TORRANCE — The Liz Cambage era in L.A. is through. Abruptly, after 25 games as a member of the Sparks, they announced Tuesday morning that they agreed to a buyout with the stylish star center.
Whatever. What’s most important is how Cambage is doing.
Sure, her sudden departure is a disappointment for basketball fans, for Sparks fans especially, and for the Sparks too. They were banking on the 6-foot-8 Cambage, with her charisma and model looks, to help recapture the attention of a city that Vanessa Shay, the team’s new president of business operations, described as having “forgotten about the Sparks.”
But after practice Tuesday, Fred Williams, the team’s interim head coach and a friend of Cambage’s, repeatedly expressed surprise.
Williams, who took over after the Sparks dismissed former coach and general manager Derek Fisher in early June, is 65. An Inglewood native, he coached the USC women’s team for two years in the mid-1990s. Then, with the exception of just a few summers, he’s coached in the WNBA as either a head or assistant coach since 1998.
He’s seen plenty.
But Tuesday, he made it clear he was caught off guard by Cambage’s decision, indicating he didn’t know “what’s up” with the four-time All-Star. And he and the sometimes-brash Cambage have long been cool.
They got along so well when he was her coach in Dallas four seasons ago that there was even a pinky promise over dinner one night that somehow, someway, they’d find a way to work together in L.A. – where Cambage dreamed of playing since she was 19, some 11 years ago.
It’s been an eventful season in L.A. for everyone, including Cambage. In May, the Australian star denied allegations that she made racist comments last year during a pre-Olympic scrimmage scuffle against the Nigerian team.
And she recently missed a pair of games following a third, thankfully mild case of COVID.
Liz Cambage: “It’s nice to be back. I’m just happy to be here at the moment,” said Cambage when describing her third time testing positive COVID on July 14. This interview is from July 21, which was her second to last game as a member of the Los Angeles Sparks. #WNBATwitter pic.twitter.com/oY19k3PQhg
— John W. Davis (@johnwdavis) July 26, 2022
Her final game with the Sparks – and, who knows, in the WNBA? – came Saturday in Las Vegas against the Aces, her former team.
Cambage had 11 points on 4-for-7 shooting and grabbed five rebounds in 22 minutes. The Sparks lost, 84-66, and fell to 12-15, still scrapping for a playoff berth with nine regular-season games remaining.
Between that outing and Tuesday morning’s official announcement, Cambage called it.
“I was really, I was surprised a little,” Williams said. “It was kind of an emotional shock. A lot of it was she played her former team that she’s with and a lot of emotions flew around. It was a surprise. But I have to respect what she wants.
“Once a person gives you that verbally what she wants, you have to listen because it could be something else, could be something that’s not related to basketball.”
It could be. It could not be.
“You have to ask Liz some of these questions because,” Williams reasserted, “we don’t know what she’s going through.”
In August 2019, when she played for Las Vegas, Cambage let us all in on some of what she’d been going through with a “Players Tribune” piece titled: “DNP – Mental Health.”
It began:
“Have you all in the States ever heard of a rip?
“Or I think it’s riptide for long. But it’s this thing where, one moment you might be having a normal sunny day at the beach, no big deal. You’re chilling, you’re swimming around with your friends. And then the next moment – what you don’t even realize, is that slowly but surely the current has been dragging you out into the ocean. And now the water is getting deeper and deeper … and your friends have all disappeared … and it doesn’t feel so sunny anymore … and you can’t move … and you can’t breathe … until suddenly it’s just you, alone, under these enormous, dark waves. …
“And you drown.
“That’s a rip.
“It’s also the closest I can come to describing what it’s like when I’m depressed.”
Williams wasn’t the only member of the Sparks who was stunned and concerned by Cambage’s decision, but he was the only member of the team to address the media Tuesday at Jump Beyond Sports.
At the same facility on media day in April, Cambage smiled and joked and turned heads when she predicted “the most wild summer WNBA’s ever seen!” She promised “crowd’s gonna be lit, building’s gonna be lit, women’s basketball gonna be lit … and we’re gonna have a ring at the end of it.”
The ring ain’t the thing, though.
Williams said he hopes Cambage hasn’t played her final WNBA game.
First, though, he said he wants her to take care of herself.
“She has room right now to check the temperature of herself,” he said.
Sparks interim head coach Fred Williams shares his reaction to center Liz Cambage’s contract buyout. (Part 1) #WNBATwitter pic.twitter.com/JhmkPcMynv
— John W. Davis (@johnwdavis) July 26, 2022
