Meet the women’s U.S. Olympic basketball team that pretty much never loses
Team USA’s most dominant Olympic team is back with potentially one of its best rosters ever — meet the 12 WNBA players that make up the team.
The 2024 U.S. Women’s Olympic Basketball team has the potential to be one of the greatest assemblages of talent ever. The women’s program is among the most dominant in all ofsports, with a 70-3 all-time record in Olympic play and a record seven consecutive Olympic titles.
Plus, they haven't lost an official game since 1992.
So, with group play tipping off in France on Monday, July 29, let’s get to know each member of the roster, via our series of profiles in the lead-up to the games.
Diana Taurasi, the oldest player in the WNBA, is looking for her sixth Olympic gold medal
At 42, Diana Taurasi is by far the oldest WNBA player, but remains an elite point guard, averaging 16.1 points and 4.2 assists per night. Taurasi is five years older than the second-oldest player in the league, Alysha Clark, who is 37 and comes off the bench for Las Vegas. Taurasi, in part, credits her longevity to her plant-based diet.
“I have been vegan for about three years now and I think it is something I have really benefited from,” she told Women’s Fitness in 2015. “Just staying away from foods that cause a lot of inflammation, fats and sugars that everyone knows are obviously a little counterproductive if you eat large amounts of them.”
Taurasi has been remarkably consistent throughout her career, averaging double-digits in each of her 19 seasons. That type of longevity is unparalleled in the WNBA, and Taurasi hasn’t shown many signs of slowing down. Her stats for this season aren’t significantly lower than her career averages — Taurasi is averaging 16.1 points this season, having averaged 19 points for her career.
Read more things to know about Diana Taurasi here.
A’ja Wilson is the consensus best player in the world
A’ja Wilson is a two-time league MVP, a two-time Defensive Player of the Year, and last year’s Finals MVP. Yet — somehow — she’s playing her best basketball right now. Wilson is averaging a 27.2 points per game on 52.7% shooting, the highest scoring average of any player in the WNBA. She’s the league’s second-best rebounder, with 11.9 boards a game, and she’s the leading shotblocker, averaging 2.8 blocks per night.
As it currently stands, Wilson seems to be the leading candidate for two distinct regular season honors – MVP and DPOY. Her college coach, Dawn Staley, recently stated she believed Wilson should win both awards, as well as the Most Improved Player honor.
That’s not likely to happen, but Staley’s sentiment reflects the fact that Wilson has somehow managed to elevate her game even further this season.
Read about how A’ja Wilson used to hate basketball, but now she’s Team USA’s best player here.
Napheesa Collier is launching her own basketball league while playing at a WNBA MVP-level
Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, close friends since their shared time at the University of Connecticut, recently announced the launch of a new basketball league that could very well change the landscape of professional women’s basketball.
Recognizing that the league’s stars have to spend their offseason overseas, the two decided to pair up to launch Unrivaled, a three-on-three basketball league based in Miami that 30 WNBA stars will compete in starting in January. One of the unique components of the league is the pay — all salaries will be six figures, and participating players will also hold equity.
“It’s really important to us,” Collier told The Associated Press. “Compensation is a huge part of Unrivaled as a league and a business. All the players in this first year will have equity in the league. For players to have a piece of the pie essentially to grow their generational wealth is something we’re really excited about.”
Read more about why Napheesa Collier could be the most underrated player on Team USA here.
Breanna Stewart ruptured her Achilles, somehow got better, and is in the GOAT conversation
Few resumes — in any sports — rival Breanna Stewart. Stewart — often referred to as “Stewie” — has two WNBA championships under her belt (2018, 2020) and two accompanying Finals MVPs. She’s won league MVP twice (2018, 2023) and been named to the All-WNBA First Team five times (2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023).
Prior to becoming a professional, she led UConn to four consecutive national championships, the type of sustained dominance we very well might not see again in college basketball. In all four runs, Stewart was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player as the Huskies achieved a rare four-peat.
Her transition to the pros was pretty seamless; she was named Rookie of the Year in her first year and was an All-Star by her second. Just a few years after that, Stewie was firmly placed in women’s basketball GOAT debate.
