Lisa Leslie On Griner, Lobo and Olympic Team

[easttexastrash]

http://larrybrownsports.com/olympics/lisa-leslie-brittney-griner-olympics/127422

Can't say that I would be very happy with Leslie's remarks if I were Lobo. I am not sure why she felt the need to say this so many years later.

 

[sarals24]

Yeah, that was a bit uncalled for. You have to be game-changer to be named to the Olympic team? Obviously Lobo deserved to be there, and they usually pull up a player that will have a future impact.

 

[rocky rococo]

It's a very old story. There's no doubt that Lobo herself long since moved on and left that nonsense entirely behind. Even most UConn fans, who were always more upset about the talk than Lobo ever was, have let go in the knowledge that Rebecca has nothing left to prove to anyone as a contributor to the sport in several roles. It's very telling that it's still the old war horses like Lisa that carry their grudge from that time.

 

[Buckaroobanzai]

"Grudge?" I think that we are being a bit over sensitive. Leslie's comments are not critical of Rebecca Lobo - they simply express the reality of that selection process. Rebecca Lobo was a really good basketball player. Brittany Griner is an unalloyed game changer. They are really not comparable.

 

[CamrnCrz1974]

If I recall correctly, Lobo was not the final player selected. Venus Lacey was.

 

[DudleyDoRight]

Lisa, the horse is dead...dismount!

 

[Dairyair]

It DOES smell a bit like sour grapes on Leslie's part, not sure of the point of her even mentioning Lobo...I'd guess the writer may have brought it up?
BTW, Lobo certainly changed the game for UConn, and I became a fan of the team after seeing the 10-second sports report on her in '94, and I'll always be a huge fan of #50.

 

[EricLA]

she never really had a huge career as a pro. at least not like Leslie or Tina Thompson or some of the others who had 10+ years of great stats in the pros. she played for the Liberty for 5 years and her first 2 averaged just over 10 PPG. very solid, but i'm not sure what happened after that. i the speed and athleticism of other players sort of passed her by. or maybe it was the ACL she suffered and she never regained 100% of her mobility, etc.

still, she was a superstar for UCONN and a major coup from a recruiting perspective. it's said she was recruited by over 100 schools. but she chose UCONN and the rest is history... she indeed was a game changer for UCONN. and she's a fantastic announcer too.

 

[cferraro04]

Always was a fan of Lisa Leslie's basketball ability but was never a fan of her mouth. Unfortunately, I see that some things never change.

 

[JoePgh]

Rebecca was a WNBA All-Star in either her first or second year for the Liberty. Then she suffered several ACL and other injuries and was never the same again -- no mobility at all. That is 100% of the reason for her lackluster pro career.

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk

 

[SallyH]

she never really had a huge career as a pro. at least not like Leslie or Tina Thompson or some of the others who had 10+ years of great stats in the pros. she played for the Liberty for 5 years and her first 2 averaged just over 10 PPG. very solid, but i'm not sure what happened after that. i the speed and athleticism of other players sort of passed her by. or maybe it was the ACL she suffered and she never regained 100% of her mobility, etc.

still, she was a superstar for UCONN and a major coup from a recruiting perspective. it's said she was recruited by over 100 schools. but she chose UCONN and the rest is history... she indeed was a game changer for UCONN. and she's a fantastic announcer too.

Also, at the time she (Lobo)was a media darling. Wasn't that also the beginning of the WNBA? Players like Leslie had been playing in Europe for years and probably resented the fact that it took Rebecca Lobo to generate enough interest in the women's game to start the league. That's my recollection, but I could be wrong.

 

[sarals24]

Yeah, Lobo had the fortune and misfortune of being born at the exact right moment to capitalize on the growing popularity of the sport. I'm sure the others who really did pave the way resented her.

 

[alexrgct]

Yeah, Lobo had the fortune and misfortune of being born at the exact right moment to capitalize on the growing popularity of the sport. I'm sure the others who really did pave the way resented her.

But to her credit, she was the NPOY at the collegiate level on an undefeated national champion. Additionally, she was bright and articulate, really the perfect person to be the face of a growing sport (especially when there were no professional American leagues at the time, and even when there were, the college game remained more popular and followed for a variety of reasons).

Sounds like WCBB had no Billie Jean King, and what I mean by that is as follows. As Chrissy Evert burst on the scene in the early 1970s, a lot of the women in the locker room were inclined to resent her. BJK basically said to anyone who would listen, "Shut up, you fools- this girl can take women's tennis further than any of us have been able to up to this point." Chrissy would go on to do just that. Although Lobo didn't do the same for WBB, it doesn't appear that she had that kind of advocate in her corner when she had the opportunity to do so.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

Lobo was wonderful for the game of basketball, but her college career was truly much better than her pro career. Partly due to the injuries as indicated, but also simply because her game was more contributory than leading at the pro level. I always felt she performed as expected, decent scoring, solid rebounding, and the intangibles, but the expectations by other Liberty fans would have expected her to be the leading scorer and all around top star of the team, and she wasn't that, which was between Weatherspoon, Witherspoon, and Vickie Johnson.

 

[CamrnCrz1974]

Rebecca was a WNBA All-Star in either her first or second year for the Liberty. Then she suffered several ACL and other injuries and was never the same again -- no mobility at all. That is 100% of the reason for her lackluster pro career.

She was an All Star in her third year (1999), the year she suffered the ACL. That was the first year the All Star game was held. She was voted an All Star starter by the fans. There was no All Star game held in Lobo's first two seasons.

 

[Kibitzer]

Rebecca is (still?) a trustee of the University of Connecticut. She is also a top commentator on ESPN. From these lofty perches I doubt she much cares what Lisa Leslie has to say about anything.

From my more modest surroundings, neither do I.

 

[CamrnCrz1974]

This is what Lisa Leslie said:

"I believe Rebecca Lobo was the first collegiate player to join the Olympic team. She wasn’t a game-changer. It was more of a political thing I think and we took her with us. We had great team chemistry and we gelled and learned a lot from each other. It turned out to be great. I think Griner is a different situation. She’s a player who would deserve to be there because of her skills and her ability to change a game.”

What is true is that on that Olympic team, Lobo was not a game-changer. She was not Leslie, Swoopes, or Katrina McClain. But, if I recally correctly, Nikki McCray (who graduated in 1995) was the same age/year as Lobo and also was not a game-changer (and, like Lobo, had just come from the collegiate ranks). While Lobo was not a game-changer on that team (in other words, a player like Griner), neither was McCray, though Leslie did not mention Nikki in this discussion.

Did politics play a role? UConn was coming off an undefeated season and was in the process of beginning what some thought would be a dynasty (which later came true). Perhaps politics played a role; perhaps not. But Lobo was a "stretch 4" (a power forward with range who could shoot the three), which added a new dimension to the team. Leslie did not have the range on her shot that she did later in her career, and McClain was more of an interior player, as was Carla McGhee. Lacey was a center, and Steding was a wing. So Lobo did add a different dimension to that team, even though she was not thought of as a game-changer the way Griner is.

Again, not sure why Leslie felt the need to state the obvious or why she excluded Nikki McCray when discussing Lobo.