Child.

You could be spot-on Mick
She is only young and has carried great expectations. Perhaps reuniting with her family has caused her to sit back and enjoy the relaxation

Somebody needs to right the sinking ship and quick...

A "romance spot"? My bedsheets are covered in those.

I think she is still heartbroken about the Kobe and Rice show.

Didnt I read she had signed on to play with her WNBL team next season already?

Missed half the season may aswell stay here and do preseason with the WNBL team?

Still not a very wise career decision.

Thats where i live!!!Better hide...

Thought I read the 'next great wall of china' story.
Going to china after olympics @ $400k for 4 months.
Likely the world's highest paid womens basketballer etc.

A FATIGUED Liz Cambage has pulled out of the rest of the WNBA season - but it may take the Opals star some time to recover from the fallout from her last-minute withdrawal.

When Cambage missed her plane to the United States on Monday, her surprised club Tulsa Shock tried to re-book a flight out of Australia for the Olympic bronze medallist no show.

She will rest before linking with Chinese club Zhejiang Chouzhou in November for a reported $400,000 stint, a deal that made her one of the world's highest-paid female athletes.

Curiously, Cambage had given no indication of pulling out of the WNBA in recent days.

She tweeted on August 26 that she would be "back to USA tomorrow".

And she shared a link on August 17 on her facebook page of a story on her WNBA return.

"I did not have any inkling that this would happen until this morning when I spoke to her agent," Shock president Steve Swetoha told Tulsa World newspaper.

"She said 'she's fatigued and if you don't mind she'd like to take the rest of the summer off'."

short term disappointment v long term vision ?

disappointing but c'est la vie - Tulsa are so keen and i feel for them - but if it means a full wnba season next year for them with liz - so be it.

doubt if liz will play wnbl back home for a while now - will be o/s contracts.

It's the highest salary for a female basketball player ever.

it is up there nick - but other top players have done well - need some evidence to support your statement - i can recall one other better

Not to rag on her, but she was fatigued playing 25 mins a game in the Olympics.

It would appear that she is happy with the player that she currently is, and not willing to put in the additional time required to be a superstar (hard work is just the price of admission!)

Still, she has a pretty good life, so good luck to her

Liz received a lot of hits from the opposition during the olympics, it would have been a gruelling 2 weeks for her. I can't blame her for wanting rest when Tulsa is going to finish last again. Better if she rests up and gets right for the China season, and can go back to Tulsa in 2013. She doesn't get paid for those missed games.
Also, they probably want to acquire the no. 1 lottery pick (Griner) and wouldn't want to win more games.

Seems Liz bought another house.
Canberra Caps got $600k from one (1) sponsor and the team is fully pro. and they pay Jackson more than NBL players

how will tulsa manage griner and cambage ?

1) guards stay out of key and lob it in - liz one side and dunk

griner the other side and dunk


that is scary to think that they will could both be on the same team.

Griner and Cambage wow

Serious money in China, sure, but she clearly had obligations to her existing team and contract. To no-show without warning (leaving them wearing the costs of flights too) is just not good enough without an especially strong excuse.

what a joke... nothing else really needs to be said

Have never been a Liz fan and again think she's been poorly advised/or ignored good advice?

The second half of this season was a chance for her to establish her legitimacy as a WNBA player. Coming off a better-then-expected (for me) performance at the Olympics (although I am still astounded at the Russians simply inviting her to dunk like that), she had a chance to atone for her underwhelming impact last year.

Now with Griner coming out (I can't see the two co-existing and I know if I were Tulsa who I'd be going with - the athletic, dunk-in-traffic competitor who throws elbows or the prima donna who falls down an awful lot) she may well be looking for another team with very few runs on the board in the WNBA.

While the ocerseas leagues are where the money is made, the WNBA is where the reputations are made. Dominating the Chinese League is not likely to attract the attention of some Russian billionaire, dominating the WNBA is.

Ahem.
There are ten games left in the WNBA season.
Tulsa Shock are 5-19, tied for the second worst record.
Brittney Griner is the projected first pick in the 2013 Draft.
Apologies can be sent to http://twitter.com/ecambage
End of thread.

