Photo by Spencer Barnes/Special for Cronkite News: Brittney Griner said, “I just appreciate everything more now” since her return to the U.S. after her imprisonment in Russia.
By Devon Henderson/Special for Cronkite News
PARIS – The Phoenix Mercury has greatly donated services to this year’s Summer Olympics. Despite sitting in the middle of the pack in the WNBA standings halfway through the season, the Mercury boasts three players selected to the Team USA women’s basketball roster for Paris. They have the second largest contingent, only behind reigning back-to-back champions the Las Vegas Aces, who sent four.
The team has initiated its hunt for an eighth straight Olympic gold medal. It opened its campaign with a 102-76 win against Japan Monday and beat Belgium 87-74 for its second group stage game. The U.S. defeated Germany 87-68 on Sunday to remain undefeated in Group C in the Preliminary Round.
Mercury guard Diana Taurasi, forward Kahleah Copper, and center Brittney Griner will be aiding the country’s effort for gold. Although the team hasn’t exploded out of the gates in its 2024 campaign, it won five of its last seven before the Olympics break and delivered three high-profile and highly competitive players to Team USA coach Cheryl Reeve’s squad.
“It’s more of the DNA of the players,” Reeve said. “At this level, Olympians have a passion for competing in them. This competitive fire. Olympians have something just a little bit different. All three of those players possess that.”
The American women’s basketball team knows nearly nothing but success. It has won the last seven gold medals dating back to 1996 and has won the most prestigious neckwear in sports in eight of the 10 Olympics they have competed in. The team emanates superiority over the world’s competitions at large.
A big reason for this may be the players’ infatuation, not with the success of the past, but with the winning still to be done in the future.
“It really doesn’t matter what the history is,” guard Taurasi said. “It doesn’t affect this team or this Olympics. We have to find a way to find our own identity. Those last eight, they don’t promise you anything going forward.”
No basketball player alive knows more about Olympic glory than Taurasi. The 42-year-old and 20-season WNBA veteran have competed in six different Olympic tournaments, which are the most ever for any basketball player, man or woman. Despite all of the accolades, Taurasi isn’t motivated by the medals or awards. She loves the vicious and unrelenting pursuit of more.
“I don’t think about (winning a sixth gold medal),” Taurasi said. “I know it might sound cliche, but I really am just focused on what’s next. That to me is what kept me playing for a long time. It’s the work you put in every day that keeps you coming back.”
She’s the unrivaled elder statesman of coach Cheryl Reeve’s squad. Reeve – who coaches the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx – has taken charge of her third Olympics team. Taurasi’s addition to her squad was expected as she’s the leading veteran for the country’s talent pool in terms of leadership and experience. While she is that leading figure, Taurasi is contributing at the highest levels for another reason.
She still has her edge.
“Diana, obviously, is one the all-time greatest competitors that the sport – not just women’s basketball – has ever seen,” Reeve said.
Brittney Griner is one of the sport’s most well-known figures. She is an NCAA champion after leading an undefeated Baylor Bears team to the 2011-12 title by winning that year’s Final Four Most Outstanding Player. Since entering the league in 2013, the center has played 11 seasons and is a WNBA champion (2014), 10-time All-Star, eight-time WNBA blocks leader, and two-time scoring champion, among a host of other accolades.
In 2022, Griner spent 293 days imprisoned on one charge of attempting to smuggle narcotics into Russia. Her arrest prompted global support to bring her back to home soil. Her story was national news, as attention was paid to her prison conditions and the growing controversy surrounding her capture. Nearly nine-and-a-half months after her arrest, Griner returned home as the United States released Russian arms deale…
Now in her first Olympic games since that ordeal, she’s found a new outlook on representing Team USA.
“I just appreciate everything more now,” Griner said. “Taking in the bonding, seeing everybody and the sights and appreciating that because it can be different.”
Rounding out the Phoenix trio in Paris is Copper. She was a league finals MVP for the Chicago Sky in 2021 before joining the Mercury for the 2024 season.
Although Griner and Taurasi were the unquestionable choices for Reeve, it’s Copper’s first time representing her country at the Summer Games. Having now spent 21 games with the team before the Olympic break, her Olympics coach believes that Cooper is ready for the heightened challenge thanks to her time under Nate Tibbetts in Phoenix.
“(Copper) has been the greatest beneficiary of the (Mercury) current system,” Reeve said. “Everything led her to have this opportunity. She was also building towards this in her prior (USA Basketball) camps.”
Copper is a four-time WNBA All-Star and a league champion. Despite the success, she had yet to make that elusive final Olympics roster for Reeve until 2024. Now that she’s here, while gold is expected, she’s just trying to represent Phoenix and best display what it has to offer to other players and the world at large.
“We’re a top organization,” Copper said. “I want to continue to let players know that Olympians play for the Phoenix Mercury and just get players to come and play with us.”
