Odom, Simms, Williams, Anigwe round out Mercury’s 2022 roster for camp
PHOENIX – The three-time WNBA Champion Phoenix Mercury today announced the signings of wings Leaonna Odom and Jennie Simms, guard Kiana Williams and forward/center Kristine Anigwe to training camp contracts. With the four additions, the Mercury roster now stands at 13 players.
Odom (6-2, 168) joins the Mercury after spending her first two WNBA seasons with the New York Liberty, averaging 4.4 points on 48.3 percent shooting in 40 games. Initially the 15th-overall pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft by the Liberty, Odom saw action in all 22 games during the WNBA’s 2020 season in the league’s “bubble,” posting 5.5 points on 49.0 percent shooting and 2.3 rebounds in 22 games (16 starts). Odom spent this past offseason playing for Kyiv Basket in Ukraine, where she averaged 14.0 points on 52.9 percent shooting, 6.2 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.7 steals. She is back in the United States.
Odom was a four-year standout at Duke University, where she finished 10th in program history in minutes played (3,716), and totaled 1,387 points, 729 rebounds and 201 assists during her time in Durham, N.C. She was a member of the preseason watch list for both the John R. Wooden Award and Naismith Award in 2019 and was a preseason Cheryl Miller Award watch list addition for the best small forward in NCAA Division I basketball as a junior.
Simms (6-0, 165) will join the Mercury after a completing her overseas season in Israel, where she’s averaging a league-best 29.6 points (5.0 points higher than second place) on 60.5 percent shooting, 9.5 rebounds, 6.8 assists and 1.7 steals in 22 games for Hapoel Rishon. Simms will look to make a WNBA roster for the second time in her professional career, having played for the Washington Mystics in 2017.
Prior to her professional career, Simms played at Old Dominion, where she finished her collegiate career ranked fifth on the school’s all-time scoring list with 2,151 career points. The 12th player in program history to be drafted, she was just the sixth Lady Monarch to score 2,000 career points and only the third to score 2,000 within her first three seasons. Additionally, she broke school records for career 30+ and 40+ point scoring games while there before being selected 18th-overall by the Mystics in the 2017 WNBA Draft.
Williams (5-8, 135) joins the Mercury in what will be her second WNBA season, having spent last year with the Seattle Storm (appeared in 10 games), who drafted her with the 18th overall pick in the 2021 WNBA Draft. Prior to the draft, Williams was a four-year standout at Stanford, where she finished her career as a NCAA Champion (2021), Pac-12 Champion (2021), two-time Pac-12 Tournament Champion (2019 and 2021) and the program’s all-time leader in three-point field goals with 311 (ranked fourth in Pac-12 history). In her final season at Stanford, Williams averaged 14.0 points, 2.0 rebounds and 1.3 steals, earning AP All-America Third Team honors, All-Pac-12 honors and was named the conference’s most outstanding player in the Pac-12 Tournament.
Williams is currently playing overseas for Adelaide in Australia’s WNBL. There, she has averaged 11.0 points on 42.4 percent shooting, 3.5 assists and 2.2 rebounds in 13 games.
Anigwe (6-4, 200) is a native of Phoenix, Ariz., and a graduate of Desert Vista High School, and a three-year WNBA veteran with stints in Connecticut, Dallas and Los Angeles. Initially the ninth overall pick in the 2019 WNBA Draft by the Connecticut Sun, Anigwe has averaged 3.3 points and 2.7 rebounds in 50 total games (two starts). Her best season came in 2020 with the Sparks, where she averred a career-best 4.6 points on 60.4 percent shooting and 2.6 rebounds in 17 games.
While at Desert Vista, she was named the Gatorade Arizona Player of the Year, a Parade Magazine All-American and USA Today All-USA Second Team in her senior season. She attended the University of California, where she averaged 20.2 points and 11.0 rebounds in 128 career games (127 starts) over her four-year career. Anigwe earned AP All-America Honorable Mention in 2017, was a three-time All-Pac-12 First Team member (2016-18) and named the conference’s Freshman of the Year in 2016.
Anigwe is currently playing overseas with Mersin in Turkey, competing in both the Turkish League and EuroCup. In EuroCup action, Anigwe is averaging 9.7 points on 55.8 percent shooting and a team-best 8.5 rebounds in 13 games, and has notched 9.3 points on 59.5 percent shooting and 6.7 rebounds in 11 Turkish League games.
Led by the 2021 Olympic gold-medal winning quartet of Diana Taurasi, Brittney Griner, Skylar Diggins-Smith and Tina Charles, and coming off the club’s fifth WNBA Finals appearance in franchise history, the three-time WNBA Champion Phoenix Mercury return to Footprint Center this summer, tipping off the season with Fry’s Food Stores Opening Night on Friday, May 6, against the Las Vegas Aces.