<\/p>\n
Dallas Wings guard Paige Bueckers celebrates during a May 28 game against the Los Vegas Aces at College Park Center in Arlington, Texas.<\/p>\n
Jerome Miron, Imagn Images<\/p>\n
With that, here\u2019s a projection of what the Team USA roster will look like when the Olympics begin in Los Angeles in the summer of 2028:<\/p>\n
\u2013 Aliyah Boston, Indiana Fever<\/p>\n
\u2013 Paige Bueckers, Dallas Wings<\/p>\n
\u2013 Caitlin Clark, Indiana Fever<\/p>\n
\u2013 Napheesa Collier, Minnesota Lynx<\/p>\n
\u2013 Chelsea Gray, Las Vegas Aces<\/p>\n
\u2013 Rhyne Howard, Atlanta Dream<\/p>\n
\u2013 Olivia Miles, Minnesota Lynx<\/p>\n
\u2013 Angel Reese, Atlanta Dream<\/p>\n
\u2013 Breanna Stewart, New York Liberty<\/p>\n
\u2013 A\u2019ja Wilson, Las Vegas Aces<\/p>\n
\u2013 Jackie Young, Las Vegas Aces<\/p>\n
Players to watch: Shakira Austin, Mikayla Blakes, Sonia Citron, Kahleah Copper, Hannah Hidalgo, Sabrina Ionescu, Kiki Iriafen, Rickea Jackson, Kelsey Plum, Sarah Strong.<\/p>\n
Wilson, Stewart, Collier, Young and Gray feel like locks and might be the starting lineup when the LA Olympics begin. The next four \u2014 the young stars in Bueckers, Clark, Boston and Reese \u2014 will probably be included too as the rising faces of the program.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, that leaves us with three spots up for grabs, and this projection has those being filled by Miles, Watkins and Howard.<\/p>\n
Needless to say, Sue Bird \u2014 the managing director of Team USA \u2014 has some challenging decisions to make ahead. Leaving Copper off the roster after a strong World Cup might be a hard call, as will excluding Ionescu and Plum, but it\u2019s difficult to ignore Miles and Watkins’ talent. Then again, after a few close calls at the World Cup, perhaps Bird and Lawson will choose to lean on seasoned veterans and take someone like Copper over the inexperienced Watkins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas Wings guard Paige Bueckers celebrates during a May 28 game against the Los Vegas Aces at College…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,42270,434,1764],"class_list":["post-849153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-team-usa","tag-wnba","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}