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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, finest buddies and, at one level throughout their careers, have been tremendous aggressive rivals. However once they suited up alongside one another within the crimson, white and blue, they have been magic. Did you determine who it’s but? Nah, they’re not males. Suppose once more.
“Sue joined the nationwide group on the 2002 World Championship, and I joined in 2004. We have been the younger youngsters in Athens,” Diana Taurasi informed 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 similar time.”
Whereas Sue Hen 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 date 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 Hen, she has the most important 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 evenly, and in her personal phrases, representing USA Basketball is a dedication that she holds to the very best regard.
“I simply suppose we take this actually significantly,” Taurasi informed The Athletic. “We don’t have a look at it as a four-year factor. We have a look at it as a profession.”
Taurasi is a part of a illustrious legacy that the USA Basketball Girls’s Nationwide Crew has all the time embodied. Relationship all the way in which again to 1984, when the ladies’s group gained their first-ever Olympic Gold medal, they’ve persistently put collectively essentially the most dominant and profitable squads ever assembled. Look no additional than the previous seven consecutive Olympic Gold medals they’ve gained, 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 yr’s roster is filled with champions, MVPs, All-Stars, Rookies of the Yr and legends. DT will go well with 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 gained Gold within the 3×3 event in 2021). The roster additionally features a handful of standouts who might be making their Olympic debut: Alyssa Thomas, Kahleah Copper and Sabrina Ionescu. Led by a training workers that options a few of the most good 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 Crew 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 have been Loyd, BG, Chelsea, Stewie and A’ja. Now, add Alyssa, Kahleah and Sab within the combine. That’s a complete lot of bucket-getters on one group.
How did all of those stars come collectively? The apparent 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 an inventory. It’s about chemistry, drawback fixing and bringing collectively a gaggle of opponents who can, and can, execute.
“When you get to the second coaching camp, you form of can see the Olympics from afar,” DT mentioned in an episode of USA Basketball’s “The Nationwide Crew” sequence, which is precisely titled, How the Sauce Will get Made. “At the least, coaching camp has change into that rather more necessary. Looking for teams that play nicely collectively, that work out issues fairly rapidly collectively. I believe the one factor from all these Olympics that I’ve realized is it’s the perfect mixture of gamers who can get to a sure place fairly rapidly.”
Gamers are competing for a spot on the 12-person roster, which suggests setting apart egos and easily displaying that you just’ve obtained what it takes.
Taurasi elaborated: “You must put your finest foot ahead, that’s the one manner you may make an influence—by being right here and by shopping for into what we’re making an attempt to do as a group. Each one who’s put that jersey on thus far has made that dedication, and I believe which means loads 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 informed the Related Press in April: “We follow our ideas of expertise, clearly, positional match, loyalty and expertise. It’s obtained to be a mix of a whole physique of labor.”
The ultimate roster is the epitome of simply that. Other than DT, Griner is likely one of the most skilled Olympians on the group. A two-time Olympic Gold medalist, BG’s USA Basketball résumé additionally contains being named 2018 World Cup Gold medal recreation Participant of the Recreation and named a 2014 FIBA World Cup All-Event Crew honoree. A powerhouse within the paint and a shot blocker, BG’s presence on the group will even deliver a way of resiliency and energy that extends nicely past the hardwood. Then there’s Grey, who was drafted into the WNBA only a yr 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 informed the media. “I inform them [the Aces] on a regular basis, if Chelsea calls one thing and I name one thing, you hearken to Chelsea.”
As for her recreation, Grey brings an unmatched versatility: she’s a scorer who can hit clutch pictures, 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 the best way to carry out below strain, because the world noticed when the Aces went back-to-back and gained one other WNBA championship final yr. What’s even scarier is that Grey might be suiting up alongside the very teammates she simply gained the ’chip with, together with two-time MVP Wilson and All-Stars Younger and Plum. In case 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 stage 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 not less than 35 factors, 10 rebounds and 5 steals. Which, would possibly we add, is her tenth profession recreation with not less than 30/10. She’s additionally the primary to put up not less than 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 finest. Wilson is “the perfect on this 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 gained 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 gained an Olympic Gold medal, FIBA World Cup Gold medal, WNBA title and NCAA title in her profession to date (Griner and DT are additionally a part of that checklist). Stewie’s been displaying 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 group in scoring (15.3 ppg), rebounds (11.3) and blocks (1.1). Poised and primed for greatness for the reason that 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. Along with her suiting up alongside the identical gamers she confronted within the Finals, the U.S. group has obtained 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 group, 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 finest 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 might be making her Olympic debut. She’s additionally the primary former Maryland Terrapin to play on the U.S. Girls’s Nationwide Crew since Vicky Bullett, who gained 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 along 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 actually 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 house on the three-point line, is assured to shoot the lights out of the health club, it doesn’t matter what health club it’s. Oh, and he or she’s additionally averaging a career-high this yr, her fourth season with the New York Liberty. Expertise is one factor, however recreation all the time speaks for itself.
And there you will have it. In the event that they win all of it, the 2024 USA Girls’s Nationwide Crew will make historical past by bringing the eighth consecutive Gold medal, and fortunate No. 10 general, 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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