“That is disgusting behaviour”: Gaze hits back hard at Cambage's attack on Basketball Australia
Australian basketball royalty Andrew Gaze has reacted with disgust to former Opal Liz Cambage’s comments that she “never felt” supported in the national setup.
Cambage, 30, withdrew from the Opals’ pursuit for Olympic glory after an on-court incident before the side’s game against Nigeria in July last year.
She escaped sanction and a financial penalty but was formally reprimanded by a Basketball Australia investigation.
The exact nature of the incident had been unclear, however, former Opals captain Jenna O’Hea told ABC’s Offsiders on Sunday that Cambage told her Nigerian opponents to “go back to your third world country”.
the truth will always come to light, and it ain’t even dawn yet 😌
— Elizabeth Cambage (@ecambage) May 8, 2022
Just days before, Cambage had told the ABC: “I’m living my best life.”
“I’m supported, I’m protected on a level that the Opals or the Australian team never gave to me.
“My heart lies with those who want to protect me and those who want me to be the best I can be, and I never felt that at the Opals at all. So yeah, I’m good.”
Responding to the recent developments in the story spanning almost 12 months, Gaze became emotional when condemning Cambage’s comments.
Gaze agreed with Andrew Bogut’s assertions earlier on Monday that he’d heard Cambage’s comments to the Nigerians were even more vulgar than first reported, however, the five-time Olympian was more concerned with the allegations levelled at Basketball Australia.
As a former board member of Basketball Australia, he said he personally oversaw support to Cambage, while her teammates and the administration never abandoned her.
“Above and beyond that (Nigeria comments), the thing that really, really grates at me is when she makes the comments to say she feels supported in Los Angeles (playing for the Sparks in the WNBA) at a level that wasn’t there with the Australian team and the suggestion that she was never supported by Australia, the Opals, or Basketball Australia, that is highly offensive,” he said on SEN’s The Run Home.
“I have been in a privileged position to be on the board of Basketball Australia during much of her time and I had a long conversation with her directly, and unfortunately, I couldn’t have that conversation just one on one, her agent had to be there.
“We went through some of the issues that were clearly apparent issues about where (her) priorities need to be and there was a complete lack of understanding that, ‘well maybe I’m wrong, but I can see another side’.
“(She) refused to see that her behaviour was not there.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate (to get into specifics), but just to say that was a conversation I was disappointed (in). I couldn’t even have that conversation with her personally.
“I was asked to do it, I was asked to do it as a figure in basketball, someone on the board who had an understanding of the issues the board were facing and her.
“It didn’t worry me at the time. Okay, I don’t care, I’m 100 per cent transparent here, I’m trying to find a solution to the conflict that had arisen.”
He went on to suggest that some of Cambage’s actions deserved significant repercussions, but the allegation that she was unsupported is “disgusting”.
“In addition to that, there was some behaviour that Liz had that under any reasonable judgement, there would have been some significant repercussions,” he continued.
“She was supported, not just by me, but by others along the way… to say that she wasn’t supported is unfair, it is grossly unfair and I have great sympathy and compassion for where she was at that point in time and there may have been some confusion about where (she) needs to be, her schedule, her timetable, all those things that are there.
“But the bottom line, she made some decisions that didn’t support her teammates, yet, despite that, her teammates supported her during that time.
“Now the problem is, in her mind, she didn’t think she was letting anyone down, and I’m talking about whether you show up to prepare to represent your country.
“There might be times when she has suffered some hardship, I don’t know what they are, but they might be there, I’m not saying they’re not… but the suggestion on this particular incident and others that her teammates, her coaches, Basketball Australia or anyone wasn’t supporting her, that is offensive. That is offensive to people who are going out of their way to try and put in place a system where she can actually perform to her best, and it takes two.
Gaze continued: “You don’t get paid for representing your country, or very, very little, that’s not your sole source of income. It’s about honour, it’s about privilege, it’s about a sense of responsibility, it’s about looking at your life and seeing how other people have provided you a privileged opportunity to perform to the highest level, and when you don’t respect that, and in fact, when you go the other way and say these people have actually harmed me, that is disgusting behaviour by her.
“It is offensive to me, it’s offensive to anyone who’s represented our country that that’s her position.”
Cambage currently plays for the Los Angeles Sparks in the WNBA.