{"id":292948,"date":"2025-11-15T09:45:29","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T09:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/292948\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T09:45:29","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T09:45:29","slug":"the-wnba-needs-liz-cambage-but-she-may-not-need-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/292948\/","title":{"rendered":"The WNBA Needs Liz Cambage, but She May Not Need It"},"content":{"rendered":"

The outspoken Australian center may be the best player\u2014and biggest personality\u2014in women\u2019s basketball. But she\u2019s left the WNBA twice before, and she may leave again after the Wings\u2019 playoff run. The outspoken Australian center may be the best player\u2014and biggest personality\u2014in women\u2019s basketball. But she\u2019s left the WNBA twice before, and she may leave again after the Wings\u2019 playoff run. <\/p>\n

Liz Cambage cannot wait for her 30th birthday party. To top her 25th birthday party\u2014which was held at a warehouse and included an all-white dress code, black lights, a bouncy castle, a DJ, and 200 of her closest friends\u2014she is planning to rent out a ranch outside of Melbourne for an entire weekend in October. The 6-foot-8 Australian center for the WNBA\u2019s Dallas Wings is already looking at a short list of properties, and she already knows who the surprise DJ will be. (Cambage is picky. She\u2019s a DJ herself and has opened up for the likes of Mary J. Blige.)<\/p>\n

The only problem? This party is three years away. Cambage turned 27 this weekend. But, well, 27 is not a sexy age. And don\u2019t get her started on 28 or 29. But 30? \u201cWatch out,\u201d she said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

Just a couple of hours before I met with Cambage on a Sunday in mid-August, the Wings lost to the Washington Mystics\u2014their eighth straight loss with two games left to play in the regular season. The Wings were a team in free fall, holding on to the eighth and final seed in the WNBA playoffs by a thread. Cambage missed the game because of a neck injury she suffered two games prior against the Connecticut Sun. Immediately after the loss, her head coach, Fred Williams, and Wings CEO Greg Bibb got into an obscenity-laden argument outside of the locker room. Assistant coaches had to restrain them to keep it from getting physical. Despite all of it, Cambage is chatty, animated, and warm. Her opponents would tell you the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a great person, full of energy, full of life,\u201d said two-time WNBA MVP Candace Parker, who started alongside Cambage at last month\u2019s All-Star Game. \u201cMy daughter\u2019s going to be really, really tall, and if I could say anything, I want my daughter to carry herself\u2014maybe with less technicals, less technicals\u2014but I want my daughter to carry herself with that confidence, because when [Cambage] walks into a room, everybody knows it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is Cambage\u2019s first season in the WNBA in five years. She ruptured her Achilles in 2014, was overwhelmed by international commitments in 2016, and considered exploring her other interests, such as fashion and music. There were also phone calls home, sobbing. The deep depression, the hard partying. The pressure.<\/p>\n

Losing slump and sore neck aside, Cambage\u2019s return to the WNBA has been a rousing success. She finished the regular season first in scoring average (23.0 points) and second in rebounds (9.65). In a July win over the New York Liberty, she scored a record 53 points on 22 shots and 10 rebounds. Two nights later, she scored 35 points and grabbed 17 rebounds, cementing the best two-game scoring stretch in league history. <\/p>\n

\u201cGirl, I was tired after that,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

But it\u2019s more than just her play that\u2019s drawn attention. It\u2019s her dance moves<\/a>, her over-the-top celebrations<\/a>, her in-game nail filing<\/a>, her controversial ejections<\/a>. Her outspoken criticism of everything from players\u2019 salaries<\/a> to officiating<\/a> to travel inequities<\/a> to systemic racism<\/a>. In a league that sometimes struggles to generate headlines, she\u2019s a walking, talking breaking-news alert. Now that we\u2019ve had another full season of Cambage, it\u2019s hard to fathom the WNBA without her. <\/p>\n

