Phoenix Mercury’s Monique Akoa Makani derives pride, purpose from African roots

Phoenix Mercury guard Monique Akoa Makani still remembers the culture shock.

Then 9 years old, Akoa Makani had recently moved to the Les Bleus neighborhood of Lyon, France, after her family had emigrated from her native Cameroon, a country in central Africa.

Coming from Cameroon, Akoa Makani spoke French, but growing up she had been placed in an English learning school. She would have to retake a French class at a level she had already passed in Cameroon. To do so, she would take the course with kids younger than her.

“That was kind of painful for me because as a child, I’ve always considered myself as smart,” Akoa Makani said. “You feel like, ‘Oh, I shouldn’t be here.’”

Akoa Makani also spoke French with a noticeable African accent. Already feeling distant from her classmates, her goal of assimilating felt a step further.

“Everybody would make comments about it,” she said. 

Akoa Makani struggled with the speed at which her classmates spoke the language. It got to a point where Akoa Makani elected to rarely speak, afraid of people judging her.

As she adjusted to her new life in France, Akoa Makani found refuge in sport – first soccer, then later basketball. She used the sport as an escape. It was her “comfort place.”

“Basketball was almost everything at some point in my life when I was younger,” she said. 

Akoa Makani’s journey in basketball has led her to one of the sport’s biggest stages where, as a 24-year-old rookie standout, she is making her mark on a franchise aiming to win its first championship since 2014. In doing so, she’s also bringing visibility to a growing presence of African-born players in the WNBA. 

With the Mercury trailing the Las Vegas Aces 2-0 in the WNBA Finals, Akoa Makani’s production will be a key complementary component to any Phoenix turnaround in the series, which resumes with Game 3 on Wednesday (ESPN, 8 p.m., ET).

“It’s not easy to come into the W and make an impact, be in the Finals and be a huge part of that,” Phoenix guard Kahleah Copper said. “Her ceiling is high.”

With several minutes left during halftime of Game 2 of the Finals, Akoa Makani emerged from the Mercury tunnel with a sense of urgency. In the first half, she had missed a pair of open shots that had visibly frustrated her. As fans filed back into their seats, Akoa Makani took the floor alone, recruiting the help of a ball boy as she tried to course correct her form from the game’s start. 

Despite being in the Finals in her first season, Akoa Makani is dead set on not taking this moment for granted. She’s reminded of the rarity of the opportunity in conversations with veteran teammates like Phoenix forward DeWanna Bonner, who is making her fourth Finals appearance in 16 seasons.

“It makes me think, ‘OK, Mo, you’re very lucky to have this,’” Akoa Makani said. “It just reminds me how humble and grounded I should continue to be, being present and really living this moment.”

Akoa Makani was born in Edéa, a small city in the southwestern portion of Cameroon where everybody knows everybody. She comes from a large extended family where just on her father’s side she had 11 aunts and uncles and many cousins.

Akoa Makani described her early childhood as simple and easy, growing up in what she initially described financially as a modest household.

“You could call that a poor family, honestly,” Akoa Makani said. “I would not say that we had a lot. But when I was a kid, that was never a problem for me because when you’re in an environment where you’re used to not having a lot, it’s just normal to you. I was very happy growing up as a child.” 

Akoa Makani hasn’t been able to return to Cameroon since her family left. When she was growing up, they didn’t have the monetary means to visit. Akoa Makani had planned to return this past summer with her parents, but then came the WNBA. 

“I’m not going to complain about that,” Akoa Makani said. 

Akoa Makani’s connection to her home country, and her desire to return, has grown through her involvement with the Cameroonian national team. She first competed with the national team in 2023 for AfroBasket (the FIBA African championship) and in 2025 for AfroBasket qualifiers. 

In Cameroon, soccer is undoubtedly the most popular sport. That’s in large part, Akoa Makani said, due to its accessibility.

“You just create a goal with, like, two rocks and then you just play with a ball that you can make up of T-shirts sometimes, too,” Akoa Makani said.  

Akoa Makani excelled at soccer before she ever picked up a basketball, first playing in Cameroon with her siblings before continuing in France. When she was 12, a coach saw her playing at a local park in Les Buers and invited her to try out for the training academy of pro club Olympique Lyonnais.

Akoa Makani, though, declined the offer. She wanted to pursue something new. A few years earlier, Akoa Makani had been introduced to basketball in school and had gravitated to the sport. After playing for a local club, Akoa Makani began training under FC Lyon ASVEL Féminin. By age 15, Akoa Makani knew she wanted to become a pro.

The history of Cameroonian players in the WNBA is brief. Lucienne Berthieu played for the Cleveland Rockers and Houston Comets from 2002-04. Dulcy Fankam Mendjiadeu played 41 games for the Seattle Storm between 2023 and 2024. Dominique Malonga, who was selected No. 2 overall by the Seattle Storm in the 2025 WNBA draft, also was born in Cameroon. 

Akoa Makani is the first player from Cameroon to play in the WNBA Finals. She hopes her visibility will encourage the next generation of Cameroonian players to chase their own basketball dreams.

“I’m very proud of being a Cameroonian. I owe everything to where I come from because I don’t think I would have had the same mindset if I wasn’t born there,” she said. “That just gives me the desire to inspire other young Africans that have dreams. It only takes one person.” 

Akoa Makani arrived at Mercury training camp in late April toting low, if any, expectations about making the Phoenix roster. She had just come off her best professional season of her career playing for Charnay Basket in France. Akoa Makani was named to the starting five of the La Boulangère Wonderligue, the top league in France, alongside players like Malonga and Connecticut Sun guard Leila Lacán.

