After Swoopes came the wave: Lisa Leslie's quilted-leather Total Air 9, Dawn Staley's Zoom S5, Cynthia Cooper's Air C14 — proof the '90s WNBA had signature stars decades before it was a headline.
An elegant dominant center, a pure floor-general, and the most ruthless closer of the WNBA's founding dynasty.
The current women's signature boom has a prologue most fans never learned. In 1998–99 Nike gave signatures to three founding WNBA superstars: Lisa Leslie's Total Air 9 drew from Chanel quilting, Dawn Staley's Zoom S5 honored Philly point-guard craft, and Cynthia Cooper — winner of the league's first four titles — got the Air C14. All three lines are dormant, uncelebrated, and overdue for the retro treatment the men's '90s catalog gets annually.
Retro announcements land in the same alert as new signatures.