Perhaps the wildest part is — she’s only 29. So, the lengthy and nearly unrivaled list of accomplishments is still growing.
Read more about how Breanna Stewart’s resume is as storied as they come here.
Sabrina Ionescu holds an NBA and a WNBA three-point contest record
Last year, Ionescu made history by scoring 37 points in the Starry 3-Point Contest — she shot 23/25 from the field, and 2/2 on extra balls. That marked the highest point total by any WNBA or NBA player at an All-Star Weekend, and her performance became a viral sensation.
As a result of that record-breaking performance, Ionescu opted to participate in a three-point contest against Steph Curry, which became a flagship event at NBA All-Star weekend, hailed as Steph vs Sabrina. She ultimately fell to Curry, scoring 26 points to his 29.
“Me and Sabrina talked about how cool of an opportunity it is to do something that’s never been done before in our game,” Curry said after the game. “And for her to have a presence on this stage is going to do a lot to inspire the next generation of young boys and girls that want to compete and see themselves in either one of us. Wherever it goes from there, we know we can kind of plant our flag as doing something really special.”
Read more about how Sabrina Ionescu and her sneakers both broke records this year here.
Kahleah Copper, the 2021 Finals MVP, went from bench player to superstar nearly overnight
Early on in Kahleah Copper’s career, it seemed unlikely that she would one day be a Finals MVP. She came off the bench in her first three seasons with the Sky, playing around 15 minutes a night and averaging less than 7 points per game.
She was effective, and a reliable contributor — but didn’t appear to be on the brink of stardom.
That all changed quickly. Copper was elevated to Chicago’s starting lineup in 2020, and immediately capitalized on the opportunity, averaging 14.8 points per game on 49.6% shooting in her first season as a starter. The following season, in 2021, she was named an All-Star for the first time — and subsequently led the Sky to a first-ever title. After averaging 17.7 points on 52% shooting throughout the 2021 postseason, Copper was named Finals MVP.
So far this season, Kahleah Copper is averaging a career-high 23.3 points, the second-most of any WNBA player, behind two-time MVP A’ja Wilson. A 35.6% career three-point shooter, she’s long shown she can score at all three levels — regularly driving to the basket, sinking midranges, and hitting threes.
Copper has been on an absolute heater through the first half of the WNBA season — she’s already scored at least 30 points eight times in 20 games. Her scoring prowess was highlighted by a stretch in May in which she exploded for 38 points against the Dream and followed that up with 37 point showing against the Aces.
Jewell Loyd has lived up to her ‘Gold Mamba’ nickname
Jewell Loyd averaged a career-high 24.7 points per game during the 2023 regular season, the highest among all WNBA players. Her 939 total points were also good for first overal.
As a kid, she was primarily a tennis player, and viewed basketball as more of a side hobby. But one day, a couple of boys at the park excluded her from playing basketball with them, and so she ended up teaming up with her older brother and matching up against them. That heated basketball game — punctuated by her brother dunking in such a dramatic fashion he evoked images of Michael Jordan in her mind — changed everything.
“This is what drives me, this is what I want,” she said, reflecting on that afternoon at the park. “Ever since then, I was locked in.”
Kobe Bryant famously gave two WNBA stars offshoot Mamba Mentality nicknames: Diana Taurasi and Jewell Loyd. He heralded Taurasi, the league’s all-time leading scorer, as the White Mamba, and subsequently gave Loyd a Mamba nickname of her own — the ‘Gold Mamba.’
“That name brings a smile to my face. It brings a lot of memories, conversations, of someone who just inspired me and believed in me,” Loyd said in her Andscape video series.
Read more about Jewell Loyd’s scoring prowess and Olympic aspirations here.
After spending a year in Russian captivity, Brittney Griner is particularly proud to represent Team USA
Brittney Griner was playing basketball overseas with the Russian Premier League when she was arrested for possession of less than a gram of medically prescribed hash oil. After an uncertain and public detainment that spanned ten months, she was released in a highly-publicized prisoner exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
It’s been a year and a half since her return to the US, and this will be her first Olympics competition since the detainment. So, while Griner already has two gold medals under her belt, she told reporters that the chance to represent the US post-detainment is extra special now.
