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Have you learnt the primary basketball gamers ever to win 5 Olympic Gold medals? Right here’s a touch: they’re former faculty teammates, NCAA champions, greatest pals and, at one level throughout their careers, had been tremendous aggressive rivals. However after they suited up alongside one another within the pink, white and blue, they had been magic. Did you determine who it’s but? Nah, they’re not males. Suppose once more.
“Sue joined the nationwide staff on the 2002 World Championship, and I joined in 2004. We had been the younger children in Athens,” Diana Taurasi advised USA Basketball. “It’s very particular to have gone by way of it collectively, as a result of we went by way of the identical experiences on the identical time.”
Whereas Sue Chook retired from the sport simply two years in the past, DT continues to be on the market dropping buckets and taking names in opposition to any and each opponent within the WNBA because the League’s all-time main scorer. She’s been hailed because the GOAT, a moniker that not solely encompasses her profession to this point on the Phoenix Mercury, however on the worldwide stage, too: all through the previous 23 years she’s spent suiting up for USA Basketball, apart from Chook, she has the biggest assortment of Gold {hardware}, together with 5 Olympic Golds, three FIBA World Cup Golds and a FIBA World Cup Bronze medal. It’s an honor she doesn’t take calmly, and in her personal phrases, representing USA Basketball is a dedication that she holds to the best regard.
“I simply suppose we take this actually severely,” Taurasi advised The Athletic. “We don’t take a look at it as a four-year factor. We take a look at it as a profession.”
Taurasi is a part of a illustrious legacy that the USA Basketball Girls’s Nationwide Group has at all times embodied. Relationship all the way in which again to 1984, when the ladies’s staff received their first-ever Olympic Gold medal, they’ve constantly put collectively essentially the most dominant and profitable squads ever assembled. Look no additional than the previous seven consecutive Olympic Gold medals they’ve received, or the truth that america is already the favourite in Paris, at present ranked No. 1 within the 5×5 event and No. 2 going into the three×3 event.
This 12 months’s roster is filled with champions, MVPs, All-Stars, Rookies of the 12 months and legends. DT will swimsuit up alongside fellow Olympic teammates and Gold medalists, together with Chelsea Grey, Brittney Griner, Jewell Loyd, Napheesa Collier, Breanna Stewart and A’ja Wilson, in addition to Kelsey Plum and Jackie Younger (each of whom received Gold within the 3×3 event in 2021). The roster additionally features a handful of standouts who shall be making their Olympic debut: Alyssa Thomas, Kahleah Copper and Sabrina Ionescu. Led by a training employees that options among the most sensible minds within the recreation—head coach Cheryl Reeve, assistant coaches Kara Lawson, Joni Taylor, Mike Thibault, scouts Curt Miller and Tanisha Wright—the 2024 USA Girls’s Nationwide Group is locked in and able to run it again. Three years in the past in Tokyo, the U.S. cooked the competitors and defeated Japan, 90-75, to win Gold. DT was on that squad, as had been Loyd, BG, Chelsea, Stewie and A’ja. Now, add Alyssa, Kahleah and Sab within the combine. That’s an entire lot of bucket-getters on one staff.
How did all of those stars come collectively? The plain reply is a multi-year choice course of that features coaching camps and video games. However, within the phrases of Taurasi, there’s extra to the roster than simply names on a listing. It’s about chemistry, downside fixing and bringing collectively a bunch of rivals who can, and can, execute.
“When you get to the second coaching camp, you type of can see the Olympics from afar,” DT mentioned in an episode of USA Basketball’s “The Nationwide Group” sequence, which is precisely titled, How the Sauce Will get Made. “Not less than, coaching camp has turn out to be that rather more essential. Looking for teams that play effectively collectively, that determine issues fairly shortly collectively. I believe the one factor from all these Olympics that I’ve realized is it’s one of the best mixture of gamers who can get to a sure place fairly shortly.”
Gamers are competing for a spot on the 12-person roster, which suggests setting apart egos and easily exhibiting that you simply’ve received what it takes.
Taurasi elaborated: “It’s a must to put your greatest foot ahead, that’s the one means you can also make an impression—by being right here and by shopping for into what we’re making an attempt to do as a staff. Each one that’s put that jersey on to this point has made that dedication, and I believe meaning lots to the choice committee, to the coaches.”
The choice course of is extremely aggressive, and whereas there’s an abundance of expertise within the WNBA, Taurasi is spot on. As choice committee chair Jennifer Rizzotti advised the Related Press in April: “We keep on with our rules of expertise, clearly, positional match, loyalty and expertise. It’s received to be a mix of a complete physique of labor.”