She had viewed the experience as a chance to establish her name in the league’s ecosystem and, maybe in a year or two, she would make a team. But after going through the motions of her first practice, Akoa Makani saw an opportunity to hasten her timeline. She learned she could stand out among the crowded camp by leaning on her athleticism and court IQ. 

“‘You can really do this,’” Akoa Makani thought to herself. “I definitely felt like if I keep just giving what I know [is the] best of me, it should be a good experience. … I showed myself as who I really was.”

Not only would she make the team, she would become a crucial component to Phoenix’s winning formula. When Akoa Makani, who started in 40 of the 41 regular-season games she played in, was out due to concussion protocol, Mercury forward Satou Sabally noted the void on the floor.

“Mo is super important to us defensively, offensively. I think that it shows how much we need her,” Sabally said after a July 23 loss to the Atlanta Dream. “She’s definitely a missing piece.”

This season has pushed Akoa Makani to her limit both physically and mentally. She had to acclimate to the physicality of the WNBA while also adjusting to the frequency of games played per week compared with the schedule in France. Akoa Makani has played in 50 games since the WNBA season began in May. She played in 31 games, between her French season and Eurocup play, from Sept 2024 to April 2025.

“Your body just runs out of gas and you’ve got to push your limits mentally to be able to, day by day, go take that little amount of juice that you have left,” Akoa Makani said.

She considers herself a social person with a close circle back home in France that she said recharges her and maintains her sense of stability. The distance, combined with the nine-hour time difference from Phoenix, has made that challenging. For Akoa Makani, just having to speak in English 24/7 has been a somewhat exhausting experience. 

Akoa Makani also had to adjust – and accept – her role with the Mercury after being a top option in France. With All-Stars and veterans like Alyssa Thomas, Sabally and Copper flanking her in the starting five, Akoa Makani didn’t need to offensively produce like she had become accustomed to doing. Instead of having screens set for her, Akoa Makani had to learn to set inverted screens on bigs like A’ja Wilson and Napheesa Collier to free up Thomas. She was asked to aggressively defend and be a long-range threat.

“It was like now I’m coming into a team where people are better than me,” Akoa Makani said. “It was pretty humbling to me to be like, ‘OK, your time is going to come as long as you’re humble enough to be able to take everything that those vets will be able to give you.’”

Those vets have been ever impressed with the rookie. Bonner said it still surprises her that this is Akoa Makani’s first year in the WNBA.

“She keeps getting better and better, the moments keep getting bigger and bigger, and she’s handling them very well for a first-year player,” Bonner said of Akoa Makani, who is averaging 10 points, five assists and 1.5 rebounds through the first two games of the Finals. “We have the ultimate respect and faith in Mo.”

Energy and a defensive grit are always top of mind for Akoa Makani when she’s on the floor for the Mercury. As the defender who is often the first line of defense in the half court, Akoa Makani knows her effort sets the tone for her teammates.

“If they see me going hard and being able to put the other opponent in trouble, that’s only going to give them extra energy to want to do the same,” Akoa Makani said. “I take a lot of pride in that. It’s my way of being able to impact the game.”

Akoa Makani ended the regular season averaging 7.7 points, 2.2 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game. During the regular season, she shot a team-high 39.8% from 3-point range.

The Mercury were +163 when Akoa Makani was on the court this season, the second-best plus-minus among rookies, according to ESPN Stats and Information.

Mercury associate head coach Kristi Toliver has enjoyed observing Akoa Makani’s evolution over the course of the season. That growth, according to Toliver, has peaked in the playoffs. Toliver pointed to a recent practice in which a small interaction from Akoa Makani signaled a larger sign of development.

“It was just her [standing] at the nail [center of free-throw line] and, you know, empty side. And she yelled ‘empty,’ just a term we use, with a force in her,” Toliver said. “Nate [Tibbetts] and I looked at each other like we were proud fathers and mothers of her.”

A month or two ago, Akoa Makani would have remained quiet during the action. To Toliver, the rookie had found her voice.

“It was an awareness thing, it was her using her voice and the power of her voice,” Toliver said. “That means that she knows and trusts and believes that. That was the proof in the pudding for us of, ‘Oh, she’s arrived.’” 

Given her contributions to the Mercury’s success this season, it came as a surprise to some when Akoa Makani was left off the five-person WNBA All-Rookie Team announced late last month.

“There’s so many good players in this league and someone’s always left out,” Toliver said.

“I don’t think that I would assume she’s even thinking about an individual achievement, but the team achievement. If she comes back with the championship, that’s her validation. That’s her achievement.”

A few years ago, Akoa Makani thought she had her whole basketball career planned. She had set goals and mapped out her trajectory thinking milestones would be achieved on her timing. One of those goals was to play in EuroLeague, which she’ll do for Tango Bourges Basket in France at the conclusion of this WNBA season. The other, of course, was to play in the WNBA, which has come ahead of schedule.

Akoa Makani’s experience this season in the U.S. has taught her that while goals are good to set, it’s the journey that is most important. As long as she stays present in that journey, those breakthroughs will come in due time – sometimes ahead of time.

“All of a sudden, one day, some of what you’ve prayed for and planned for is gonna happen,” Akoa Makani said. “Walk through the journey and try to better yourself individually as a person and as an athlete and, yeah, things are going to come to you.”

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