“It always meant everything to me,” Griner said, via andscape.com. “My dad fought for our country. He is a Marine… So, it’s always been something that we’ve always cherished, but now even more so. My country really saved my life and I’m able to represent them again and it just means so much more.”
Griner detailed her experience in Russia and, and the subsequent re-acclimation, in her book, Coming Home, which came out in May 2024. Diana Taurasi, who Griner has been teammates with for her entire WNBA career, praised her for competing in the Olympics.
“What BG’s gone through in the last couple of years is obviously unprecedented,” Taurasi said via GMA Network. “For her to be able to come back, to get on that flight, to come overseas, it was a big moment for her in a lot of ways. But I’m glad she did it because she’s a remarkable person.”
Nicknamed the “Silent Assassin,” Jackie Young is known for her reserved personality
Young lets her game do the talking and is widely considered one of the more reserved stars in the WNBA. The Aces roster is filled with big personalities — like A’ja Wilson, Kelsey Plum, Chelsea Gray, and Sydney Colson — and Young’s quiet demeanor has stood out.
“When I came into this team, I said, ‘You’re the silent assassin for real,’” Gray said during last year’s Finals, per Yahoo Sports. “She’s a hooper, she’s a dog and I just love that she’s a two-way player all the time offensively and defensively. And you need that on your team.”
In 2022, Aces coach Becky Hammon told Winsidr a goal of hers was to push Young to be more vocal and more readily share her basketball knowledge with her teammates.
“What I’ve really tried to do is encourage her to talk,” Hammon said. “I need her to use her words because she knows what she’s doing! Like, share some of that knowledge! I challenged her early on to do more talking, and I think she’s coming into her own. This is her time.”
Read more about how Jackie Young is an elite two-way player here.
At the last Olympics, Chelsea Gray was Team USA’s most effective guard
At the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Chelsea Gray averaged 7.3 points per game on 58.1% shooting and 3.2 assists, the most amount guards on the team. She started all six games, and is expected to be a starter in these Olympics, despite experiencing some offensive struggles in her return to the Aces.
As a member of the 2020 World Cup, Gray averaged 9.2 points and 5.2 assists per game as Team USA went 8-0 en route their fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal game.
Read everything you need to know about Chelsea Gray, the US Olympic basketball team’s Point Gawd.
Before Caitlin Clark, Kelsey Plum was the all-time scorer in NCAA Division I women’s basketball
As a senior at the University of Washington, Plum broke the all-time women’s basketball scoring record with a 57-point senior night that catapulted her to 3,397 points.
That night come on the heels of an incredible collegiate basketball season capped by a a nearly unprecedented senior season. Plum averaged 31.7 points on 52.9% shooting, including 42.8% from three.
“I probably played one of the best individual years of basketball of all time,” Plum told Just Women’s Sports.
She took a while to adjust to the WNBA — averaging single-digit points in her first three seasons — but her collegiate greatness remains rivaled by only a few.
Plum has been open, however, about how she struggled with mental health during her senior season, and throughout the earlier portion of her professional career. So, she was happy when Caitlin Clark broke the all-time scoring record.
“I’m actually very grateful to pass that baton,” Plum said on February 2, per NBC Sports. “I’m very happy for her... I remember, to be honest, [the record] was very much a low point in my life. It felt like a lot of pressure, and my identity was kind of caught up in that record.”
Read more about the two-time WNBA champion here.
Alyssa Thomas got the most first-place votes for league MVP in 2023
The Liberty’s Breanna Stewart won MVP last year, but it was Alyssa Thomas who recorded the most first-place votes. Thomas averaged 15.5 points, 9.9 rebounds, 7.9 assists, and 1.8 steals last season.
The Sun, despite losing All-Star center Brionna Jones for the season to an achilles tear, earned a 27-13 record. Thomas’s prowess on both ends of the court – she’s also an elite defender – was a big reason why.
“I have to advocate what I’m doing,” Thomas told Yahoo Sports ahead of the MVP. “It’s not normal. It’s never been done before. It’s never been seen in this league and might never be seen again. So yeah, I think you’ve got to keep saying those kinds of things for people to realize that it’s not normal what I’ve been doing.”
Read more things to know about Alyssa Thomas, Team USA’s triple-double machine.