Lei posting this amid all the Liz drama...
This is the 2016 Opals.
I'm never going to make excuses for Liz behavior. But the way she is now, she was genuinely not always like this. She changed a lot after she came back to the WNBA in 2018.
I know it's hard to believe this now. But back in the day, Liz was just a regular kid. Even though she was miserable in Oklahoma, she made many friends in the league. The Ogwumike sisters, Leilani Mitchell, Penny, Diana, and BG.
Australia placed an insane amount of pressure on Liz to continue the Opals legacy. They expected her to be Lauren Jackson but better. And on top of that, she was the first black Opal. In 2016 when that picture was taken, all but 3 senior national team Opals in history were white. There was Tully and Leilani who are indigenous Australian. And then there was Liz who is Nigerian Australian. And Liz dealt with a lot of racism within the Australian basketball system.
In 2016, one of Liz's white Opals teammates, Alice Kunek, wore blackface to a party. Liz told the public that made her uncomfortable. Many in the Opals world, Lauren included, were very soft on Alice Kunek. They framed the blackface incident as an innocent mistake and a learning moment. The popular sentiment from the Australian media was that Liz should forgive Alice and help her grow and learn.
The Australian public put these massive Olympic expectations on Liz's shoulders. And she found out in 2016 that despite all of that, they didn't really respect her.
There was also other stuff going on in her life. Mental health struggles, panic attacks, too much partying and drugs. A lot. But sometime in 2018, Liz grew to really despise the Opals. And that's when she started being a real nightmare diva on that team.
