‘You’re a liar’: The tough family moments on Lauren Jackson’s road to Paris

Lauren Jackson is blocking the doorway. She doesn’t mean to, but the champion’s considerable frame has been positioned there – in this Port Melbourne warehouse, built of shipping containers and offcut lumber – by a photographer.

It’s a great shot, too, framing the veteran superstar on the threshold of something new. The only problem is that Joe Ingles can’t get through the door. Nor can Patty Mills. Or Matthew Dellavedova. Or Dyson Daniels. Or Josh Giddey.

Australian basketball great Lauren Jackson.Credit: Jason South

Jackson – “LJ”, “Loz”, “Jacko” – apologises of course, but none of the idling Boomers seem to mind.

“No worries mate!” one of them yells. “Anything for the GOAT!”

Welcome to the pre-Paris media day for Basketball Australia, a long session for photos and interviews and social media rolls, where I’ve been warned that Jackson – one of the greatest basketball players of all time – can be a touch curt when tired. However, sitting down now in a quiet room, wearing a green hoodie with “AUS Basketball” in yellow lettering, she’s actually a generous and expansive open book.

The headline topic is her motivation going into a fifth Olympic Games. It’s definitely different to the way it was before her last summer Games, 12 years ago in London. And different again to her first, 24 years ago in Sydney. That’s mostly due to the continuing uncertainty around the very existence of her career. Basically, Jackson never thought she would recover from serious foot and Achilles injuries last year, so in her mind, every day right now is about consistency and precious little else. Her main motivation, she explains, is just pushing away the doubts that niggle and nag within.

“In the back of my mind it’s all ‘You’re on borrowed time’ and ‘This could end at any moment’,” Jackson says. “I know it’s coming to an end, but that’s not the reason I’m doing this. I’m doing it because I’m here, I’m fit, I’m strong, and if I wasn’t, I’d be happy to walk away. It’s not about legacy. Right now, it’s all about letting it take me where it takes me.”

Makes sense. Do a quick Google search on news about Lauren Jackson and you’ll follow the path from her initial retirement in 2016, to her comeback in 2022, then more ups and downs since – the headlines veering from “I’m done” to “Jackson’s back” within a matter of weeks. Traumatised by her injuries, she explains how the gains in recovery were incremental, then exponential, but how she still finds it hard to see herself as a high-performance athlete.

“There have been times when the thought of playing for the Opals has come up, and I’ve lost it mentally, and I’ve broken down,” she says. “I still haven’t really processed that I’m back in this space. I’m 43 years old and a single mum. It’s bizarre. It’s not real. I just didn’t think I was capable.”

Speaking of motherhood, one of the factors that spurred her backflip on retiring from international competition was an offer from Basketball Australia to help bring her two sons – Harry, 7, and Lenny, 5 – to France, because it was becoming too hard leaving them behind for professional sport. I’m curious about how they took her change of heart.

“It’s been a minefield,” she admits, shaking her head. “When I was about to retire and I changed my mind, I was hit with ‘You’re a liar’ and ‘You’re not prioritising us’ – and this is coming from a 7-year-old.”

Family ties: Lauren Jackson will have her two boys, including Lenny, by her side through the Olympic build-up and in Paris.Credit: Getty Images

Just a few days ago, Harry got a message from his coach in Albury that his team would be playing one more game this season, at the end of this week, and Jackson had to let him down gently: “Darling, we play China on Friday night, so I’m sorry, but you won’t be there for the game”. In response, her firstborn let fly – “You said you were never going to play for Australia again!” – in one of many tough moments.

“You need to pause and go, he’s seven,” Jackson says. “But the mum guilt is very real. I guess they don’t understand the enormity of it, and won’t for some time. They’re excited about the Eiffel Tower and Disneyland, but that’s all.”

Jackson is tempering her own excitement, too. Indeed, she guardedly (and repeatedly) prefaces every response to questions about the Olympics with “if I’m selected for Paris”. But let’s be real, when the team is officially announced on Sunday July 7, Lauren Elizabeth Jackson will be handed one of those big ceremonial Qantas boarding passes. It’s happening.

