Paying a female legacy forward
Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi want their USA Basketball legacy to be more than just winning medals.
The four-time Olympic gold medallists came up with an idea for a training plan for USA Basketball leading up to next year’s Tokyo Olympics that would help the Americans go for an unprecedented seventh consecutive title: USA Basketball, which usually trains together only for short periods of time during a crowded calendar, would get a core group of eight players together for five training sessions over the next year. The players would be paid $2,000 (U.S.) a day at each of the training camps and games leading up to the Olympics, with the chance to also earn bonuses. USA Basketball loved the idea. “I think as you get closer to the end of your time, you understand you can 100 per cent have an impact as a player. Go out there and move the needle on the court with your play and winning, but there are other ways that I would like to have an impact and one would be this,” Bird said. “Getting paid gives players, who want the option, to stay at home and not go overseas in the winter.”
Joining Bird and Taurasi for the training segments as part of the core group are Sylvia Fowles, Elena Delle Donne, Nneka Ogwumike, A’ja Wilson, Skylar Diggins-Smith and Chelsea Gray. Players from the national team training pool will also join the core group.
Many of the U.S. players, including Bird and Taurasi, have played in the winter overseas, making up to 10 times their WNBA salaries. Finding time to train with USA Basketball is tough due to the overseas schedules and the WNBA schedule. If the players are paid by USA Basketball, they have more of a reason to stay in here.
“It’s legitimate, they knew they had to do it that way,” said Ogwumike, who has played in Russia and China in the winter.