Australia

Lauren Jackson will now be recognised as one of the greatest basketball players to ever grace the court


The term “great” is much overused in sport, but there is no doubt Lauren Jackson is one Australian athlete that fully deserves such a description.

Playing in the world’s top basketball league in the USA for over a decade, captaining her country, winning medals at four Olympic Games and helping the Opals to a coveted World Cup victory in 2006, Jackson has become the first Australian player inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in the USA.

It’s what every player dreams of, but few ever realise.

Those that do have names like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.

Now the name Lauren Jackson will be etched alongside an exclusive group of other basketball greats.

“I went to Seattle Storm – Sue Bird became my point guard. With the Australian team, Kristi Harrower was my point guard for so long.

Jackson was named the WNBA MVP three times.(

Rebecca Cook: Reuters

)

“I’ve always had really quality teammates and teams around me and coaches — people that have been really able to influence me on the court and off court when I’ve needed it.

“It really is just a journey… so I say thank you very much for giving me what I needed when I needed it.”

‘There were so many that did the hard yards before I came along’

Jackson has never been comfortable in the limelight despite being in it for the best part of two decades.

She is adept at deflecting the attention she deserves.

“You can think about the number of Australian athletes before me who were just remarkable athletes,” she said.

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“So I feel really, really honoured to be the first athlete [inducted] obviously, but there were so many that did the hard yards before I came along and I’m just so thankful to them.

Jackson’s career not only had her play for the Seattle Storm in the best competition in the world, the WNBA, she spent time playing across Europe, in China and Russia – where the oligarch team owner, and reportedly a KGB spy, Shabtai von Kalmanovich was assassinated.

“I definitely saw a lot of the world and experienced things I would never have experienced if I stayed a NSW country girl and never left home,” she said.

“But when I was in it, I was miserable, especially in Russia. I really struggled over there because the culture difference was just so huge.”

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Jackson found herself “constantly on edge” and “never felt comfortable”.

“But you do what you do for the money because as a female athlete, when you get paid like that it’s like, wow, you know,” she said.

“Also, we have to play year-round just to make sure when we retire we’ve got money to fall back on.

“I went through a lot of my career over in those European countries pretty miserable. But you still get out there and you still play, and I guess the basketball court is where I just let everything go… I’d get out there and just have fun.

“That’s where I was safest and that’s where I felt like home. But that was like two hours a day.”

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‘I’m just the happiest I’ve ever been’

Looking back now, she laughs knowing she remembers the downtime more than many of the magic moments where she was in the zone.

She doesn’t even remember carrying the flag into the London Olympic Games opening ceremony — the first Australian female to be given the honour.

After winning three silver medals and a bronze in her four Olympic Games campaigns, Jackson had hoped to finish her career with a final tilt at gold in Rio 2016.

Australian Opeals player Lauren Jackson holds her bronze Olympic medal and a bouquet of flowers at the 2012 London Games.
Lauren Jackson won three Olympic silver medals and a bronze with the Opals.(

Reuters: Mike Segar

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Her playing days had taken their toll, though.

Anyone looking for the cost of being an elite athlete need only look at Jackson’s medical record.

“My career ended prematurely. I had a degenerative knee injury I didn’t even realise I had,'” she said.

“I was playing in China in 2015 and I felt that [ongoing] pain crack… I kept playing through it because I was so familiar with the pain… but I felt it crack again. I couldn’t walk after that.

“I came back to Australia, I’d taken the meniscus out of the bone and cracked the bone and done some damage in my knee and I never recovered.

“I ended up having 14 or 15 operations and tried to come back late in 2015 with the Canberra Capitals and then I ruptured my ACL and then I got a staph infection in my knee.”

By then, she said, her knee was “just jelly”.

“I had my 40th birthday party on Saturday and I couldn’t walk on Sunday. My knees were killing me from dancing and my back and my hips,” she said.

“It’s come with a toll, but I just have to look back on my life and be thankful for everything because it’s gotten me to this point and I’m just the happiest I’ve ever been.”

Jackson and the other members of the “Class of 21” will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame in September.



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