Hey hey hey, GOOD BYE
July 28, 2022
Inside the Sparks’ ‘divorce’ from a four-time All-Star
Liz Cambage is one of the biggest names in the WNBA—but her time in the league might be over.
The Sparks announced yesterday that they had
agreed to a “contract divorce” with the Australian center, ending her brief tenure in Los Angeles. Cambage contributed to the Sparks this season (13.0 points and 6.4 rebounds per game),
but it turns out this move wasn’t about her on-court performance.
Last night,
Yahoo’s Chris Haynes reported that
Cambage’s teammates had several issues with her, even before she was signed.
“Multiple players on the team felt the center could help the Sparks if she was focused and committed, but they expressed concerns that she’s known to be a player others don’t like to play with, sources said,” Haynes wrote.
Still, Derek Fisher, who was the Sparks’ coach and general manager until he was
fired early last month, decided to sign the four-time All-Star.
The players’ concerns were proven to be well founded.
There were issues with Cambage right from the start, Haynes reported. She wanted to wear the No. 1 jersey, which belonged to
Amanda Zahui B., so Fisher asked Zahui B. if she would give Cambage the number. She declined. But Cambage continued to angle for the jersey number, so, Haynes reported, “Sources say management eventually made the call to give the number to the new starting center.”
Cambage got her way with the jersey number (and Zahui B. ended up not playing this season, anyway), but she still had other gripes.
From Haynes’s report:
There’s also the issue of
Cambage’s reported use of slurs during a
pre-Olympics scrimmage against Nigeria last summer. Cambage reportedly called the Nigerian players “monkeys” and told them to “go back to your third-world country.” Sisters Chiney and Nneka Ogwumike, who are of Nigerian descent and currently lobbying to be allowed to play for the Nigerian national team, were Cambage’s teammates with the Sparks.
The Sparks are
clinging to a playoff spot at 12–15, tied for sixth in the league. There are currently six teams with between 10 and 12 wins vying for the final three spots in the eight-team playoff field. The team seemingly believes that Cambage’s presence was doing more harm than good and that cutting her loose can have a positive effect on the team. Given Cambage’s talent and significant role on the team (she was sixth in minutes played per game),
cutting her in hopes of improving team chemistry is a gamble, but one the Sparks clearly believed was worth taking.
As for Cambage, Haynes reports that
no WNBA teams are interested in signing her at the moment
