World Championships Pose Issue For Storm
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For the second time in three years, a key topic of discussion as Seattle Storm Coach
Anne Donovan wrapped up the season with the local media was a potential schedule conflict with FIBA.
Two years ago, the Storm was fretting about the Athens Olympics and their potential to break up the team's roster. Though that problem was eventually solved when the WNBA decided to take the month of August off to allow national teams to prepare for and play in the Olympics, it doesn't appear there's an easy solution forthcoming for next summer's World Basketball Championships, to be played in Brazil.
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The World Championships open on Sep. 12, which this year falls right during the middle of the WNBA Playoffs. In addition, even if players representing foreign national teams are able to play for their WNBA teams, they would likely have to leave a week or two ahead of time to practice with their national squads.
For the Storm, that means issues for starting forwards 
Lauren Jackson (Australia) and 
Iziane Castro Marques (Brazil), as well as reserves 
Suzy Batkovic (Australia) and 
Natalia Vodopyanova (Russia) and possibly Australian guard Jessica Bibby, who was unable to join the Storm this season because of a back injury but has since resumed practicing.
"I haven't talked to them yet in Brazil, but I don't think that, if I come to play here and they let me go a week before the World Championships, that's going to be a problem," said Castro Marques, her team's second-leading scorer in Athens.
"The (worst-case scenario), if the league doesn't do anything, I'd have to leave before the playoffs."
"It's the same as the Olympics and stuff like that," said Jackson, who pushed the conflict between the WNBA's schedule and the World Championships into the headlines when she admitted there's a chance she might have to miss the entire 2006 season. "I've got commitments there I have to take care of."
Jackson is optimistic she'll be able to play for the Storm and leave early, but she and Batkovic could have to miss time during the middle of the season as part of the Opals' preparations for the World Championships.
"The Australian team, they're traveling most of the months the WNBA is going on and they've got camps as well," said Jackson. "I'll probably have to at least go to one or two of them."
In 2004, Phoenix Mercury forward Penny Taylor - along with Jackson one of the two Opals who played in the WNBA that season - missed one Mercury game to participate in a three-game pre-Olympics series against China.
Donovan doesn't see an easy solution to the issue.
"Trying to get all of those countries and all of those people to organize and come up with a time period that works for every other country and the WNBA is a difficult task," she said. "I don't think I'm naïve enough to think I have a solution. What I would like to think could happen is that dates be moved back a little bit from a FIBA/World Championship standpoint and up a little bit from a WNBA standpoint, so there isn’t this tremendous conflict. But I'm sure they've been trying that, and at this point there isn't a resolution."
In 2002, though the World Championships in China started at approximately the same time (Sep. 14), there wasn't an issue for the WNBA because the Finals wrapped up by the end of August. The schedule now runs longer into September with two additional regular-season games per team and a five-game Finals.
Donovan, who also served as assistant coach for the 2002 U.S. team that took gold in the World Championships, is concerned not only on the overlap's effect on her Storm team, but also the U.S. team's chances in international competition in the future if they have to take a team of amateurs to Brazil.
"Women have been the flagship for USA Basketball for quite a while, and I think we're going to lose ground," said Donovan. "The edge that we have internationally - and I don't say this in front of our foreign players very much - we have that edge because they don't have supreme confidence against the U.S. Once they take a gold medal from the U.S., no matter what team we send, we lose that edge. So I think it's going to be difficult to overcome not sending our best team."
Overlap with international play has also been an issue for the WNBA at the start of the season, with multiple players on most teams reporting late to training camp because they are completing their seasons in Europe.
"There has been some progress made," on this front, said Donovan. The last possible date for the Russian League, where Storm players Batkovic, Vodopyanova and 
Sue Bird will play and Jackson also plans to play after her season in Australia, has been moved up to Apr. 30, near the start of WNBA training camps. The Italian League has also moved up the end of its season.