She’s more than capable, too, in part because she knows her role. Jackson understands that international basketball is now filled with a new and evolving uber-athletic breed of player – “bigs who can handle the ball and do guard-like things” – meaning she’s candid in her own self-assessment.

“I’m not who I used to be,” she says, holding up her hands. “I can still come on the court and bang a three, get physical with the best of them, play some defence, grab a few rebounds, but I’m not going to be scoring massive points. It’s more about the leadership piece. The resilience and toughness and experience I bring to the team – that’s the confidence I hope the girls can get from me.”

She seems excited by that, and it’s an exciting time to be around women’s basketball generally. Jackson is as much in awe as the rest of us over the Caitlin Clark effect, and what the former US college star has done for the game since entering the WNBA this season. “It’s on the news here, which is bizarre, and great,” she says. “Women’s sport as a whole is on the up and up, but Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese have brought a new fan. What they’re bringing is eyeballs and chatter, and raising the profile.”

Jackson isn’t exactly surprised that Clark was left out of Team USA either (“It’s a tough one, but you can see both sides”), given nine of their 12-player squad are already Olympic gold medallists. And Clark, she points out, isn’t the only great story in their team. How about Diana Taurasi chasing a sixth Olympic gold medal? Or the return of Brittney Griner after her lengthy imprisonment in Russia?

US basketball sensation Caitlin Clark will not play at the Olympics.Credit: Getty

But can the Opals beat them?

“Any given day, absolutely,” Jackson says, nodding. “Look at our players and the athleticism they have. Ezi Magbegor, oh my God, she’s going to be one of the best defenders in the world. And that to me is so exciting. If we can defend, then anything can happen, because we have a team full of scorers.”

What about China, the second-ranked team in the world – Australia are No.3 – whom the Opals play twice this week in Melbourne, on Wednesday and Friday night, as part of the Ford Ballin’24 at John Cain Arena? “They’re huge, obviously,” she answers. “But we only lost to them by one point at the World Cup, and if we do come up against them at the Olympics, it’ll be a different outcome, absolutely. It’ll be fun to get out there and kick it with the best of them, but it’s a lot of pressure for all of us, too, because we’re all trying to make the team.”

The practice against a quality opponent so soon before the Games is welcome. In the group stage at the Olympics, the Opals will face an opening contest no doubt filled with historical friction against Nigeria, then be challenged by fifth-ranked Canada, and finally battle all the local support for the home team in France. It all speaks to a new evenness in the world game. “When I was younger, it was basically America and Australia, but the level of competition is definitely getting higher,” Jackson says. “It’s expanding, and coming through in every country now. The world has caught up.”

Domestically meanwhile, she’s thrilled about the recent majority stake in the women’s competition bought by NBL boss Larry Kestelman and Tesla chair Robyn Denholm. “It’s fantastic that the women’s game will finally have the resources behind it that it needs to thrive,” she says. “And Robyn particularly is such a remarkable businesswoman, with great vision, and she loves the sport, too.”

Jackson’s own foundation – She Hoops – is taking off as well, helping amplify conversations about women’s basketball, and fostering programs that get girls involved in the sport. Throughout the media day, for instance, Jackson ropes more than a few of the big names there into a photo or two with a branded hoodie, whether Cayla George or Duop Reath.

“You always think about basketball in terms of what you can contribute on the court, but going forward, what I can contribute off the court with the kids is exciting, too,” she says. “Where I am today as opposed to 10 years ago is so much better, so much fuller. It’s just filling up my cup in a way that I could never have done as an athlete.”

Refusing to jinx her selection, she’s reluctant to talk about excitement she might feel on court inside Pierre Mauroy Stadium outside of Paris, because she still doubts herself, too. All she can do when those feelings arise is think of the body of work she’s put in to get here today – the shooting and the lifting and the running, and how much stronger she feels each morning.

“There’s traces of the old me. I’m shooting fadeaway jumpers like they’re nothin’. And I can contribute more than points – the stuff you can’t see. The confidence, the leadership, the experience. And those big pressure moments,” she says, grinning. “I’ve been in a few of them.”

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