‘Now you’re able to see us’: WNBA star Chelsea Gray looks back on the Olympics and ahead to the future of women’s basketball
By Sam Joseph, CNN
(CNN) — There isn’t much that Chelsea Gray hasn’t done in the game of basketball.
The Las Vegas Aces star is a three-time WNBA champion, a Finals MVP, a four-time All-Star and has made multiple All-WNBA teams. And after Team USA’s victory in Paris, she can now call herself a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
Gray won her first gold in Tokyo three years ago, but her family was unable to travel to the Japanese capital to watch her play due to covid-19 restrictions. This year however, Gray had her loved ones in the stands inside Paris’ Bercy Arena, watching her and her teammates make history with an eighth straight Olympic title for the US.
“My son being there to witness that was amazing,” she told CNN Sport. “And then just achieving my dream, honestly. And people looking at the Olympics and maybe young kids looking to see someone that looks like them achieve their dreams at the highest level possible, like you’re one of the best in the world. And so to be on that team, to be one of 12, was an amazing feeling and I’m never taking that for granted.
“Moments like that, you can’t get back … my parents being able to be there, my younger brother, my wife, everybody being there, sharing the moments was like a culmination of all the hard work that I’ve put in.”
‘Wow, this really just happened’
Entering the women’s gold medal game on August 11, Team USA had a 60-game Olympic win streak that dated all the way back to the 1992 Games in Barcelona. And at multiple points during the matchup, that unprecedented winning record was hanging in the balance.
On the other side of the court was an inspired French squad that had watched their male counterparts push the LeBron James-led American side all the way in the men’s final, before some late-game heroics from two-time NBA MVP Steph Curry secured the gold for the US.
Roared on by the adoring home crowd, France opened up a 10-point lead in the third quarter over the loaded American group that featured WNBA superstars such as A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart and Diana Taurasi. Team USA recovered to head into the final period with a two-point lead, but every time it seemed as though the Americans were poised for victory, the French refused to go away.
In the end, the game came down to the final play and couple of inches separated the gold and silver medalists.
After Kahleah Copper made two clutch three throws to give the US a 67-64 lead with three seconds left, France’s Gabby Williams barreled down the floor and heaved up a deep jumper from the edge of the three-point arc at the buzzer as the world watched with bated breath. The shot banked off the glass and found the bottom of the bucket, but it was the Team USA that wound up celebrating – Williams’ foot was on the line and her shot only counted for two, not three.
Gray admitted that it was a “mixture of both” joy and relief when the buzzer sounded and the ruling was made but knew that Williams’ shot was a two from her vantage point on the sideline.
“It came down to the wire the last minute, people just making huge plays, to get that dub,” said the 31-year-old. “So it was an excitement of like, ‘Wow, this really just happened and I am a two-time gold medalist.’”
The win gave Team USA a record-extending eighth gold medal in a row. Is it time to start talking about the US women’s team as the most dominant basketball dynasty of all time?
“I think you can start having that conversation,” said Gray. “You talk about Hall of Famers, you can talk about the legacy. A lot of people talk about it after they’re done playing or after a streak is broken. And I’m like, why not have the conversation about it while they’re playing?”
Is a WNBA three-peat on the cards?
After a tough Olympic campaign that saw a record 31 WNBA athletes feature across both the 5×5 and 3×3 competitions, players were swiftly required to turn their attention back to domestic competition.
After a month-long break for the Games, the WNBA season resumed four days after the gold medal game on August 15, meaning that a quick adjustment from the FIBA rules and international setting was required for several players.
“I always say that athletes – especially athletes from the W[NBA] – are professional compartmentalizers,” Gray explained. “We’re able to compartmentalize like no other. You have to pause your instincts, your thought process, the play, the terminology for that team and go over there and try to create chemistry throughout a game.
“So playing with people like BG [Griner], Diana [Taurasi] and you have Stewie [Stewart] and you have players that you’re used to taking those things away from, and now you want to put them in the best position possible.”
With their focus back on the WNBA, Gray and the Aces can continue their quest for history. After winning the 2022 and 2023 WNBA championships, Las Vegas is looking to become only the second team to win a three-peat. The Houston Comets won the first four WNBA Finals from 1997 to 2000 before folding in 2008.
The difficulty of the task ahead is not lost on Gray, who also won a championship with the Los Angeles Sparks in 2016.
“It was so hard to win the first one and then, OK, we’ve got to come back another year,” she said. “And it’s even harder to win the second one. And then we come back and they don’t expect us to win the third one. It’s going to be even harder to try to achieve that.
“We try to take it one game at a time because, if you lose focus on the smaller picture, then the big picture never happens.”
The Aces currently sit at 18-12 as teams enter the final quarter of the regular season. The squad features a plethora of star talent, including Gray’s US teammates Kelsey Plum, Jackie Young and two-time MVP Wilson, who Gray describes as “the best player in the world right now.”
“It’s a luxury for me to be able to play with someone like her,” she said.
‘Visibility is extremely important’
With basketball at the forefront, women’s sport is experiencing a boom in interest, revenue and viewership. Tennis icon Serena Williams told CNN Sport’s Amanda Davies in April that “women’s sport is having a moment that it always should’ve had.”
The WNBA has set multiple viewership and attendance records this season, with players arguing that the recognition is long overdue.
“I think the visibility is extremely important,” said Gray. “Now, you’re able to see us. It’s not hard to find us and people are seeing the product. The audience continues to grow.”
Much of the attention on the league has been placed on the 2024 rookie class, headlined by the No. 1 overall pick Caitlin Clark. After reaching superstar levels and shattering a myriad of records in college at Iowa, ‘Clark-mania’ arrived in the league in May, with her debut drawing the largest WNBA audience in two decades.
Along with other big-name rookies such as Angel Reese, Cameron Brink and Gray’s teammate Kate Martin, this batch of new talent has been credited with bringing more eyes to the professional women’s game.
For players like Gray, the hype surrounding the league and the spike in viewership can only be seen as a positive, but those who paved the way cannot be forgotten.
“There’s people that came before [the rookie class] that allowed this to happen because there’s no viewership without the people that came before me and them,” she explained. “And, you know, there’s been foundations and bricks laid before they even came into the league.”
Whether it’s fair or not to attribute the league’s rise in popularity to Clark and Co., what’s certain is that the WNBA is only continuing to grow. The league is set to expand from 12 to 14 teams, with the Golden State Valkyries scheduled to join the competition in 2025 and a Toronto-based team to be added in 2026.
Gray, a Bay Area native, can barely contain her excitement at the upcoming expansion. Having hit lofty heights in the league since being drafted 10 years ago by the Connecticut Sun, she has not forgotten her roots.
“We have a team coming to the Bay Area … this is what I’ve been hoping and waiting for since I was a young girl,” she said. “And so now, somebody that looks like me or is growing up in that area is now able to grow up with a WNBA team right in their backyard.”
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