24 Hours From Tulsa

It’s an exciting time for women’s basketball in Australia and for none more so than Elizabeth Cambage.

Having just completed a dominant season for the recently crowned WNBL premier Bulleen, Cambage was on Monday night voted the league’s Most Valuable Player.

The next step in the 19 year old’s bright future will take place next Tuesday when the WNBA, the world's premier female basketball competition, conducts its 15th annual draft. It’s an event which owing to the league’s increasing popularity will be screened live from ESPN’s Connecticut studios for the first time and where many analysts have Cambage rated as a top 3 prospect.

Cambage left for the U.S with her mother Julie the morning after winning the MVP and although excited about the trip she has some reservations about playing in the WNBA, particularly if drafted by the Tulsa Shock who hold the number 2 pick.
“I don’t want to play at Tulsa,” Cambage recently told the Herald Sun. “I’ve made that clear. They want to make me a franchise player, but I’m not going to the WNBA for that.”

Although in many ways it’s somewhat of a shame Cambage has taken this attitude towards Tulsa, the reality for Cambage (and for many teenaged professional athletes for that matter) is that the city of Tulsa in Oklahoma holds little to no appeal. Nor do the Shock, who relocated from Detroit last year and posted a league worst 6-28 record in their first season and attracted among the league’s smallest crowds, averaging just over 4,000 per game.

Predictably Cambage has stated a preference for playing in Los Angeles with the Sparks, cheekily suggesting she’d “look good in purple and yellow”. Indeed Los Angeles would hold plenty of appeal for any of the potential draftees based on it being a successful franchise which consistently features in the playoffs and who regularly attracts crowds in excess of 10,000.

The trouble for Cambage however is that the two-time WNBA champion Sparks won’t have a pick until selection 5 by which time it’s highly likely Cambage, with her size, ability and limitless potential would have already been snapped up. In essence the only conceivable way Cambage could find herself in LA would be as a result of a very complicated, multi-team draft day trade and based solely on how desperately the Sparks want the services of the 203cm starlet.

In the event Los Angeles doesn’t make a move for Cambage, her next best option could be the Chicago Sky who hold the 3rd pick in the draft and could appeal to Cambage based on being a far larger, much more cosmopolitan destination than Tulsa. Once again however, Chicago, like Tulsa, has struggled since their inception in 2006 having never made the playoffs and who attract even fewer fans than the Shock. In addition Chicago, like Tulsa, would certainly be requiring a greater and more immediate contribution from Cambage should she be drafted.

It all makes for a genuinely exciting, however agonising wait for Cambage who for a rare time must endure the experience of having absolutely no control over a situation. The wait will end Tuesday, having hopefully proven worthwhile.