And yet, there\u2019s no guarantee that she will ever return. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really going to evaluate how I\u2019m feeling mentally and physically,\u201d Cambage said. \u201cBecause at the end of the day, I don\u2019t make that much money here. This doesn\u2019t pay my mortgage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Cambage didn\u2019t grow up dreaming of playing professional basketball. For most of her teenage years, she figured she\u2019d marry an Australian football player and become a housewife.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up, my favorite movie was Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. And so I always wanted to be Marilyn Monroe and get a sugar daddy,\u201d she said. \u201cBut then I realized I can do that for myself. I really don\u2019t need that.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time she was 16, Cambage was a 6-foot-8 phenom living at the Australian Institute of Sport. The WNBA became a real option at the age of 18 after she helped lead the Australian national team to a fifth-place finish at the 2010 FIBA World Championships. She was excited about the possibility of moving to Los Angeles and playing with Parker, whom she had long admired. She didn\u2019t hide her disappointment when she was selected second overall in the 2011 draft by the Tulsa Shock, right behind Maya Moore, who went first to the Minnesota Lynx. <\/p>\n

Reluctantly, Cambage moved across the world to a city that she had never heard of. It did not go well. The Shock went 3-31, and things were even worse for Cambage off the court. Cambage was used to friendship and community on her teams back home, but she said she found competition and cruelty on a team with legends such as a 40-year-old Sheryl Swoopes, fresh off of a two-year hiatus, and Marion Jones (yes, that<\/a> Marion Jones). Eleven games into the season, head coach Nolan Richardson resigned.<\/p>\n

Cambage made the All-Star team as a rookie, but she said the accomplishment felt hollow. She would call her mom and her agent in tears, telling them, \u201cI don\u2019t want to be here. I want to leave.\u201d She felt that she was being blamed for the team\u2019s failures. It was a nightmare. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had something like 22 losses in a row, and that stuff really brings out the evil side, the darkness,\u201d she said. \u201cIt shows you who a person really is. I was shown a lot of everything I never wanted to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Growing up, my favorite movie was Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. And so I always wanted to be Marilyn Monroe and get a sugar daddy. But then I realized, I can do that for myself. I really don\u2019t need that.<\/p>\n

Liz Cambage<\/p>\n

Cambage spent the start of what would\u2019ve been her second WNBA season at the London Olympics, where she became the first woman to ever dunk in Olympic competition. But Australia managed to win only bronze. Cambage was supposed to rejoin the Shock for the remainder of the 2012 season immediately after. She had a plane ticket for Tulsa and even boarded a flight in Melbourne. But when the plane landed in Sydney for a connecting flight, she said she had a breakdown. She called her mom and her boyfriend from the Sydney airport and told them she was coming back home. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe drove home in silence,\u201d she said. \u201cThey knew. Everyone knew I wasn\u2019t mentally OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cambage did go to China that fall to play for the Zhejiang Chouzhou of the Chinese Basketball Association. For the 2012-13 season, she reportedly earned $400,000\u2014more than 10 times what she was making in the WNBA. Her contract for her rookie season in 2011 totaled $47,756.<\/p>\n

WNBA salaries have seen only modest gains in the 22 years of the league\u2019s existence. In 2003, the average WNBA player made approximately $50,000<\/a>. These days, it\u2019s more than $75,000<\/a>. According to the WNBA Salary Database run by High Post Hoops, Cambage made $113,000<\/a> with the Wings during the 2018 season, which is close to the league maximum. The WNBA season runs from May until September; most players go overseas in the fall and winter to play in leagues in Turkey, China, Russia, and elsewhere, where they earn significantly more money. <\/p>\n

Still, in 2013, Cambage decided to return to Tulsa once more. By that time, point guard Skylar Diggins-Smith had arrived to help shoulder the weight of expectations. But the team\u2019s improvements were still moderate, at best, and Cambage said she still didn\u2019t feel like she fit in socially. The Shock went 11-23 and finished last in their division, and head coach Gary Kloppenburg was fired. When she left Tulsa after the season, she had no intentions of returning to the league.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe organization was still a mess. It was a mess. I didn\u2019t really want to get involved,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to give my efforts to a league that wasn\u2019t\u2014I didn\u2019t feel like I was being looked after.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Liz Cambage and Skylar Diggins-SmithNBAE\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Cambage\u2019s time in Tulsa was a toxic experience. But it taught her one important thing: \u201cI didn\u2019t understand racism until Tulsa,\u201d she said. \u201cGrowing up, I\u2019d always wondered why I would be excluded from things; why kids would say, \u2018We don\u2019t want to play with you because you look dirty.\u2019 I didn\u2019t understand that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Cambage\u2019s father is Nigerian and black; her mother is British and white. She moved from London to Australia with her mother when she was young. Her father was not in her life growing up. Cambage stuck out in Australia, a majority-white country. But she said she didn\u2019t truly understand discrimination, or what it meant to be black, until she lived in the U.S. <\/p>\n

