The NBA Finals date back to 1947 (when they were known as the Basketball Association of America Finals) and the very 1st NCAA tourney was held in 1939. Olympic basketball competition is even older: it debuted as a demonstration event in 1904 and the men’s version became a medal sport in 1936, with the women finally getting their chance to go for the gold in 1976. The United States has dominated Olympic basketball competition from the start: the men have won 15 gold medals in the 18 tournaments they have participated in during the past 84 years, while the women have won 8 gold medals in the 10 tournaments in which they have competed during the past 44 years. Those of you who were looking forward to the 2020 Olympics opening ceremonies in Tokyo on July 24, 2020 will have to wait an extra 364 days, as the coronavirus caused a postponement until July 23, 2021. Due to the absence of college basketball since mid-March, HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel decided to fill the void by trying to interview as many prior Olympic players/coaches as possible so that you have something to read this summer while not watching the Summer Games. We continue our coverage by chatting with Karleigh Webb, Outsports contributing writer, about Brittney Griner winning an NCAA title in 2012 and a gold medal in 2016. Today marks the 6th anniversary of Brittney’s Phoenix Mercury team winning the 2014 WNBA title (despite Brittney missing the game due to surgery after being hit in the right eye during the previous game).
In 2009 Griner was named the nation’s #1 high school women’s basketball player at Nimitz High School and scored 20 PTS in the 2009 WBCA High School All-America Game: what made her choose Baylor? EVERYBODY wanted Brittney to come to their college because she was so dominant in high school. I think that Coach Kim Mulkey’s personality was a big factor, as well as the fact that Waco is only a few hours from Houston. I saw her as a very transformational player and in many ways she was: I thought that she would be a Lew Alcindor-type player in college due to her size/athleticism/court-savvy. She went to the Pete Newell big man camp each summer and she mastered a lot of moves that even NBA players could not.
She is 6’8” with an 88” wingspan and in 2010 she set an NCAA tourney record with 14 BLK in a win over Georgetown: what makes her such a great shot-blocker? It was her size/athleticism but she also understood what happened on the court. She was good on her feet, read the sight lines, and knew how things worked. She was so quick for her size: Dikembe Mutombo said that 60% of shot-blocking was being in the right place at the right time, which she does not get enough credit for even today.
In the 2012 NCAA title game she had 26 PTS/13 REB/5 BLK in a win over Notre Dame en route to being named tourney MOP and finishing 40-0 (the most wins in NCAA history): where does that Bears team rank among the greatest in the history of the sport? They were a total team and were good at everything. Brittney was dynamic but if she do not have the parts around her then she could not have gone undefeated. People thought that they would win the Big 12 title during her freshman year but they did not because it is not about just 1 player. I think the 2012 team was the best in women’s history, which is saying something when you consider other schools like Texas/Tennessee/UConn. The whole team did the dirty work, which was a major key. I would have loved to see them play any of the unbeaten UConn teams: it would be a titanic game!
Her 3283 career PTS is #4 in D-1 women’s history and her 748 career BLK is the most by a college player (men or women): how was she able to balance her scoring with her shot-blocking? She just goes out and plays. When she was at Baylor she tailored her emphasis to her opponents: some nights she would focus on offense and some nights she spent more time on defense. She would always get her PTS/REB/BLK and meet Coach Mulkey’s expectations. She had great ability but also great preparation: she averaged 32+ MPG because she could move and was in excellent condition so she could put the team on her back when necessary. Her high school coach said he had to kick her out of the gym so that she would not stay there all night: she is a gym rat who wants to work. God help anyone in Tokyo next summer!
She was a 3-time All-American/3-time national DPOY/2-time Wade Trophy winner: what did it mean to her to receive such outstanding honors? For her the biggest thing is how the team did. The accolades were great but cutting down the net in 2012 was better: to see her smile/tears shows how important it was to her. People view her as a behemoth but she has been a team kid since high school. Mulkey recruited her because she was a star player who did not feel like a star. She wants another WNBA title because she has won them at every level in every country. Her ultimate thing is rings, just like Bill Russell. I remember the last college game that she lost: she was crushed to lose but also because she felt that she had let her team down. She took it hard, as you could see by the way that she walked off the court. All great players are the same way, especially Diana Taurasi: they value team success and when the team does not do well they take it hard.
