On the Road With Jasmine Thomas, Who Wishes You Would Just Give Her a High Five at the Airport

Is there an overrated city that you don’t particularly love?

I’m not a big New York person. I do love coming through for a short period of time, so sometimes our trips are perfect. It’ll be like two days, and I can get excited about it, maybe shop a little bit. But then I’m ready to go. I’ve tried to accept it. I thought I might live there during the offseason, and then I was just like, “I can’t. I don’t think I would be happy.”

Where would you like the league to expand to?

I mean, the way that the whole Toronto thing just went, it seems like a pretty hot city. I was following along on social media, and it just looked like the fans were on point. Being able to fill up that arena and have a whole WNBA day, it seems like the market is hungry for a team. But I also think about [laughing] everybody probably thinks this. But, like, Miami? You know, some more vibrant markets that are cool cities to live in. I still think the Bay could be a good area, get some more West Coast teams. I’m thinking about this from a travel standpoint. The travel from Seattle and LA is the hardest in the league. There’s no one really close to us. Vegas and Phoenix I think are the closest, then you have Dallas. But Seattle is a good way’s away from Southern California! More West Coast teams would help.

Obviously there’s a lot that goes into expanding and getting a team in a certain market. But I think about areas that have a high volume of Division-I college teams. I always think about North Carolina, that’s sort of a central location for the East Coast. It’s a basketball area. They’re used to having the NCAA teams, so if you put a WNBA team, maybe it brings some of that same excitement.

There was a team in Charlotte for a little while, right?

Yes, shout out to the Charlotte Sting.

Where’s your favorite place you’ve been for vacation?

Turks and Caicos was nice. Cabo was nice. That was my first time on the west coast of Mexico. I always went to Cancun. Honestly, my favorite was probably the Dominican Republic for my brother’s wedding in 2017. One, because it was the first time I traveled and it wasn’t on me. I was like, “Thanks, bro! This is great!” They got married at a resort, so all my family was there, it was a good time. I had to miss a game. That was the first game I ever missed in my career. I had some nerves about that, but that was an experience I would never miss. A hundred times out of a hundred, I would go to my brother’s wedding. He’s not getting married a hundred times, though. [laughing]

Where’s somewhere you want to go but haven’t yet?

Ugh, Barcelona! I’ve been trying to go for like ten years. It just hasn’t worked out. When I’m overseas, usually I have three or four days to go somewhere and two are travel days. I want to go for real, get like a ten-day trip to Barcelona. That’s next on my list for sure.

What’s your favorite chain restaurant? The one that is going to hit every single time for you, no matter what city you’re in?

Cava. I love Mediterranean food, and I love Cava. I love the braised lamb. I played most of my overseas years in Turkey (five years) and Israel (two years). So that Mediterranean cuisine is my all-time fave. That’s undefeated. I’ll probably eat it after practice t