There’s a brightness to Nora-Liis Veisberg that shows up before the first dribble. It’s in the way she talks about teammates, the way she leans forward when she remembers a big win, the way her ambition quietly fills the room. At just sixteen, the Estonian guard from Audentese Spordigümnaasium already sounds like a seasoned competitor.

Roots that run through family and school gyms

Basketball, for Nora-Liis, wasn’t a decision so much as a current she stepped into. “I don’t even remember. I was like six years old when I started,” she says. “My father has played basketball and my grandma also, so I’ve known it my whole life.”

In Estonia, coaches often visit schools to introduce the sport, and that’s how her story clicked into place. “Coaches are coming to schools to introduce basketball and call girls or boys to their teams to try out. I think that’s where I got it from.”

What kept her wasn’t a miracle moment or some cinematic buzzer-beater. It was the feeling, the movement, the noise and the people. “I like that there are teammates,” she says, pausing to find the right words. “And I like to win, really. Everything that I do I want to win. Winning with someone else; it’s a great feeling. It’s a team sport first, that’s what I really like. And it makes me think about other things, gets my mind off things.”

Raised by grit and by her people

Ask Nora-Liis who she admires and she doesn’t reach for a distant star; she points home. “My parents mostly, because they teach me everything I know,” she says. “They are so strong always, and they taught me that when something goes wrong, not to give up and try to move on.”

She laughs remembering how nervous she once was joining older players. “My friends who are older than me. They had played in the sports high school I’m in and graduated. They took me when I was like 13. I was really scared they’re going to think, ‘She doesn’t know anything,’ and not take me in. But they really supported me. I look up to them very much.”

The first memories

Her earliest snapshots of the game are kinetic and joyful. “We were two girls my age in the same club,” she says. “At that age when you’re so little you don’t have to have so many skills. It’s just who runs more. We were the ones jumping for the ball everywhere and running around like crazy. That I remember the most.”

Those youth teams didn’t just run; they won. “Our club was the best in youth, my age and older even,” she says with a grin. “We won like every game we played. During under 14 we won by 60 points differential in the finals.” She shrugs, almost apologetic that the dominance blurred the details. “There were special moments, of course, but not like big surprises. We just kept winning.”

Audentese: thrown into the deep end, and learning to ‘swim faster’

By thirteen, Nora-Liis was suiting up for Audentese Spordigümnaasium, Estonia’s sports high school, where the competition gets real and the learning curve goes vertical. The start was rocky. “I was injured at the beginning of the season,” she says. “Because we had a lot of injured players, when I got healthy I got to play really much.”

That unexpected playing time came with a crash course in physicality. “Girls my age usually don’t get to play that much because I was 13 and others are high school students (12th grade) they get to play more,” she explains. “But since so many players were injured, I got to play more than girls my age usually get. We had really hard games and we lost by really, really big numbers. It was hard because it’s so different from youth. There were women with more experience and so much stronger, and I was a little 13-year-old. It was really hard, but I think that taught me very much.”

Audentese is known for change and challenge, and this season brings both. “We have a new coach now this year again,” she says. “There’s been a lot of changes. Every coach has his own picture of the game, so we have to get used to that first. And we have new young players. First we have to learn how to play together, and then move on from that.”

Wearing the national youth jersey

The national jersey arrived earlier than people realize. “My first time for the youth national team was actually under 14,” she says. “We had only three games, but I was really happy. I’m really critical about myself, so I didn’t think I would make the team, but I did. I gained a lot of friends from that.”

Under 16 brought a full summer of work and a surge of belief during the European under 16 championship. “At 16, again I thought I wouldn’t get in,” she admits. “But it was really great and I really liked that summer. It was hard, the practices and everything, the whole summer. We had no rest, just practices and games and being away from home. But I got really close with my friends. We got fourth place at the European Championship. It was really great.”

Then came the tournament that changed the mood. “When we went to the European Championship, we got the first win,” she remembers, the lift still audible in her voice. “That helped us move forward somehow. We had been together for a long time and that win, everyone was really happy. Since then, we won like three games after that. We won our group phase games, moved on to the quarterfinals, and we lost there by two. It brought us down a lot, and I think that game was partly the reason we lost the other games after. It was sad, I expected more, but it didn’t happen.”

There was a victory she treasures, Though the kind of win that validates the grind. “We did win a very important game against Slovakia,” she says, nodding. “That was a great game.”

Across every story, a through-line appears: she’s competitive, and she loves sharing the load. “I like to win, everything that I do I want to win,” she says again, smiling. “Winning with someone else is a great feeling.” It’s not a contradiction; it’s her blueprint. She wants the ball. She wants the moment. But she wants it with her team.

It helps, too, that her sense of perspective is older than her age. Asked what she’d tell her younger self, Nora-Liis doesn’t hesitate. “Not to worry about things so much,” she says. “I think everything over again and again, and I’m really scared of everything. Trust yourself more and don’t be so critical.”

The road ahead

What does the next chapter look like? A new coach to understand. Younger teammates to knit together. A playoff push in Estonia and more Baltic League battles to sharpen edges. And, yes, a dream across the Atlantic. “I think I want to go to a college in maybe USA,” she repeats, as if saying it again carves the path a little clearer.

To watch Nora-Liis Veisberg is to watch potential in motion: a player still collecting experiences, some bruising, many brilliant, and turning them into poise. She’s already learned that big losses can teach, that great wins can lift a locker room for weeks, and that the toughest summers can turn into fourth place at Europe’s top youth stage. Most of all, she’s learned that the joy of the game—the teammates, the noise, the release, makes the work worth it. With her fire, her gratitude, and that relentless competitive streak, it’s hard to imagine a future where she doesn’t.