Brief Essays With Pictures

Becky Hammon, a talented basketball player who was the runner-up in last year’s WNBA MVP balloting, will be playing for Russia in this year’s Olympics. ESPN has been covering this story, both with the aforementioned column, and during an Outside the Lines piece last week.

The gist of the story goes like this: Becky Hammon is a very good player without very good connections. She has, despite excellent statistics that more than match players who easily made the American Olympic squad, been unable to get an opportunity from the American’s Olympic committee. Wanting to play in the Olympics, she was interested when the Russians offered her a chance to play after she decided to play professional basketball in Russia as well as America.

Thus, in a few weeks, she will be suiting up against Americans, despite herself being a full-blooded American who wanted to play for the American team. Just imagine the sort of bullshit we might end up hearing once the Olympics get going, blaming Hammon for abandoning her country, not being patriotic, and whatever else. ESPN’s Outside The Lines piece featured the management of the women’s team basically suggesting that Hammon wasn’t being patriotic by playing for Russia, and that she should have been happy to have been ignored by the American squad.

Honestly, I almost hope that Hammon wins gold, so that this sort of coterie of decision makers end up with egg all over their faces. It is clear that Hammon is good enough for the American Olympic squad, and the only thing keeping her off it were unseen, behind the scenes forces. That American officials would then tell her to be honored to have been ignored and treated badly is then beyond the pale, isn’t it? If these teams aren’t going to be picked by anybody attempting to be fair, it’s hardly appropriate for them to turn around and criticize players who pursue opportunities that they weren’t being given. It isn’t like Hammon stuck a thumb in the eye of Americans who wanted her; she stuck her thumb in the eye of Americans who inexplicably treated her badly.

(Here’s the Outside The Lines segment.)

This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 12:09 AM and is filed under Blog Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.