Credit: Charles Hallman/MSR
Teaira McCowan a couple of months ago saw herself taking a “gap year” in her pro basketball career. The 6-foot-8 post player had completed a successful season overseas, playing for Turkish powerhouse club Fenerbahçe.
But back stateside, McCowan hadn’t gotten any calls from a WNBA club as the 2026 training camp heated up. She had been available since being waived by Dallas last August.
“When I was overseas,” recalled McCowan, “I kind of wasn’t in the best position to get myself back out there” as a free agent, she pointed out. “So, I was like, okay, I’ll take the year off.”
It would have been her first extended time off since being drafted by Indiana in the 2019 WNBA Draft (first round, third overall) after a college career at Mississippi State. It has been virtually nonstop from season to offseason overseas to back to the W ever since.
“This technically was actually my first off-season,” said McCowan, the Texas native, “when I wasn’t signed (by a WNBA club). The first off-season I’ve had since I’ve been a pro.”
But as soon as she realized it wasn’t going to be an eighth season in the W, things quickly ramped up in May. “Five minutes later, Cheryl (Reeve) hit me, and I was like that is crazy because it happened so fast,” recalled McCowan.
After years of battling against them, Minnesota signed McCowan as an unrestricted free agent to a one-year contract on May 28, about two weeks after the 2026 season began.
She’s now a Lynx. Reeve, the team’s head coach and basketball operations head, needed another big and McCowan fit the need.
“I’m really still in the league,” she told me after a recent practice.
McCowan in her rookie year in Indiana finished second in rebounding and 10th in blocks and made the 2019 All-Rookie Team. Her second season, the post player put up five double-doubles, and career highs in boards and blocks, to finish third in rebounding and fifth in blocks in her third campaign.
Then Indiana traded McCowan to Dallas in March 2022, where she earned her first career Western Conference Player of the Month for August that season and shot .602 from the floor, second best in the league. Her second season in Dallas, McCowan had one of her 13 double-doubles against Minnesota, season-high 18 rebounds, and later finished the year fifth in rebounding and fourth in field goal accuracy, a starter in 29 out of 30 games.
In 2024, McCowan played in 39 games (38 starts), but the following season, which turned out to be her last in Dallas, she saw action in only 17 games before being waived late in 2025.
Looking back, McCowan admitted she didn’t see herself playing basketball at all, let alone later in college and the pros.
“I didn’t really start playing basketball until eighth grade, and that’s pretty late compared to the basketball world,” she pointed out. “I just wanted to hang with my friends at first, and then I actually got good. I found my calling.”
While at Mississippi State (2015-19), the only school that seemed to really want her in recruiting, McCowan said it wasn’t until her sophomore or junior year that she could see herself moving on to the pro level.
One ESPN mock draft had McCowan going No. 1 in the 2019 draft, but a later draft prospectus put her third, which is where Indiana did select her.
Being a third overall draft pick put McCowan in elite company withMichael Jordan, James Harden, Carmelo Anthony, Pau Gasol and Grant Hill among successful NBAers taken third overall. Skylar Diggins, Candace Wiggins and Tamika Catchings were also WNBA third overall picks in their respective drafts.
“I didn’t think I was going three, but I was super shocked,” remembered McCowan. “I looked at my mom and my aunt, I was like, three is crazy. Then I just got up and I hugged them.”
Now with Minnesota, McCowan says she understands why the Lynx have been perennially successful: “Now I know why they play so hard and why they’re so successful in the game because of the practices that I’ve had,” she surmised after the workout.
Finally, whenever she does hang up her sneakers for good, McCowan said she plans to go into business for herself, perhaps clothing.
“I plan on having a couple of businesses,” she said. “I’m currently working on something right now.”
Charles Hallman welcomes reader responses at challman@spokesman-recorder.com.
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