{"id":33749,"date":"2025-07-30T07:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T07:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/33749\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T07:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T07:12:07","slug":"cameron-brinks-emotional-return-to-the-wnba-a-great-day-10-out-of-10-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/33749\/","title":{"rendered":"Cameron Brink’s emotional return to the WNBA: ‘A great day, 10 out of 10’"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Cameron Brink<\/a> was dancing and smiling in the pre-game huddle. After 13 months away from the sport she loves, the Los Angeles Sparks forward was back in what coach Lynne Roberts calls \u201cher happy place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brink was 1 for 3 and made a pair of free throws on Tuesday night while playing 13 minutes, with three rebounds, an assist, a steal, a block and a turnover in an 89-74 loss to the Las Vegas Aces that snapped the Sparks\u2019 five-game winning streak.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

She came off the bench in her first WNBA game since suffering a left ACL injury in a game at Connecticut in June 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really missed it,\u201d Brink said afterward. \u201cThat\u2019s definitely my favorite part of basketball is just competing, working my butt off. It was really fun to be out there with my teammates and feed off the crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n

She entered to cheers with 2:39 remaining in the first quarter.<\/p>\n

Brink quickly got to work, grabbing an offensive rebound and feeding Rickea Jackson for a jumper. She then hit a 3-pointer with NBA stars Russell Westbrook and DeMar DeRozan and comedian Leslie Jones watching courtside.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter I hit that first shot, just kind of like weight off my shoulders,\u201d Brink said. \u201cCredit to my teammates, they made me feel super comfortable. If I didn\u2019t know a play, they got my back and were telling me where to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she wasn’t in the game, Brink cheered from the bench, rising to urge in shots while the Sparks played catchup most of the night.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was more comfortable out there than I anticipated her to be just cause how long she\u2019s been out,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n

Before getting hurt, Brink, the No. 2 pick in the 2024 WNBA draft, was averaging 7.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.3 blocks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t feel as fast as I was last year,” she said, “but I\u2019m making small steps every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Brink has yet to practice much with the full team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told her after the game that’s very impressive to come in and make the impact that she did,\u201d teammate Kelsey Plum said. \u201cI think she’s going to continue to just help us a ton, especially defensively. We looked just horrid tonight. She’s someone that\u2019s going to get better game by game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brink’s minutes will be restricted for the near term.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully it won\u2019t be a thing for a long time,\u201d she said, adding her goal is to play 20 to 25 minutes a game.<\/p>\n

Watching her teammates play last season, Brink said she learned nuances of the game that she might not have otherwise. But mostly she was itching to play in games again.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

\u201cReally glad it\u2019s over so that we can all move on and I\u2019m back to my job,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Brink was supported by over 20 friends and family.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt very loved. A great day, 10 out of 10,\u201d she said. \u201cI won’t ever forget it.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP WNBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/wnba-basketball<\/a><\/p>\n

Beth Harris, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Cameron Brink was dancing and smiling in the pre-game huddle. After 13 months away…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,12189,48,4785,18701,631,3460,632,25560,25561,12933,14744,82,630],"class_list":["post-33749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-cameron-brink","tag-canada","tag-connecticut","tag-demar-derozan","tag-kelsey-plum","tag-las-vegas-aces","tag-los-angeles-sparks","tag-lynne-roberts","tag-pre-game-huddle","tag-rickea-jackson","tag-russell-westbrook","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33749","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=33749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}