Cameron Brink gets an “ick” after LA Sparks invite men to

The WNBA tips off the season in less than two months and teams are already gearing up for what will be a star studded campaign. One of those stars isn’t too pleased with her team’s preseason plans.

Rough rookie season in LA

Cameron Brink is one of the rising stars in the WNBA, and after a rough rookie season in which she and her team struggled to string together wins, the LA Sparks will be a team to keep an eye on this year.

They brought in one of the league’s best players in Kelsey Plum trying to rebound from an 8-32 season that saw them finish last in the league. While the offseason trade will surely improve the roster, there’s one decision the Sparks made that Brink isn’t too happy with.

In a social media post send out last week, the Sparks sent out an open invitation for men to try out for a practice squad. A lot of men sent in applications, and others accompanied those applications with comments or replies to the post.

Comments gave Brink “ick”

Brink, who is used to playing and practicing with men, isn’t against the idea, but she is against the open invitation to any and everyone. “My confession is I’m really icked out by the potential new practice players,” Brink told Sydel Curry-Lee, her co-host on the “Straight to Cam” podcast. “Usually, we use [USC] college guys that also do it for the women’s team at USC.”

The 2021 national champion with Stanford was taken second overall in last year’s WNBA Draft in large part to her defensive abilities, but she says she wouldn’t be at ease with the idea of boxing out or posting up random people the Sparks find off of an online applications.

“All the comments are like, ‘Let Cameron Brink back me down,’ or something about Rickea or something about Kelsey,” Brink said. “And now I’m just like, ‘First of all, we need to heavily vet these men. Preferably they’re gay. ... Who are we trusting coming into this gym?’”