In the 2013 WNBA Draft she was selected 1st overall by Phoenix: did she see that as a validation of her college career, or the realization of a lifelong dream of reaching the WNBA, or other? It was 1 of the goals that she had since arriving at Baylor. She wanted to get there by helping her team win, so it was a lot of validation after an up-and-down 4 years in some ways. She had a lot of detractors and people who simply did not like her for whatever reason: there were some fans in the stands who said some nasty things and it was just not fair. She was much-debated in high school/college so to reach the WNBA showed that she was a woman playing among the best in the world.
In 2014 the Mercury set a WNBA record for most wins in 1 regular season with 29, then won the 3rd WNBA title in franchise history: where does that Mercury team rank among the greatest in the history of the sport? I do not know if they are the best but they are certainly in the discussion. The Comets had some great teams in the 1990s and the 2004 Seattle team was very strong. They broke Minnesota’s streak of having their own great run so you can make a serious case for them.
She played for team USA at the 2016 Olympics: what did it mean to her to represent her country, and what did it mean to her to win a gold medal? It was continued validation for her. I think that the Olympic experience can give fans/players a very different view of you. At 1 level it was just another goal that she reached but you get cheers when you wear that “USA” on your chest. Fans warmed to her more after 2016, even opposing fans, because it changed things around a little bit. The gold medal is the holy grail in women’s basketball: it is not just about playing a game but it is part of a movement that is hardwired into the narrative. It is the pinnacle of greatness and completed her string of winning convincingly at every level of the sport: everything after that is gravy.
In 2019 she led the league in scoring with 20.7 PPG while also leading the league in BLK for the 7th straight season: where does she rank among the best women’s basketball players ever? Now we are at a point where we can really have that discussion in earnest and start splitting those fine statistical hairs. It is too early to call her the best ever: I take extreme care because I do not like to rank people until their entire book is written. If she stopped playing today she would already make the Halls of Fame in Knoxville and Springfield. I think she is the best post player in women’s history: if we were picking teams I would take her over Lisa Leslie at her best. She has athleticism/aggressiveness and entered the league knowing how to use her size to her maximum advantage. Lisa eventually learned this after working with Coach Tara VanDerveer at the Olympics. If Brittney had gone to Stanford then she might even be more of a beast now. Overall it is difficult to say because she might not even be the best player on her own TEAM thanks to Taurasi! If you consider all of the criteria then you have to think about Cheryl Miller/Lynette Woodard/Sheryl Swoopes/Katie Smith/Lauren Jackson…but Brittney is right in that discussion. At age 30 it is still too early but she could keep playing another 5-7 years: I do not think we have seen the best of her yet, which is exciting for her fans and terrifying for her opponents.
She came out to her parents in high school, which did not go so well with her father, and after publicly coming out in 2013 she became the 1st openly gay athlete to have an endorsement deal with Nike: how important is her sexual orientation, and what does she mean to the LGBTQ community? There are a lot of layers to that and I am not privy to what happened before she entered the league. On 1 level it is just a shrug of the shoulders because women’s athletics is 25-30 years ahead of men’s athletics. On another level it is important that she came out and was embraced rather than castigated. To put it in context, if you go back to the early 1980s and saw a dominant athlete like Martina Navratilova come out, people were taking 2-3 steps backward because you had tolerance but not acceptance. 30 years later there was an official embrace by Nike: they would not hide it but rather let her shine front and center, which was a big deal because it pushed the door open. She was the right athlete at the right time and did her part on the court. For a lot of fans who think progressively it meant a lot. Sports is a place of refuge and shows how far that we have come: we still have a long way to go but she was a major catalyst in making up a lot of ground in a short amount of time. I think the next few years, especially as she hits her 30s, will see her fandom increase as people warm up to her. I think her best both on and off the court is yet to come.