Meet the Aces’ ‘Gold Mamba’: How Loyd’s path brought her to Las Vegas

Jewell Loyd was hours into her first day at the Aces’ headquarters, but there was still an air of anticipation in the building.

She had just been formally introduced to the media as one of the Aces’ newest additions, and she was about to grace her team’s practice courts for the first time.

Team president Nikki Fargas and a few of coach Becky Hammon’s assistants joined to watch on the sideline with Loyd’s camp, which included Loyd’s father, Calvin, and Klutch Sports agent Jade-Li English.

The expectant group was waiting for Loyd to change clothes and team up with her older brother, Jarryd, for a scrimmage against a pair of the Aces’ male practice players.

“This is going to be so good,” Fargas said.

Calvin, who has watched his children compete with and against each other for as long as they’ve been able, simply grinned and nodded.

It was a “surreal” contest that ended in a loss for Team Loyd, which Jewell admitted while mentioning her plans for a rematch in the same breath.

The scoreboard wasn’t the point, though. It was the significance of her fresh start.

Loyd, deemed the “Gold Mamba” by the late NBA legend Kobe Bryant, requested a trade after 10 years with the Seattle Storm this offseason. The six-time All-Star’s wish was granted in a three-team deal that sent former Aces cornerstone Kelsey Plum to the Los Angeles Sparks.

Hammon said she believes a new and never-before-seen version of Loyd will be “unleashed” in Las Vegas. Loyd isn’t expecting anything less.

The two-time WNBA champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist was already a star. Still, the 31-year-old guard will reinvent herself as part of the Aces, joining Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young as part of a core that orbits three-time MVP A’ja Wilson.

She’s bringing bits of her past, even the difficult ones, into her rebirth.

“Everything I’ve gone through in my career has led to this point,” Loyd told the Review-Journal. “I have so much left in the tank, I feel like. And being around the players that I’m around allows me to just really tap into other areas of my game and my emotions. … I’m gonna allow myself to really embrace that side more.”

Early signs

Loyd’s road to Las Vegas begins in an unlikely place: the tennis courts in her hometown of Lincolnwood, Illinois.

Until seventh grade, that was her primary sport. She ended up being good enough to have it as a professional option before she fully committed to basketball in her junior year of high school.

But even when her days were dedicated to tennis, she was dominating players older than her in what should’ve been an unfamiliar game.

Former Niles West High School girls basketball coach Tony Konsewicz saw her for the first time at a tournament for incoming students from schools in the district.

“She was playing on the eighth-grade team,” Konsewicz recalled. “I said, ‘My Lord. This is a sixth-grader and she’d probably start on our varsity.’ It was crazy. She just obviously dominated back then, too. I remember thinking that she’d better come to Niles West.”

Those early skills came from simply “being creative with the sport” against her friends at the park and watching basketball with her brother, Loyd said. Within two years, she was even better.

Jarryd Loyd, 38, played international basketball after his collegiate career at Valparaiso and forged relationships with some of the Chicago Sky’s practice players. Before Loyd entered high school, her brother would bring her to the local WNBA practices.

“She would just outperform — score 20 and 30 points, being an eighth- to ninth-grader against some of the top professional women in the world,” Jarryd said. “At that point, I felt like (she) was special.”

When Loyd was finally old enough to take her talents to Niles West, the rest was history.

Before her arrival, the Skokie, Illinois, school hadn’t won a section championship since 1981, a conference title since 1985 or a regional championship since 1998. In Loyd’s four years, Niles West won two conference championships, three regional titles and a section championship.

“Jewell got people excited about girls basketball again,” Konsewicz said. “Every game we played — conference, nonconference — were basically sold-out gyms. We’d go on the road, and it was like traveling with our version of the Beatles. Everybody wanted to see Jewell play, and she took it with such grace.”

Never a star mindset

When Loyd recalled her high school era, she described it as “a lot,” but all she really remembers about the crowds is that her traveling fans were often left with standing room only, and that her friends didn’t miss a game.

That’s the thing about Loyd: Everyone who knows her said she keeps a small circle of longtime friends, but she’s skilled at making sure even strangers feel close to her.

Konsewicz said he noticed the character trait while observing her on and off the court.

“She is the best of friends with everybody,” he said. “But when she steps over the line to compete, she wants to rip your heart out.”

Loyd’s best friend, Laci Swann, said Loyd hasn’t changed in the 11 years they’ve known each other.

Swann’s 6-year-old son, Justice, has autism. In addition to being unfazed by his needs, Swann said, Loyd once entertained one of Justice’s in-home therapists who became starstruck when she heard Loyd’s voice during Justice’s sessions. All it took was Swann eventually urging the therapist to say hello.

“Jewell sat on FaceTime with (the therapist) and talked to her as if they’d known each other forever,” Swann said. “She makes time for people. She makes people feel seen.”

Don’t say can’t

Jewell and Jarryd Loyd sat at their aunt’s kitchen table in Chicago to talk once the 5-foot-11-inch phenom decided to go pro. Jarryd remembers the exact conversation; Loyd recalls the sentiment.

After spending three years at Notre Dame with three straight Final Four berths and back-to-back NCAA national championship game appearances, she’d positioned herself as the No. 1 pick in the 2015 draft.