She fondly recalls her Tulsa teammates Jennifer Lacy and Tiffany Jackson-Jones teaching her about hair weaves and \u201cblack hair magic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI finally knew what Beyonc\u00e9 and RiRi were doing with their hair,\u201d she said. \u201cLife-changing stuff.\u201d <\/p>\n

Cambage relentlessly speaks out<\/a> against racism in Australia. She\u2019s called out the racist treatment of an indigenous AFL star and taught her Australian teammates about the whitewashing<\/a> of Australian history and why blackface is unacceptable. She said she\u2019d been told by people in the advertising industry that this is why she doesn\u2019t have any major sponsors in Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re scared about what I\u2019m going to say,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve never said anything crazy. I\u2019ve just spoken the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ironically enough, if Cambage does end up spending more time in the United States, or perhaps even establishing a base here, she said it would likely be because racism in the country is much more out in the open than in Australia. Here, and particularly in the WNBA, she\u2019s part of a larger movement of athlete activism. In Australia, she feels shunned and isolated for speaking out.<\/p>\n

The Wings\u2019 August 12 game against the Mystics took place less than a mile from the site of a scheduled white supremacist rally. On the court before the game, Mystics guard Kristi Toliver gave a speech<\/a> condemning the rally, addressing the lack of political leadership in the United States, and denouncing bigotry of all kinds. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was perfect; it was so fitting,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was empowering, especially growing up a black child in a very whitewashed country. I have a lot of views, and a lot of thoughts that I want to talk about for kids that are still growing up in Australia and still not seeing anyone who looks like them on TV. It\u2019s gotten better, but we still have a better way to go in Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Liz Cambage<\/p>\n

Eighteen months ago, Cambage was in the midst of an existential crisis. She said she didn\u2019t know what her purpose was\u2014or whether she even had a purpose. She spent her days partying to numb the pain. Her friends would come over on Sundays to make sure she\u2019d eaten and slept. It was, she said, pretty dark.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not nice being in a place where you don\u2019t even feel like there\u2019s a point of you being alive,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Cambage had planned on retiring from basketball altogether after the 2016 Rio Olympics. She would help lead Australia to another medal and then say goodbye to the sport. But there was no happy ending to be found in Rio. Just devastation and disappointment. The Opals were upset by Serbia in the quarterfinals, marking their worst showing at the Olympics since 1992. <\/p>\n

When she returned to Melbourne, Cambage ghosted almost everyone in her life and retreated into a world of depression and anxiety. She said she heavily self-medicated with prescription pills and alcohol. She said that she isn\u2019t surprised by her on-court success this season. But back then, she never would\u2019ve dreamed of hearing \u201dMVP\u201d chants from the Dallas crowd.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the craziest thing to me,\u201d she said, shaking her head. \u201cThat\u2019s crazy. That\u2019s crazy. The higher power works in mysterious ways, and he or she or whoever it may be, maybe they give their hardest journeys to the toughest soldiers.\u201d<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t climb out of the fog all at once. Her journey back began with honesty, both with herself and with those around her. For the first time, she told her mother about the anxiety and darkness she\u2019d experienced the past five years. She went on medication for insomnia and depression. She started reengaging with old interests, such as piano lessons, singing, DJing, and designing. She rediscovered herself, her spirit. <\/p>\n

She said that as she became happier with her life, she realized that she wanted to play basketball again\u2014that she didn\u2019t want Rio to be the end of her story. She started to put in the work to become a more versatile player so she wouldn\u2019t have to be stuck under the basket. She focused on improving her jump shot, shots off the bounce, corner 3s, and trail 3s. She felt free, on and off the court. <\/p>\n

Fred Williams, who took over as head coach in Tulsa in 2014, stayed in touch with Cambage during her time away. The franchise, which became the Dallas Wings in the 2016 season, maintained her WNBA rights. He thought he could convince her to come back.<\/p>\n

