Hoops

Liz not going back to the WNBA

Seems like management has finally taken some control and made her see the light.

A sensible decision to go back but there is no guarantee she'll succeed! That requires a lot of work.

Doubt she came up with this on her own.

I'm sure it's a total coincidence that Joyce was just announced as Opals coach, and then Liz makes a comeback which means she'll be considered for the Opals again.

http://www.theage.com.au/sport/basketball/shock-for-liz-cambage-20130517-2jq9h.html

she does like the spotlight...

Start her on the bench and make her earn respect the hard way - she's lost a helluva lot of it!

The game, and the Tulsa franchise, are bigger than Liz.

So, Liz has changed her mind and will play in Tulsa this season after all.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/Liz_Cambage_returning_to_Tulsa_Shock/20130516_695_0_Attent162571

(Conveniently missing the entire training camp :p)

I'm glad she came around. Tulsa are a different team to the one she struggled with 2 seasons ago, both in terms of personnel and coaching.
Though I shudder to think what kind of shape she is in atm.

Mechelle Voepel's (respected WBB columnist) take on it:

Matt (Chicago)
So ... Liz Cambage. Help me make sense of what, if anything, Tulsa can or should do about this situation.

Mechelle Voepel
Best I can tell, Liz tends to tell people things she thinks they want to hear, as opposed to firmly making up her mind and being straightforward with everybody about it. She's still a kid who wants to do what she wants to do, but also doesn't want anyone to be upset with her. So she waffles and fudges and hedges and says one thing to one party and a different thing to somebody else. At least, that's how it looks to me. So it's a difficult position for Tulsa to be in ... do you keep hoping she'll "grow up" and decide she wants to fulfill a commitment to the Shock? Or do you say, "It's not going to happen," and deal her? Either way, it's a tough spot for Tulsa to be in.

@hoopie, This won't affect WNBA teams looking at Aussies, we still have and have had many hard working committed Aussies, one bad egg wont affect our reputation.

I just hope this kind of behaviour doesn't start backfiring on Aussie women wanting to play in the WNBA.

We have (had) such a good reputation for hard work and team focus.

DD. I agree with your points. Management is certainly a factor. It seems like if Liz thinks it's a good idea they support it.

But for Tulsa - a struggling franchise - to commit to her and then get 30c on the dollar back is nothing.

Her brand value is fading fast o/s of her being a novelty in China.

She might earn some $$ but she'll never be a winner until her attitude changes or she starts getting (taking) good advice.

SMA "Tulsa knew this from the start"

Liz didn't do much to hide her thoughts at the time, but even I didn't think it would get as sad as Liz committing to going over there and then pulling out at the last minute ... 2 years in a row.
If she was just up-front with them then they would have traded her away to get some value back from their #2 pick. They won't get her full value in return but they'll get something. But when she tells them that she is actually coming then of course they're going to prefer to have her playing instead of having a second round draft pick or whatever... so she is not only screwing them over, she's screwing herself over too. It all reeks of poor player management as well. eg. if she had shown up last year after the olympics - even after her extra little post-London holiday - then that handful of games would have knocked a complete year off her rookie contract commitments and brought her a year closer to becoming a free agent. But nope, even that was too hard. Dumb move IMO.

Anon 292, I agree that Griner is not going to have things all her way at the next level the way she did in college, but on the other hand she's not going to cop the same level of attention either.

Firstly she is an excellent defender. That would translate well to the next level if the WNBA hadn't just brought in the "Griner rule" to prevent her patrolling the paint on D. I'm sure she'll still be effective though and get a healthy tally of rebounds & blocked shots.

Offensively it's certainly not going to be a dunkfest for her anymore, but she's also not going to spend entire games getting swarmed & hacked the way she did against Louisville. Send a triple team at her while Taurasi/Taylor/Bonner/Dupree are out there and she may not score much but it will rain jumpshots.

One-on-one, despite being skinny, I still expect that she'll get the better of most opposing centres.

Would have been interesting to see how she matched up with Liz. Given Brittney's apparent lack of interest in international ball I'm starting to wonder if that will ever actually happen.

Tulsa knew this from the start.

Lets review some comments (with edits) that Simple Jack said before the 2011 WNBA Draft:

"I don't want to play at Tulsa. (I want to live in LA, not Tornado Alley. It reminds me of Launceston where my immaturity to cost them a sure fire SEABL title).

"I've made that clear. (However I'll later retract these comments as out of context! So really I didn't make it clear I was being unclear, is that clear?)

"They want to make me a franchise player, but I'm not going to the WNBA for that. (I'd prefer to get attention for having a ton unfulfilled potential).

"I'm going there to learn and improve my game (and show Nolan Richardon that '40 Minutes of Hell' is the result of stopping me using Facebook prior to a game).

"But what can you do? My agent will deal with that (she may suffer from chronic migranes) and I'll focus on trying not to stress out (as I get more money playing at a lower level, rather than learning and improving my game...oh wait did I make it clear...)"

How ticked would you be if you were Tulsa!

BTW, Where is the story on this?

I think the training is too hard in the WNBA for Liz and she never enjoyed herself in the USA. I hope Liz plays back in Australia next year along side LJ and Suzi before the world champs.

ONCE AGAIN, the dukies have bombed out early in march. After scraping by Belmont (who?) by 1 point, they just lost to West Virginia 73-67. This comes after last years loss to VCU (again.. who??) in the first round. They just can't get it done in march.

Go you Tar-Heels!