Last Updated on July 28, 2026 by Mat Diekhake

Skylar Diggins-Smith has built her career on speed, creativity, and fearless shot-making, emerging as one of the WNBA’s most dynamic point guards. A multiple-time All-Star with the ability to score from all three levels while orchestrating an offense, she consistently combines explosive playmaking with relentless competitiveness and leadership.

Here is the detailed information on Skylar Diggins-Smith:

Player Profile

  • Full Name: Skylar Kierra Diggins-Smith
  • Nationality: American
  • Age: Born August 2, 1990
  • Hometown: South Bend, Indiana, USA
  • Height: 5’9″ (1.75 m)
  • Weight: 145 lbs (66 kg)
  • Wingspan: 5’10” (1.78 m)
  • Shoe Size: Size 9 US (women’s)
  • Number: Wears No. 4
  • Position: Point Guard
  • High School: Washington High School, South Bend, Indiana
  • College: University of Notre Dame (2009–2013) – She led Notre Dame to two NCAA Championship appearances.
  • WNBA Draft: 1st round, 3rd overall pick in the 2013 WNBA Draft by the Tulsa Shock (now Dallas Wings).
  • Teams Played For:
    • Tulsa Shock/Dallas Wings (2013–2019)
    • Phoenix Mercury (2020–present)
  • Championship Rings: No WNBA championships to date.
  • Kids: 2 children. She welcomed her first child, a son, in 2019, and her second child, a daughter, in 2023.
  • Siblings: She has three younger brothers: Tige, Destyn, and Maurice.

Player Archetype / Play Style

Skylar Diggins-Smith’s player archetype is a dynamic lead guard who blends shot creation, table-setting, and disruptive point-of-attack defense in one compact, explosive package. At 5-foot-9 and 140 pounds, she plays with burst, balance, and tight handle control, using her speed to turn corners, collapse defenses, and create pull-up jumpers or passing windows out of the pick-and-roll. Defensively, she works as an aggressive on-ball guard who pressures ballhandlers, jumps passing lanes, and adds real activity in the steals column, while offensively she functions as both a primary initiator and scoring threat who can run an offense, get to her spots, and carry stretches as a perimeter creator. Her overall play style is fast, poised, and forceful: she pressures defenses with pace, changes direction well, and gives a backcourt a clear organizing presence without losing her own scoring edge. (WNBA)

Scouting Report

What stands out with Skylar Diggins-Smith is how relentlessly she pressures the seams of a defence. She isn’t just trying to beat her own defender; she’s hunting the exact moment the low defender hesitates or the big commits a fraction too early. That’s where she does her best work. She’ll come off a ball screen with real pace, force the coverage to flatten out, then either explode into the paint, pull up before the rim protector settles, or thread a pass through traffic that looked impossible a second earlier. The interesting thing is that her handle isn’t flashy for the sake of it. Every crossover and hesitation is designed to shift a defender’s hips just enough to open a driving lane. Once she gets two feet in the lane, she’s exceptionally good at manipulating help defenders with her eyes, freezing the weak-side tag before dropping the ball to a rolling big or firing a pass to a relocating shooter. Defensively, she competes with the same edge she plays with offensively. She gets over screens aggressively, crowds opposing ball-handlers and has a knack for timing digs at the ball without completely compromising the structure behind her. The trade-off is that bigger guards can occasionally use their size to shoot over her or force switches into unfavourable matchups, but she rarely allows those possessions to become comfortable by conceding space. To me, she’s at her best surrounded by mobile screeners who dive hard, wings who keep moving after the initial action and another perimeter scorer capable of punishing rotating defences, because that lets her toggle between orchestrating and attacking rather than carrying every creation responsibility herself. There are obvious similarities to Tony Parker in the way she slices into the paint and controls possessions through speed and balance rather than sheer power, while her blend of downhill scoring and creative pick-and-roll playmaking also has echoes of Kelsey Plum, although Diggins-Smith plays with a more deliberate cadence once the defence begins to collapse.

Sources:

WNBA — Skylar Diggins Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Draft Status …
ESPN — Skylar Diggins Biography
Seattle Storm — Skylar Diggins-Smith is continuing to develop her game and personal brand
Seattle Storm — Diggins-Smith, Ogwumike earn AP honors
Seattle Storm — Storm Signs Free Agent Skylar Diggins-Smith