Haley Jones: The Second Act

The Stanford Years

Santa Cruz, California. Haley Jones picked Stanford and immediately became the kind of player who makes everyone around her better. The 2020-21 season was the one. She started all 32 games, averaging 13.2 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 2.8 assists, and the Cardinal won the national championship. Not a supporting role. A starring one. By her senior year (2022-23) the numbers had grown to 13.5 points, 9.0 rebounds, and 4.0 assists. A 6'1" guard who rebounds like a forward and passes like a point guard. That combination is why she went 6th overall.

Atlanta Didn't Work

The Atlanta Dream drafted Jones 6th overall in 2023. First round. Lottery pick. The expectation was that she'd translate immediately. She didn't. Two seasons in Atlanta, and the numbers tell the story: 3.8 points per game. For a player who averaged 13+ in college, that's not a slump. That's a system that didn't know what to do with her. Atlanta was a mess during those years, cycling through schemes and struggling to develop young talent. Jones got lost in it. The tools were still there. The opportunity wasn't.

Dallas Changed Everything

Mid-2025, Jones moved to the Dallas Wings on a hardship contract. Nobody was writing think pieces about it. Nobody expected much. Then she played. In 24 appearances (16 starts), she averaged 8.1 points, 3.8 rebounds, 2.5 assists, and 0.9 blocks in 22.8 minutes per game. All career bests. Every single category. Her 2025 overall line was 7.3 PPG, 3.5 RPG, 2.3 APG. Dallas gave her what Atlanta never did: minutes, a defined role, and a system that valued her versatility instead of trying to shrink it into a box.

That half-season in Dallas is the real Haley Jones. Not the Atlanta version. Not the "bust" narrative that sports Twitter built for two years. The player who won a national championship doesn't disappear. She just needs the right situation.

Why Portland Is the Right Place

The Fire selected Jones with the 15th overall pick (Round 2) in the expansion draft, taking her from Dallas. In Portland, she joins an expansion roster being built from scratch by GM Vanja Černivec and head coach Alex Sarama. There's no established pecking order. No system she has to squeeze into. Portland is building around versatility, and Jones is one of the most versatile players in this draft class.

At 6'1" with guard skills, she can play multiple positions. She can run the break, facilitate in the half court, crash the glass, and defend bigger players. With Sug Sutton running the point and Bridget Carleton stretching the floor, Jones slots in as the connective tissue: the player who can play next to anyone. That positional flexibility is exactly what expansion rosters need. You can't build a 12-player roster where everyone only does one thing. Jones does several things. And after Dallas proved she can do them at the WNBA level, the question isn't whether she belongs. It's how high the ceiling goes when she's actually featured.

She'll be at Moda Center for the home opener on May 9. The second act starts there.

What to Watch in 2026

The fit alongside Bridget Carleton is the first thing. Both are versatile, both can play multiple positions, and both are at career inflection points. If Sarama staggers their minutes or plays them together, Portland has a wing rotation that can switch everything defensively. That's rare for an expansion team.

Watch for Sug Sutton feeding Jones in transition. Sutton averaged 3.9 assists per game last season, and Jones's best moments in Dallas came in the open court, where her size and vision create mismatches smaller guards can't replicate. Emily Engstler crashing the boards and kicking it ahead, Sutton pushing tempo, Jones finishing or finding the next pass: that's the sequence to look for.

The May 9 home opener against Chicago is her Portland debut in front of 15,000+ fans at Moda Center. The full 44-game schedule is a marathon, and Jones has never been a featured player for a full season. This is the year we find out what that looks like.

What to look for on the court: her passing vision (the Stanford point-forward role never left), defensive switchability across three positions, and rebounding from the guard spot. She averaged 3.8 RPG in Dallas. For a guard, that's elite. Portland needs every rebound it can get.

The Person

Santa Cruz, California. Stanford. NCAA champion at 20 years old. Haley Jones was supposed to be a star. Drafted 6th overall, the kind of pick that comes with magazine covers and shoe deals and "the future of the franchise" press conferences. Atlanta didn't work. Two seasons of inconsistent minutes and a team that couldn't figure out what to do with her. Dallas gave her a fresh start on a hardship contract, which is the WNBA's version of "we have nothing to lose."

Now Portland gives her a third chance. Some players need the right situation. The talent was never the question. It was always context: the right coach, the right teammates, the right city. Portland, with its fan community that has been building for months before a single game, its new training facility, and a coaching staff that values versatility over rigid positional roles, might be it.

She'll play in front of 15,000+ fans at Moda Center who have been waiting 24 years for WNBA basketball in Portland. The original Fire lasted three seasons (2000-2002). This version has a player the original never did: a Stanford champion with something to prove.