NEW YORK \u2014 Cameron Brink can see the light at the end of the tunnel.<\/p>\n
She’s been out for 13 months after tearing the ACL in her left knee in a game at Connecticut in June last season.<\/p>\n
Now she’s been cleared to play again and is eager to get back on the court with her Los Angeles Sparks teammates.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel great. I\u2019m super thankful that the Sparks have let me take my time and really feel great coming back,\u201d Brink said to a few reporters after shootaround Saturday. \u201cI\u2019m excited to be out there with my teammates.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brink has been working toward playing in a game. After the Sparks finished their pregame shootaround, Brink went to the Barclays Center practice court and got in another 20-minute workout.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve put in a lot of hard work. I feel like what people usually see is me living my life normally, but people don\u2019t see the hours and hours that I put in the gym with my trainers, amazing training staff,” she said. \u201cI\u2019ve been working my (behind) off, so I definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coach Lynne Roberts said that Brink won’t play against the Liberty on Saturday night, but expects the six-foot-four forward back soon. Three of their next four games are at home after Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to come in midseason, and then you add the mental aspect that every athlete struggles with being out that long,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n
Brink\u2019s been around the team as much as she could over the past year and also found ways to keep herself busy during the long rehab process,\u00a0starting a podcast\u00a0and graduating from Stanford.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really tough mental, waking up every day and watching your team from the sideline cheering everyone on. I love cheering on my teammates, but there comes a point where I want to be out there too,\u201d Brink said. \u201cSo, I\u2019m just really happy to be at that point and just thankful for everyone along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brink said that it’s been tough during the long recovery period. She knows it will take time to get back to where she was before she got injured. Before she got hurt, Brink, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2024 WNBA draft, was averaging 7.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.3 blocks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a little nerve-wracking for sure., I\u2019m just really going to try to be patient with myself because I\u2019m definitely not where I was last year,\u201d she said. \u201cIt’s still a work in progress, but yeah, just thankful for the fans. Really excited to be able to just go out there and do what I love.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 Cameron Brink can see the light at the end of the tunnel. She’s been out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-26103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}