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The Roots of Megan DiLeo’s Growth and Success in Portland

by
August 2, 2026

The Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo were the two new expansion teams to debut this WNBA season. But, for Portland, WNBA basketball is not new to the city.

The WNBA is back in Portland for the first time since 2002. Currently, the Fire sit with an 11-18 record. Despite the sub-.500 record and sitting in tenth place in the standings, the team is still in the mix for a postseason appearance, chasing after what would most likely be the final playoff spot as the eighth seed.

The players have built up a lot of excitement for the future of the franchise. One of the faces of the second iteration of the Fire is Megan DiLeo (formerly Gustafson, after getting married a few weeks ago), who is currently averaging 12.6 points per game (PPG), 3.8 rebounds per game (RPG) and 0.9 assists per game (APG) for the team. She has also been a starter for 18 of the 29 games.

DiLeo recently achieved an individual milestone; on July 11, she reached 1,000 career points in a road victory against the Atlanta Dream.

It is a massive accomplishment for DiLeo, as she has been met with different challenges and stops thus far in her WNBA career, working to solidify herself as not just a long-term rotation player on a roster, but someone who can be among the most important players on a team. Yet, that role of being a very important and relied-upon player for a team is nothing new to her.

Before the 2019 WNBA draft, DiLeo was a star at Iowa, especially in her senior season, which included a 1,000-point season, a trip to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament, and National Player of the Year honors. DiLeo had a decorated college career that culminated with her jersey number now hanging in the rafters of Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

After playing at Iowa, she was drafted by the Dallas Wings in the second round of the 2019 draft. However, the success she enjoyed in college did not translate to the league right away.

In her rookie season with the Wings, DiLeo averaged 2.9 PPG and 2.5 RPG in 25 games played. The following season, she averaged 1.6 PPG and 1.2 RPG in only nine games played.

DiLeo eventually moved on and played for the Washington Mystics during the 2021 season. But, she appeared in only 11 games during her stint with the Mystics, averaging 4.0 PPG and 3.6 RPG that season.

During her first three years in the league, she was signed and waived multiple times by the Wings and Mystics, and did not have that consistent playing time to be looked at as a reliable rotation player. But, her WNBA journey began to take a favorable turn when she signed with the Phoenix Mercury during the 2022 season.

DiLeo spent both the 2022 and 2023 seasons with the Mercury, and in her first year with the team, she experienced her first-ever postseason run. She had 12 points and four rebounds in her WNBA playoff debut against the Las Vegas Aces.

In the 2023 season, she averaged 7.9 PPG and 3.9 RPG. She also averaged 15.1 minutes per game (MPG), which was the first time she averaged double-digit minutes for a season. DiLeo also had 14 double-digit scoring games, which was almost three times as many as she had in the previous four seasons (just five such games).

After the two seasons with the Mercury, DiLeo signed with the Aces before the start of the 2024 season, and ultimately spent two years with the franchise. In 2024, she averaged 3.7 PPG, 1.9 RPG and 10.7 MPG, and she also had her first career 20-point game.

The following season, which was an injury-hampered one that limited her to 20 regular-season games, she averaged 3.0 PPG, 1.8 PPG and 11.3 MPG. But, she played significant minutes during the postseason en route to winning her first WNBA championship.

DiLeo’s stints with the Mercury and Aces allowed her to earn more minutes on the court and experience participating in higher-stakes games in the league. She also displayed her value while playing alongside the league’s best bigs like Brittney Griner and A’ja Wilson.

After Las Vegas’ 2025 championship season and an offseason clouded by uncertainty due to CBA negotiations, DiLeo took a chance on one of the newest franchises in the league and signed with Portland.

As a member of the Fire, DiLeo has had four games of at least 20 points this season, after having only one such game during her career in the league. In addition, she is shooting 38.6 percent from three-point range.

DiLeo has always been a crafty and talented scorer around the rim. But, in her time playing professional basketball, whether it is for the WNBA or the Spanish national team in international competition, she added the three-point shot to make it a valuable aspect of her game. In the WNBA, she began shooting three-pointers during her Mercury stint, and has maintained that willingness to let the ball fly. During her four-year college career, she only attempted two three-pointers (per Her Hoop Stats). Now, she has evolved into a quality stretch big who can score from the perimeter and in the interior.

She is one of the few veterans on a Fire roster that is mostly comprised of younger and less-experienced players. DiLeo, Bridget Carleton and Karlie Samuelson are the only players on the Fire who, entering this season, have at least five years of experience in the league. And then, the team has some newer faces in the WNBA like Carla Leite, Sarah Ashlee Barker and Serah Williams who have shined in Portland so far this season.

Portland is attempting to do what the Golden State Valkyries did last season: be an expansion team that makes the playoffs in the very first year. It would indeed be the first playoff appearance in the history of the Portland Fire, as the team missed the playoffs in all three seasons of their initial existence (2000-2002). 

And, there’s a determination that the team possesses to represent the city and show that a roster with what DiLeo described earlier this season as “a bunch of overlooked players” can be a playoff team this quickly. And for DiLeo, there’s a feeling of appreciation for what the franchise has provided.

“I’m thankful for this team, this organization,” DiLeo said in the post-game press conference on May 30, after a victory over the Indiana Fever. “They really believe in me.”

 

In year one of their return, the Fire have cultivated a garden of success and promise, and DiLeo has blossomed into a valuable player for a franchise, and someone who the city of Portland can rally behind.

 

Stats as of  August 1. Unless otherwise noted, stats courtesy of WNBA.com.

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