This weekend, the USA Basketball Women’s National Team will host a training camp at Duke University in Durham, NC with 17 participating players.
It will be the first training camp led by new national team head coach Kara Lawson, who was appointed to the position in September. It’s also the first training camp roster chosen by new national team managing director Sue Bird. The camp represents the first opportunity for Bird and Lawson to begin assessing players for the 2026 FIBA Women’s World Cup, which
will be held Sept. 4-13 in Berlin, Germany.
However, it’s hard to resist looking even further ahead, as every training camp can provide hints about the composition of what promises to be, quite possibly, the most highly-scrutinized roster in American women’s basketball history: the 2028 Olympic team.
Although the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games are over two and half years away, the fact that Bird and Lawson are going to be tasked with evaluating an ever-deeper, extremely talented group of American women’s basketball talent—eventually choosing a final group of 12 that will be expected to win the program’s ninth-straight gold medal on US soil—will overshadow every USA Basketball event between now and then.
So, what hints might this first training camp tells give about might 2028?
Who is, and is not, at the Team USA training camp?
The 17 players invited are:
- Lauren Betts (UCLA Bruins)
- Aliyah Boston (Indiana Fever)
- Cameron Brink (Los Angeles Sparks)
- Paige Bueckers (Dallas Wings)
- Veronica Burton (Golden State Valkyries)
- Sonia Citron (Washington Mystics)
- Caitlin Clark (Indiana Fever)
- Kahleah Copper (Phoenix Mercury)
- Chelsea Gray (Las Vegas Aces)
- Dearica Hamby (Los Angeles Sparks)
- Kiki Iriafen (Washington Mystics)
- Rickea Jackson (Los Angeles Sparks)
- Brionna Jones (Atlanta Dream)
- Kelsey Plum (Los Angeles Sparks)
- Angel Reese (Chicago Sky)
- JuJu Watkins (USC Trojans)
- Jackie Young (Las Vegas Aces)
The Atlanta Dream’s Brittney Griner originally was announced as a participant, but is no longer identified by USA Basketball as a member of the roster. The coaches who will be assisting Lawson are the Valkyries’ Natalie Nakase, Mercury’s Nate Tibbetts and Fever’s Stephanie White.
Seven players have prior senior national team experience, headlined by 2024 Olympic gold medalists Copper, Gray, Plum and Young. Gray also was a member of the gold medal-winning 2020 Olympic team, while Plum and Young won 3×3 gold at the 2020 Games. Hamby was a member of the 3×3 team that won bronze at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Jones won gold with Team USA at the 2022 FIBA Women’s World Cup alongside Copper, Gray, and Plum. A member of the 2024 Olympic qualifying team, Boston has represented Team USA at a number of senior national team events.
The remaining 10 players will be participating in their first 5×5 senior national team camp, although every invitee except Iriafen has represented USA Basketball in other senior, junior and/or 3×3 competitions. Burton, most recently, helped Team USA reclaim gold at the 2025 FIBA 3×3 AmeriCup. As the 5×5 AmeriCup conflicts with the WNBA season, Betts, Jackson and Reese all represented the United States at the 2023 AmeriCup as collegians, winning silver. Neither Betts nor Watkins will actively participate in this weekend’s camp, as Betts is in-season with UCLA and Watkins continues to recover from her ACL injury.
The 17-player roster thus features a mix of experienced, prime and young players. Gray, Hamby, Copper and Plum are all over 30 years old, while Jones and Young are in their late 20s. Burton is 25 years old, with all the others age 24 or younger, with 20-year-old Watkins being the youngest.
Does the roster augur a generational shift, with the 2028 Olympic team, if not the 2026 World Cup squad, prioritizing young players? Or, will Bird and Lawson, as has traditionally been the case with Team USA, value experience?
