My Favorite Cigar
Kelsey Plum • WNBA Star • Kingmakers No. 1 Persona Toro
Kelsey Plum has one of the most accomplished resumes in women’s basketball: Olympic gold medalist; one of college basketball’s all-time leading scorers; first pick in the 2017 WNBA draft; All-WNBA First Team in 2022. But if you ask the 29-year-old guard for the Las Vegas Aces, none of it compares with winning a WNBA championship, something her team has now done in back-to-back seasons—and it’s how she got into cigars.
Despite never having had a smoke, Plum used cigars to motivate the Aces during their 2022 championship run. “I told all my teammates, ‘Guys, if we win this, I’m smoking the cigar.’ ” When she did, the pictures of Plum lighting up went viral on social media.
“Cigars have fortunately become a special tradition,” says Plum. Another viral victory smoke after the 2023 championship made the WNBA star more synonymous with victory cigars than perhaps any current professional athlete not named Joe Burrow.
While her current favorite smoke is the Kingmakers No. 1 Persona Toro, she is creating a line of her own, made by the same company. Of course, she also focused on a WNBA three-peat for her team. “I think each of us wants to get it done for each other, and hopefully we’ll be lighting the cigars again.”