She still has an obligation to fulfill her contract at Tulsa. Sure, she's had a heavy workload, but so have most of the other basketballers that went to London. I fully understand that she would like to rest up before her China gig but for goodness sake she's contracted to Tulsa, toughen up a bit and honour a contract. I'm sure everyone would love to just bail on the last few weeks of their working year because they were 'fatigued'. Would not be acceptable and shouldn't be acceptable for Liz. I would not be surprised if she gave away basketball for good and switched to netball. She's obviously earned quite a bit of money and she could easily dominated world netball if she wished. Much smaller workload, much easier, much more suitable for Princess Liz.

Another point,

If she was going to sit the remainder of the season, surely it would atleast be respectful to sit it out in America and support her teammates and organisation? I know at Division 1 in the district competition here, if we were injured we were still expected to be at every training and every game and were expected to support our teammates. No contract, no money, just passion and respect for the club and teammates. Liz has a contract to Tulsa and has shown no respect whatsoever. Disgraceful.

This is a real kick in the guts for the Tulsa Shock. I feel very sorry for their fans who were excited for Liz to return whether they could make the finals or not. It is also an embarrasment for Cambage and for Australia.

I don't know who she is receiving advice from but they need to take a good look at themselves. You can always make more money with the talent she has but no amount of money can repair a damaged reputation.

With everything that has happened previously with Cambage and the Shock I could see this coming but I wasn't prepared to believe that it would.

Very disappointing.

Naismith - no apologies necessary. The 2013 WNBA Draft Order has not yet been decided so tanking to finish last only increases your chances and doesn't guarantee you Griner, nor Diggins or Delle Donne for that matter as Tulsa were awful last year (with Liz) and still ended up with the 4th pick in the draft.

If you read the quotes coming out of Tulsa they quote Liz as missing her flight and THEN her agent ringing to say 'if you don't mind, she wont come backfor the rest of the year'. Surely a better conspiracy theorist would have at least concocted an injury ahead of time.

Anon- and the evidence of the hard work in the lead-up was in her increased level of fitness? C'mon - everybody who plays in the WNBA and was at the Olympics has done the same thing - its only Liz not turning up (oh and McCoughtry who got her coach sacked and then got suspended).

Those concerned about Liz's health , could read her unfit to travel comments in theage.

She has been a sook for years. Nothing has changed.

So , in every individual the two trends , one toward
personal happiness and the other toward unity with the
rest of humanity , must contend with each other.

She said in The Age, "I just need a mental break".

What's new?

She is so upset that the likes of Kobe won't hit on her hehehehehehe.

Tanking is at the discretion of the Shock themselves. They could have her back and rest her or play her limited minutes, etc but they were expecting her back and promoted just that. Only extreme circumstances (death in the family, etc) would warrant bailing at the last second, and even then you'd be calling through ASAP (at least having your agent do it) to make it known rather than just skipping a flight.

You can get away with this sort of thing if you're talented (which might be why some players like that don't learn any differently), but I think it lowers your ceiling, limiting you as a player.

Maybe she's going to pull a Mills and dominate, get injured, then screw herself for a few months at least... We can only hope...

Lazy , soft and weak !

So her fitness in juniors was poor, and hasn't got any better? So that's not her problem how?

Lol at her going to the races but not being able to handle a flight back to USA...

I remember a couple of years ago when Tom Maher was her coach, he commented that she needs to learn the difference between being injured and being hurt - in reference to her carry on every time she falls over. In the interview Tom did everything except say she was a soft sook who needed to toughen up!!

Possibly posted via Instagram linked to Twitter.

Still, the Swisse comment is a bit amusing.

Give her a break, unless someone knows her personally this type of forum is pointless tabloid press...

I watched her play in the Olympics like most of us and she was physically double and tripple teamed most of the time.

Someone that big at that age to work that hard as a centre is going to become fatigued and in need of a rest. She knows her own body and how much rest she needs, I don't think we can judge her like this...

I'm a Liz fan, not a great move in the short term but theres a few things at play here:

1) wnbl, opals camp, Olympics - she hasn't had a break in almost a year
2) Tulsa had her riding the pine most of last season. This is an up yours to them, And Teresa edwards. The worst team in the history of the wnba woldnt develop her, now they expect her to run back to them?
3) Liz made $46k in the wnba last season - on a pro rata she might take home 5-10k after taxes this time around. Would you risk injury when you have a $400k deal waiting for you?
4) Tulsa is in the middle of nowhere. I predicted 12 months ago Liz would want a trade to LA .
5) Liz is on twitter too much - give it a break.