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11 hours ago
It’s nan 4th fourth of a tense, adjacent bout successful Los Angeles betwixt nan hometown Sparks and nan Indiana Fever. The crippled has superior playoff implications for some teams, truthful each bucket feels fraught, and it’s going down to nan wire. Cameron Brink, nan 6ft 4in second-year Sparks halfway pinch an unmistakable Rapunzel-esque blonde braid has fouled retired of nan game, but you wouldn’t cognize it from her enthusiasm connected nan bench. No 1 is clapping harder, cheering louder, for her teammates.
That’s basal to who Brink is, according to everyone I talk to astir nan squad successful their last push for nan playoffs successful caller weeks – nan Sparks are successful a conflict pinch Seattle Storm for nan last spot. Brink is 1 of nan brightest young stars successful nan W, securing a slew of endorsements (including a high-profile woody pinch New Balance which made her nan first female hoops player connected their talent roster), but Brink is simply a acold outcry from nan myopic, self-centered stereotype of a star.
“One point I’ve noticed astir her, she’s really intentional astir including niche groups of people,” teammate Azurá Stevens tells me. “I deliberation that’s a really cool trait that she has, pinch each her notoriety.” Is that different for personification pinch Brink’s profile, I ask? “I deliberation sometimes erstwhile group person a definite status, they don’t ever deliberation of everybody. So I deliberation for her having nan position that she has and to ever want everybody to consciousness included, fans, group successful general, I deliberation that’s really cool.”
Brink, a highly touted enlistee retired of Stanford who went No 2 wide successful past year’s WNBA draft, had a promising commencement to her rookie season, starting nan first 15 games for nan Sparks. But nan basking commencement was trim jarringly short when she tore her ACL successful mid-June 2024, starring to a 13-month absence from nan court. The forced hiatus was a curse, of course, but besides thing of a blessing. It allowed nan now 23-year-old a infinitesimal for introspection, and clip to research immoderate of her non-basketball interests.
“I decidedly conscionable benignant of explored a batch of areas of my life, it made maine really recognize really finite hoops is successful nan expansive strategy of things,” Brink tells maine successful Los Angeles. “It’s thing that I’m realistically only going to do for, probably, 15 years astatine most. So it really benignant of … Honestly, I was benignant of connected this belief travel of figuring out, you know, who I americium extracurricular of basketball.”
Those different interests person been divers making love backmost to childhood, she says. “I saw myself being an artist, aliases personification creative,” Brink tells maine of her youthful aspirations, pre-basketball career. “I grew up successful a really loving, free family truthful they benignant of didn’t unit maine into anything. I loved pottery, pastels, each that benignant of stuff. My parents ever sent maine to creation camp, and I would decidedly effort each benignant of medium; I was conscionable super, ace creative.”
In summation to a penchant for nan ocular arts (which has manifested, of late, arsenic an interest successful fashion), Brink’s imaginative streak was expressed down nan mic this twelvemonth pinch Straight to Cam, a podcast she co-hosts pinch her god-sister Sydel Curry (sister to NBA players Stephen and Seth Curry). It was an acquisition she relished, but 1 she is taking a break from successful bid to displacement her focus. That focus? Basketball, and figuring retired really to make a existent effect successful nan world, thing that has go of expanding value to nan Oregon native.
“I’m really taking a break from nan podcast, which, it was honestly 1 of nan champion experiences of my life,” she tells me. “It was conscionable time-consuming, and I consciousness for illustration I conscionable want to move each of my power into basketball. I do think, successful nan future, I [would] emotion having a level to talk astir things [again]. But I deliberation I want to move towards helping marginalized groups, moving possibly much truthful successful fashion, possibly moving [for example] connected shoes that fresh group that aren’t successful nan normal size range, aliases clothing. I deliberation I’m still really trying to fig retired my niche. I emotion doing nan podcast, I conscionable consciousness for illustration I don’t request to person that benignant of level correct now. I tin effort and do things and activity down nan scenes, and really attraction connected nan on-court stuff, and nan remainder tin travel from there.”
In a twelvemonth of large questions and meaningful introspection, Brink has successfully “kept nan main point nan main thing”, Sparks caput coach Lynne Roberts tells me. I inquire what proposal she had, if any, for Brink successful coming backmost from specified a terrible injury, arsenic specified a high-profile young athlete. “I conscionable told her, effort to return immoderate aerial retired of nan tires, not put truthful overmuch pressure,” she says. “It’s difficult to travel backmost from being retired 13 months, it’s not gonna travel backmost for illustration riding a bike. It’s gonna return a bit.” Roberts is impressed, she tells me, pinch nan attraction and strength pinch which Brink has bounced back, pinch her capacity to compartmentalize and tune retired nan noise. “She wants to beryllium great. And I deliberation there’s a batch much she tin do, and she tin make a batch of money, but she wants to beryllium awesome astatine basketball.”
Even coming from a hoops family, being “great astatine basketball” and nan pursuit therein wasn’t ever needfully successful nan cards for Brink, who said successful a caller interview, “I tried to put disconnected loving hoops for arsenic agelong arsenic possible, but falling for it was inevitable.” But absence does thin to make nan bosom turn fonder, and her clip distant only served to crystallize her emotion and passion for nan sport. “It was really eye-opening,” Brink tells maine of her clip connected nan sidelines, and nan self-discovery and expansiveness that came pinch it. “But I deliberation I conscionable really missed basketball, and I came backmost conscionable guns a-blazing, missing it truthful much.”
Off nan court, Brink has been a vocal advocator for intelligence health. She has spoken astir her ain struggles connected Philadelphia 76ers prima Paul George’s podcast, Podcast P – an quality she says led Wave Sports, nan show’s accumulation company, to attack her pinch nan thought of hosting her ain podcast, which became Straight to Cam.
I inquire her if she plans to usage her newfound media level to proceed that advocacy, aliases incorporated different avenues to do so. “I don’t know, I deliberation alternatively of conscionable talking astir it, [I want to be] really doing things to thief facilitate immoderate change, I don’t cognize precisely what that is correct now and it’s easy for maine to say, but I’m benignant of tired of being successful beforehand of nan camera but not really trying to do anything,” she says. “I want to fig retired ways to effort and impact myself. It’s hard, I’m really trying to conscionable get done nan remainder of nan season, but aft nan season, I’m really excited to benignant of spell connected immoderate journeys to fig retired what really fuels me, what really makes maine consciousness arsenic satisfied arsenic I consciousness playing basketball.”
The reply is revealing of some nan odyssey of self-discovery she’s traversed complete nan past twelvemonth and a half, and Brink arsenic a person: she is, astatine once, an incredibly intelligent and passionate female pinch large ambitions and nan world astatine her fingertips, and, also, a 23-year-old who is still conscionable learning who she is, and doing truthful successful nan spotlight.
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