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FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup 2022: How will Lauren Jackson’s 2022 campaign compare to previous years?

Jed Wells

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FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup 2022: How will Lauren Jackson’s 2022 campaign compare to previous years? image

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 18 months, you would by now have come across the fact that Lauren Jackson is back. 

Considered by many to be the greatest basketball player Australia has ever produced, Jackson is in the midst of a miracle comeback from her 2016 retirement; she dominated in the most recent season of the NBL1 - Australia’s second-tier league - has signed for WNBL team the Southside Flyers, and perhaps most crucially, has been selected as part of the Opals’ team for the upcoming FIBA Women’s World Cup. 

Jackson is no stranger to FIBA World Cups, with Sydney 2022 being her fifth appearance, but this will be her first since 2010, and she finds herself donning the green and gold under far different circumstances now than she did 12 years ago. 

But in saying this, it would be foolish to write off Jackson, who averaged 31.9 points, 12.6 rebounds, and 1.4 assists per game this year for the Albury-Wodonga Bandits. 

Can the 41-year-old capture some of the magic that has punctuated her Opals career? 

For the Opals, Jackson’s name and presence have long been synonymous with success - their first medal game in 1998, the year of Jackson’s first World Cup, where Australia won the Bronze medal game against Brazil. 

Australia had previously lost this game twice before, to America in 1994, and to Canada in 1979, but Jackson’s introduction to the Opals coincided with their first birth on the podium, a position which they would come to find themselves in much more frequently; the Opals have medalled in every World Cup since their first medal except for 2010. 

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Now, this is not to say that Jackson was the full and total reason for their success - Penny Taylor was also a key driving force behind the Opals, making two All-Tournament teams in 2006 and 2014, and winning Tournament MVP in 2006. Liz Cambage was also named to the All-Tournament team in 2018. 

But Jackson has two such selections herself, 2002 and 2006, and her dominant play in international basketball cannot be overstated. Jackson is the only women’s player in history to top score at two separate World Cups; she averaged 21.3 points at the 2006 tournament, and 23.1 in 2002. 

In fact, Jackson’s 2006 campaign was so dominant that it was highlighted by FIBA as one of the five best World Cup performances of all time, citing her entire body of work across the nine games the Opals played en route to Australia’s first - and only - FIBA World Championship. 

But following the success of 2006, things faltered for both Jackson and the Opals. They missed medal contention altogether in 2010, upset by host nation the Czech Republic, and by the time the 2014 World Cup rolled around Jackon’s knee and hip issues had become a significant concern, as slow healing ruled her out of contention for the tournament in Turkey.

These issues continued to deteriorate Jackson, and by 2016 she had retired from basketball. The Opals still found their way onto the podium in Jackson’s absence, taking home Bronze in 2014 and Silver in 2018, but have not been able to climb their way back to the top of the podium. 

But in Sydney 2022, with Jackson making her return from a decade-long sabbatical from World Cup play, she will be going into a situation that she may have not been in a long time. 

She won’t need to carry her team. 

The wording is important there. She won’t NEED to. She very much is still capable; after all, the NBL1 is no slouch league, and she came away with over 30 points on average each game. But unlike in years past, she won’t be required to be the focal point of the offence. 

It seems almost blasphemous to talk about Lauren Jackson playing a role, but having the countries best ever basketball player out there in a support role is both a testament to the high level of talent on the Opals, and hopefully a promising sign for an Opals unit that is hoping to capture just it’s second ever World Championship. 

No, it’s not likely that Jackson will lead the tournament in scoring and be in MVP contention. But she shouldn’t have to be. The Opals have a good enough team to compete with the best, and Jackson’s addition should be the cherry on top, not the entire sundae. 
 

Jed Wells

Jed Wells Photo

Jed is a writer and social media producer, who has a keen interest in the intersection of sports and popular culture, especially basketball.