In 2017, she really started listening. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe really didn\u2019t talk about basketball at all. It was more connecting musically. And sharing songs, or sharing things she does with her turntables, or spinning in clubs,\u201d said Williams, a prolific jazz musician. \u201dThat created a bond. And it helped, it helped get her back. The whole organization really pitched in to get her here, and she just found her heart to get back to this and to give me her trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cambage joined Williams in Dallas this season and has flourished. She\u2019s made lasting friendships. She\u2019s become the mentor she never had, especially to rookie Azura Stevens. She\u2019s hit 3-pointers during games, dunked during the All-Star Game, and connected with fans in arenas across the country. She led the league in player efficiency and usage percentage during the regular season. She\u2019s having fun, and it\u2019s contagious. Diggins-Smith, whom Cambage called her \u201cLeo sister,\u201d has loved watching her flourish.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know many people who have come into this league as a teenager, having that pressure on her to be the one to turn around that organization,\u201d Diggins-Smith said. \u201cI think this time around, her game has evolved so much, and just how she plays, how she feels when she plays the game. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe looks happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Liz CambageBarcroft Media via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Last Friday was the Wings\u2019 final home game of the season, and their second-to-last game of the regular season. The Las Vegas Aces, the only other team in contention for the final playoff spot, were in town. The Wings had lost nine straight games, and Williams was fired an hour after Cambage and I finished up dinner in Washington, D.C., last Sunday. (Cambage has now had five different coaches in three WNBA seasons. That night, she tweeted out<\/a>, simply, \u201cthe Cambage curse.\u201d )<\/p>\n

Dallas was a team in free fall. Then, Cambage\u2019s next-level talent and tenacity took over. She scored 43 points on 20 shots, grabbed 13 rebounds, and went 2-for-2 from beyond the arc. The Wings won, 107-102, and Cambage reenergized her MVP campaign. After the game, Cambage sobbed in happiness. Diggins-Smith lept into her arms. For the first time in her career, Cambage is going to the WNBA playoffs. She turned 27 the next day.<\/p>\n

all I wanted for my birthday was to make the WNBA playoffs for the first time in my life, thank you to my @DallasWings<\/a> family. dreams do come true \ud83d\udc9a\ud83d\udc99<\/p>\n

\u2014 Elizabeth Cambage (@ecambage) August 18, 2018<\/a><\/p>\n

Still, even as she celebrated one of her greatest WNBA accomplishments to date, she wasn\u2019t ready to commit to a future in the league past the playoffs. <\/p>\n

\u201cI love being here. I love the league, I love this team, and I love this city,\u201d she told reporters after the win over Vegas. \u201cBut I put my body, mind, and spirit first. \u2026 It\u2019s days like this, on my birthday, that I miss my family a lot. I miss my mom a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

I love being here. I love the league, I love this team, and I love this city,\u201d she told reporters after the win over Vegas. But I put my body, mind, and spirit first. It\u2019s days like this on my birthday that I miss my family. I miss my mom a lot.<\/p>\n

Cambage, after clinching her first playoff berth.<\/p>\n

For the most part, the WNBA has been able to draw the biggest stars in the world despite its meager compensation. American players are incredibly invested in growing the league in their home country and feel a sense of obligation to the players who paved the way. Cambage doesn\u2019t feel the same connection. Her loyalty lies with the Opals. So when she finds out that NBA officials make more than WNBA players<\/a>, it makes it much more difficult to justify spending four months of the year so far away from home, getting beaten up in the post and risking injury.<\/p>\n

As much fun as Cambage has had this season, it\u2019s still been incredibly grueling. Because of the world championships in September, the WNBA season included the same number of games it typically does but in 19 fewer days. That means fewer rest days and little to no time to practice, train, and improve. Keeping her 6-foot-8 body in elite shape is difficult under the best of circumstances, let alone while playing back-to-backs across different time zones, fresh off of flights where her legs are crammed into non-exit-row commercial seats. After the world championships, Cambage will go back to China to play for the first time since 2016. At some point, she\u2019s going to have to take a break. <\/p>\n

Maybe this, more than anything, explains Cambage\u2019s greatness. She has the audacity to be selfish\u2014an oft-maligned trait in women and in athletes. But it comes from her perspective and in the pursuit of joy. She cares about basketball, but it doesn\u2019t define her. She has seen rock bottom, and she has no intentions of going back.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing back from that, finding my purpose, finding my light, having belief in myself again, has made me the person I am today,\u201d she said. \u201cA stronger person.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s something worth celebrating, now and every day until her 30th birthday.<\/p>\n

A previous version of this piece incorrectly stated that Kristi Toliver plays for the Dallas Wings. She plays for the Washington Mystics.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>