Of course, the obvious names missing from this list make it unwise to draw too many conclusions. It would be shocking if the Las Vegas Aces’ A’ja Wilson and New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart, the Stew’ja duo that was most responsible for delivering Team USA to gold in Paris, was not again the bedrock of the 2028 team, along with the Minnesota Lynx’s Napheesa Collier.
Some on-the-record comments from Bird provide additional clarifying, as well as complicating, context about what she will prioritize in anticipation of the 2028 LA Games.
Bird takes Team USA service seriously
The third episode of Taurasi, the three-part documentary series about Diana Taurasi’s career released on Prime Video in August, focuses on the 2024 Olympic Games, particularly the gold medal game against France when Taurasi, then a five-time gold medalist seeking her record sixth, did not receive playing time.
Team USA, barely, escaped, assisted by France’s Gabby Williams stepping just inside the 3-point arc on her final shot. The Americans were out of sorts for most of the contest, leading some wonder why head coach Cheryl Reeve did not turn to Taurasi. One person with such thoughts was Bird. Bird, certainly, is biased, as Taurasi is one of her best friends.
When interviewed for the documentary, however, Bird emphasized that Taurasi’s experience in such moments, as well as her long tenure with Team USA, made it inexplicable for Reeve not to put her on the court. Bird said:
I didn’t like it. You know Dee ( Taurasi) was on the team for a variety of reasons. Her experience, her leadership. The fact that she can not just score but knows how to score in big moments. She meets moments.
Bird further explained:
The two things for me is the calming presence that she gives. When you have a veteran like that and you put them on the floor next to four other players who aren’t used to this, it’s just going them to calm a little bit. The other thing that Dee does probably better than any player, even at this age, she knows how to draw fouls.
Bird’s comments suggest that experience, including prior national team experience, will matter when she considers the make up of rosters.
That’s reflected in her decision to invite Gray, who unofficially succeeded Bird as Team USA’s starting point, to the training camp. The trio of Copper, Plum and Young also logged at least 20 minutes in the gold meal game, with Copper, most notably, emerging as a hero after receiving limited playing time throughout most of Team USA’s run in Paris. The initial inclusion of Griner, a key contributor to the 2016 and 2020 Olympic teams before occupying a small role in 2024, also is an indication of this mindset.
So, don’t be surprised if some Olympic veterans who are approaching their mid-30s (or beyond) make the 2028 team.
Will Bird fulfill her bold 2028 prediction?
Bird, however, has somewhat contradicted her belief in the importance of Team USA experience and service.
In a recent TikTok interview with Front Office Sports, Bird predicted, “At the LA Olympics, the women’s basketball team will be the biggest storyline.”
Bird, in her capacity as managing director, can almost guarantee that her prediction comes true.
And let’s be honest, ensuring that the United States women’s basketball team is THE story of the 2028 Games is not just about winning another, record-setting gold medal, but about who helps capture a ninth-consecutive gold.
That would likely involve a roster where the trusted trio of Wilson, Stewart and Collier is surrounded by the sport’s younger, high-wattage stars who have amassed an army of stans that celebrate their on- and off-court moves. That group is headlined by Bueckers, Clark, Reese and Watkins, with Brink, Citron, Iriafen and Jackson just behind them. Two collegians not invited to the camp would also qualify in Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong. (Yep, let’s get ready to rev up the conversations about USA Basketball’s supposed UConn bias.)
Such a roster, while certainly generating all the buzz and attracting tons of eyeballs, lacks the extra level of experience, especially on the Olympic stage, that Bird, based on her assessment of Taurasi’s playing-time snub in Paris, seems to value.
With only 12 available spots, it’s difficult to construct a roster that possesses the requisite Olympic experience, includes all the young, exciting up and comers and features the prime-age stars who will be most important to making sure the gold medal stays with Team USA.
Bird, certainly, understands the first-world basketball problems she faces ahead of 2028. From now until the flame is lit in LA, we’ll be monitoring how she chooses to go about navigating them.
