Craig O’Donoghue: Lauren Jackson’s potential Australian Opals comeback not as good an idea as it appears

Australian basketball superstar Lauren Jackson’s announcement this week that she’s coming out of retirement to play NBL1 was massive news for the sport, but Basketball Australia should swiftly end speculation about her potentially representing the Opals at the World Cup. Jackson was arguably Australia’s greatest ever player – male or female - but she will be 41 in May, retired in 2016 and more importantly, has spent the last two-and-half years working for Basketball Australia as both the boss of the WNBL and now BA’s Women and Girls’ Strategy. She was even named as the World Cup ambassador last year. Selecting the woman who has been in charge of the country’s female program as a World Cup messiah would send the wrong message to players. It would effectively tell Australia’s best players that the organisation they represent has lost faith in their ability. It would be like Hawthorn selecting coach Sam Mitchell, 39, in the mid-season draft and throwing him into the midfield. Imagine being a player who has been part of national squads, has competed internationally and played in the WNBL for years in the quest for an opportunity. What would it do to your morale to be pushed aside in those circumstances? Jackson been incredible for Australian basketball. Her career is unrivalled. She’s a three-time WNBA MVP, four-time WNBL MVP, four-time Olympian, five-time WNBL champion and seven-time WNBA All-Star. She was recently inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Her achievements are insane. Since retiring, Jackson’s work at Basketball Australia has helped to increase the sport’s exposure and profile. Fans can now watch every game, a salary cap has been introduced to produce equality and Jackson signed off on the sport’s first Collective Bargaining Agreement. The players she will join at the Albury-Wodonga Bandits should be pumped. The opportunity for them to learn from Jackson is extraordinary. But there’s a monumental difference between playing for the Bandits and representing the Opals after six years out of the game and having a knee replacement. In fairness, nobody in power has declared Jackson is definitely in the World Cup frame. But they also haven’t ruled it out. Phrases like “not at this point” and “we’ve just got to wait and see” tend to grow legs. Maybe being vague is an exercise in getting publicity. If so, that has already worked. But maybe they see Jackson as a key to victory and that would be concerning. The Opals selected six players over 30 for the Olympics and fell well short of expectations. The Olympic team overlooked Shyla Heal despite being drafted to the WNBA, winning WNBL Youth Player of the Year and being selected in the All-WNBL Second Team. Heal, 20, has now been picked in the World Cup qualifier team that will play in Serbia next week. Maddi Rocci, 23, was also picked in the All-WNBL Second Team and is heading to Serbia. The sport has young talent. Perth Lynx will be represented in Serbia by Sami Whitcomb and Darcee Garbin, but are shocked that centre Lauren Scherf, 25, didn’t even get invited to training camp. Scherf is averaging 14 points and 11 rebounds per game while also shooting at 50 per cent from three-point range. She has had five double-doubles from eight games and was also part of Australia’s bronze medal winning Asia Cup team. Coach Ryan Petrik made his thoughts clear on The West Australian’s The Dribble Podcast. “Astounded, shocked, outraged – all of the above,” he said. “I get that every coach wears their team cap and every coach is biased. But certainly from our point of view, and the criteria that was put out by Basketball Australia’s High Performance Team about how important the WNBL season was and how they were looking over every game and WNBL form was critically important, with those things as the guidelines, I’m not really sure what else Lauren was meant to do. “She is murdering it for us. The coaching staff for the Opals are welcome to pick whoever they want, but to say we were surprised would be an understatement.” Competition to attract the best female athletes has never been higher. There’s cricket and netball, while AFLW is surging. Olympian Tessa Lavey is now combining WNBL and AFLW. Former WNBA star and Olympian Erin Phillips is AFLW’s posterchild. Monique Conti is fifth in the AFLCA award. She chose footy over basketball. Basketball Australia has often said one of the sport’s features is you can represent your country. It’s never easy to miss out on selection but it would be brutal to be overlooked to bring back the retired superstar who is working for the organisation - even if she’s the best player ever.