“I want to be one of the best guards. I also want to win a WNBA championship and a gold medal — those were my two biggest things,” Loyd said of the goals she shared with Jarryd. “And I want to be a boss. I want to run (stuff).”

The latter is a lesser-known success story.

The Loyd siblings co-founded Loyd and Co. financial firm, which has tackled predatory lending and amassed a diverse investment portfolio — all with Jewell Loyd having the final say. They own a Smoothie King, a 160-acre organic farm and a minority stake in Major League Pickleball’s Miami Club.

The Loyds are also funding a project for youth in Africa that dates back to 2018, providing English classes, skills training and a scholarship program for orphans in Rwanda who want to go to college, Jarryd said.

Even Loyd’s Nike player-edition GT Cut 3 shoes supported a cause. Justice and his sister Sloan collaborated on the design, raising autism awareness. Swann said her nonprofit, the Little Boy Blue Foundation, has directly benefited from Loyd’s choice. With the increased visibility, Swann said their summer camp for kids with autism “doubled in size.”

Loyd’s entrepreneurship and philanthropy, in part, come for another core characteristic: a disdain for being counted out.

“The worst thing you could tell Jewell Loyd is that she can’t do something,” Konsewicz said. “Because she’ll go out just to prove you wrong.”

She once faced an AAU coach who she heard was calling her overrated and scored 50 points against his team, Konsewicz recalled.

Loyd, who is dyslexic, also took a challenge personally and scored higher than her brother on the ACT to make a point.

“Nobody expected her to do well, and she did,” Jarryd said.

In the same way, Loyd was given plenty of motivation to be a strong entrepreneur. Loyd’s mom, Gwendolyn, worked in corporate America throughout Loyd’s childhood. But before that, she was one of the first Black kids to integrate a segregated Mississippi school.

Loyd faced discrimination herself when Jarryd said she was “treated like dirt and essentially redlined ” from securing a mortgage — even though she’d spent four years in the WNBA and earned enough money to buy the house in cash.

“It’s those types of things that are happening that motivate us to try to change the story,” he said.

Vindication

Before returning to Notre Dame for the Aces’ preseason opener, Loyd turned to fellow Fighting Irish alum Jackie Young and called it a “full circle moment.”

A decade prior, former Fighting Irish coach Muffet McGraw publicly questioned Loyd’s decision to declare for the WNBA draft a year early as a “bad decision.”

Loyd used it as fuel.

“Having someone who spent three years with and was your coach, say that you’re incapable of doing something — I’ve just never believed that in any circumstance,” Loyd said. “My first year, it was definitely the mindset of trying to prove people wrong.”

Winning Rookie of the Year all that time ago made Loyd feel vindicated, but McGraw also apologized this year, Loyd said.

“I think they realize now, I was just a kid trying to get to their dreams,” she said. “(McGraw) came to the realization that she was in the wrong on how she handled things and admitted that.”

Long before McGraw’s apology, Loyd said she came to a realization that carrying a mindset of trying to prove people wrong wasn’t worth it and tried to put it past her after her first year as a pro.

“That’s not a great way to live your life,” she said.

‘Mamba mentality’

Last season was a down year from Loyd’s league-high 24.7 points per game in 2023. But even with newly added free agents Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins-Smith, Loyd remained the team’s leading scorer at 19.7.

She also battled to rejoin the Storm in the postseason after a right knee issue caused her to miss three games.

But injury woes weren’t the only hurdle.

After the season ended in the semifinals against the Aces, Loyd reportedly said she’d only remain in Seattle if Storm coach Noelle Quinn was fired. Her trade request came after an internal investigation into bullying and harassment claims by the coaching staff found no violations. Quinn remains the team’s coach.

Loyd is launching a podcast called “The Warehouse” with her friend Danny Malakismail this month. While Malakismail believes she has plenty of stories to tell, the tales of her final days in Seattle might take some time to out.

“(Loyd) has very tough skin. Her character showed a lot last year,” Malakismail said.

But unprompted, Jarryd Loyd, Swann and Malakismail all predicted that Loyd will display more “Mamba mentality” when the new WNBA season begins.

Her new teammate Wilson is ready.

“She doesn’t get that label, Gold Mamba, from the Black Mamba himself, if she was not an elite player,” Wilson said. “So adding her to our system is going to take a lot of pressure off of her, and that’s what I love the most. Because when we look back — whether it’s Notre Dame or Seattle — when she can just play with an open mind, she’s very, very hard to stop.”

Hammon has observed an edge in Loyd since she arrived in Las Vegas.

“She’s not like that overly raw, in-your-face competitor. She’s like a silent killer,” Hammon said. “Don’t let whatever’s on her face fool you. There’s always that killer instinct right below the surface, but she just kind of does it in her own way, which is really special. But she is cold-blooded for sure.”

Loyd said Hammon has created an environment that’s made all the difference.

“I found my people that understand the way I think and how I move,” Loyd said. “Everyone wants to be understood. Not everyone has the capacity to understand you, and that’s OK, but you shouldn’t be held back.”

Contact Callie Fin at cfin@reviewjournal.com. Follow @CallieJLaw on X.