The ultimate roster is the epitome of simply that. Except for DT, Griner is likely one of the most skilled Olympians on the staff. A two-time Olympic Gold medalist, BG’s USA Basketball résumé additionally consists of being named 2018 World Cup Gold medal recreation Participant of the Sport and named a 2014 FIBA World Cup All-Match Group honoree. A powerhouse within the paint and a shot blocker, BG’s presence on the staff may even deliver a way of resiliency and energy that extends effectively past the hardwood. Then there’s Grey, who was drafted into the WNBA only a 12 months after Griner, and has been a vocal chief. The three-time WNBA champion is the go-to voice on the Las Vegas Aces, even over head coach Becky Hammon. “I’m her assistant,” Hammon as soon as advised the media. “I inform them [the Aces] on a regular basis, if Chelsea calls one thing and I name one thing, you take heed to Chelsea.”
As for her recreation, Grey brings an unmatched versatility: she’s a scorer who can hit clutch photographs, a playmaker with loopy court docket imaginative and prescient and a savant with a excessive basketball IQ who could make reads and set her teammates up. Oh, and he or she is aware of how you can carry out underneath stress, because the world noticed when the Aces went back-to-back and received one other WNBA championship final 12 months. What’s even scarier is that Grey shall be suiting up alongside the very teammates she simply received the ’chip with, together with two-time MVP Wilson and All-Stars Younger and Plum. Should you suppose the Aces have slowed down in any respect since they dominated in 2023, suppose once more. Wilson’s star energy has solely continued to ascend to a different degree this season and, as we went to press, she set a WNBA document in opposition to the Dallas Wings as the primary participant, ever, to have at the very least 35 factors, 10 rebounds and 5 steals. Which, would possibly we add, is her tenth profession recreation with at the very least 30/10. She’s additionally the primary to publish at the very least 35 factors and 5 steals in a number of video games. Wilson is aggressive, fearless and true to herself and what she’s about, on and off the court docket. Hammon mentioned it greatest. Wilson is “one of the best on the planet.” As for KP and Younger, each are deadly guards who know what it takes to carry their very own on the worldwide stage. Again in 2021, they each received Gold within the U.S. Olympic 3×3 Girls’s event. So, yeah, good luck to different international locations that gotta go up in opposition to a part of the Aces’ core.
The opposite most skilled Olympian is the reigning WNBA MVP. Stewie is an authorized winner, a lot in order that she’s simply one of many 11 gamers, ever, to have received an Olympic Gold medal, FIBA World Cup Gold medal, WNBA title and NCAA title in her profession to this point (Griner and DT are additionally a part of that record). Stewie’s been exhibiting out for USA Basketball since highschool—in 2011, she was the youngest member and solely highschool athlete to compete within the Pan American Video games, the place she began all 4 video games and led the staff in scoring (15.3 ppg), rebounds (11.3) and blocks (1.1). Poised and primed for greatness because the starting, Stewart is coming off a WNBA career-high scoring common final season (23.0 ppg) and the momentum of serving to lead the New York Liberty to the WNBA Finals for the primary time since ’02. Together with her suiting up alongside the identical gamers she confronted within the Finals, the U.S. staff has received to be a scary sight for opponents this summer time.
The remainder of the roster is stacked with scorers and playmakers. Napheesa Collier was a part of that 2020 Olympic Gold medal-winning staff, and since then has solely leveled up her recreation. Phee is at present dominating on the Lynx and averaging a double-double (a second-career greatest 20.0 factors and a career-high 10.2 rebounds). Then there’s Loyd, who led the League in scoring final season with a career-high 24.7 factors and is an Olympic and three-time FIBA World Cup/3×3 Gold medalist. One other member of that 2022 FIBA World Cup squad is Thomas, a constant and loopy environment friendly strolling triple-double who shall be making her Olympic debut. She’s additionally the primary former Maryland Terrapin to play on the U.S. Girls’s Nationwide Group since Vicky Bullett, who received Gold in ’88 and Bronze in ’92.
AT brings a decade of WNBA expertise and veteran management, and he or she’ll match proper in together with her USA Olympic teammates. Then there’s Kahleah Copper, who brings a dynamic scoring prowess and hard Philly mentality that makes her licensed. After successful a ’chip with the Chicago Sky in 2021, she elevated her recreation, too. The three-time WNBA All-Star, who has been dropping 30-plus level video games on any given night time this season, will deliver that very same vitality on the worldwide stage in her first-ever Olympics, too.
Final, however definitely by no means least, is Sabrina Ionescu. It doesn’t matter whether or not she’s going up in opposition to opponents within the W or the best shooter of all time, Sab, with one furrow of her forehead and area on the three-point line, is assured to shoot the lights out of the gymnasium, it doesn’t matter what gymnasium it’s. Oh, and he or she’s additionally averaging a career-high this 12 months, her fourth season with the New York Liberty. Expertise is one factor, however recreation at all times speaks for itself.
And there you might have it. In the event that they win all of it, the 2024 USA Girls’s Nationwide Group will make historical past by bringing the eighth consecutive Gold medal, and fortunate No. 10 total, again to the States. Legends of the previous instilled greatness, however this squad has what it takes to hold that legacy and extra.
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