnish women's basketball players People from Kotka People from Uusikaupunki Refugees in Egypt Refugees in Finland South Sudanese emigrants South Sudanese refugees Sportspeople from Cairo {{Finland-basketball-bio-stub