Team USA's A'ja Wilson Admits Fans 'Might Not Care' About WNBA Amid Olympics Success
The US Women's National Basketball Team is two wins away from securing their eighth consecutive gold medal.
Their semifinals game against Australia takes place on Friday. If they win that game (which would mark their 60th consecutive Olympics victory), they'll face the winner of France vs. Belgium on Sunday.
While it's truly awesome that Team USA has managed to sustain its dominance for so long (they last lost in the Olympics in 1992), donning the red, white, and blue jerseys comes with an unprecedented degree of pressure for these women each time they take the court.
Team USA superstar A'ja Wilson alluded to this in an article from The Athletic that was released on August 8.
“My first game in Tokyo, even though we didn’t have fans, I was like, ‘No, this is the Olympics,'” Wilson said. “Not a lot of people may watch WNBA games. They might not even care about it.
"But when we have those three letters across our chest and we’re playing for something gold, it’s like everyone’s tuned in. So it was one of those moments where I was like, no, this is a big, big moment. And I’m never going to take that moment for granted, because there could be many other people who could wish they were in this situation," Wilson continued.
"And there’s many other people who’ve trained to be in it, and they haven’t been there. So I don’t take it for granted.”
If there's one team that could potentially have enough firepower to compete with the American side, it's Australia. They feature six WNBA players, including names like Fever guard Kristy Wallace, Storm forward Ezi Magbegor, and Sparks forward Stephanie Talbot. They're also led by New York Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello.
That said, the Team USA roster has multitudes more talent and should be able to waltz their way to the top of the Paris Olympics podium come Sunday.
GRANT YOUNG
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.