Cameron Brink exclusive: on her rookie season and the rising popularity of the WNBA

When Cameron Brink tore her ACL in June, she quickly had to process the fact that her outstanding rookie season would come to a sudden end.

“You never think it will happen to you,” Brink wrote on Instagram, just days after the injury. “And despite all the hard work sometimes it does. This is hard to fathom but I know it will only make me stronger.”

Brink suffered the injury just four minutes into a matchup with the Sun – which in turn meant she wouldn’t compete on the U.S. Olympic 3×3 basketball team, nor would she get the chance to finish out her first season as a professional.

Still, in the fifteen games she played in the WNBA, Brink had already established herself as one of the league’s premier defenders. She led all players in blocks per 36 minutes (3.8), and finished third overall in blocks per game (2.3).

“She has a really bright future,” A’ja Wilson told reporters after the two faced off.

Through the first few months of the WNBA season, Brink showcase exactly why she was drafted second overall by the Los Angeles Sparks — and why she was unsurprisingly named the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year as a senior at Stanford University.

“That’s definitely where I hang my hat – defense,” Brink told SB Nation in an exclusive interview. “So, I knew I could make an impact on that end of the floor. I still look back, and there’s still a lot of things that I can improve on, so it is nice to know that I had an impact. But, there’s still a lot of room for growth for me.”

And while she excelled defensively, Brink also began to find her offensive footing, highlighted by several particularly effective nights – a 21-point outing against the Wings, and a 16-point game against the Dream.

“My season – even though it was cut short – was really great,” she said.

Brink acknowledged she didn’t get to face off against every WNBA star during her rookie year, but did name A’ja Wilson, Alyssa Thomas, and DeWanna Bonner as three players that proved particularly difficult to match up against.

“Honestly, there’s too many names,” she said. “The league is just so deep and so good.”

As women’s basketball popularity has boomed, so has Cameron Brink’s acclaim

Cameron Brink burst into the national spotlight as a freshman at Stanford, when she helped lead her team to an NCAA championship after averaging 9.9 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks a game. Her defensive instincts were undeniable from the jump, and her ceiling as a standout professional basketball player abundantly clear.

Throughout her four years in college, her popularity only grew. Today, her Instagram following exceeds 1.3 million, making her one of women basketball’s most followed players.

Brink, a star in her own right, has been both a beneficiary of the rising popularity of women’s basketball — and of the fact that for the first time, student-athletes were allowed to profit from their name, image and likeness (NIL). Thanks to a new NCAA policy that came into effect the July after she won the NCAA title, Brink was allowed to sign endorsement deals and get paid for media opportunities.

Women’s basketball was booming, and Cameron Brink was right at the center of it.

“It’s kind of hard to have those moments of realization when you’re so deeply entwined in it, but I kind of started seeing it since I was a freshman in college – once we won a national championship, and just the benefits that came from that for me,” she said.

Photo by C. Morgan Engel/NCAA Photos via Getty Images

Brink has acknowledged on a number of occasions that the growth of women’s basketball — like anything else — has not been perfect. Previously, in an interview with Dime Magazine, she noted that white, feminine-appearing players like herself have disproportionately benefited from the sport’s growth.

“I will acknowledge there’s a privilege for the younger white players of the league. That’s not always true, but there is a privilege that we have inherently, and the privilege of appearing feminine. Some of my teammates are more masculine. Some of my teammates go by they/them pronouns. I want to bring more acceptance to that and not just have people support us because of the way that we look. I know I can feed into that because I like to dress femininely, but that’s just me. I want everyone to be accepted — not just paid attention to because of how they look.”

In the interview with SB Nation, Brink noted she’ll continue to advocate for her teammates, but also acknowledged that at the end of the day, the best thing that players can do is focus on playing their best basketball.

“I think where my head is at with it is, fans are going to be fans, and people are going to have their opinions,” she said. “And I don’t think as players, it’s our job to sway people’s opinions. I believe my job is to play basketball, and obviously, I advocate for myself, my teammates, my teammates that don’t look like me – that don’t have the privileges that I have.”

“The fans are going to think what they’re going to think, and people can be small-minded sometimes, but there’s nothing we can do about that. We can just keep putting our best products forward all the time”

Brink’s success is the culmination of a series of events

There’s the fact that her parents, Michele Bain-Brink and Greg Brink, both played basketball at Virginia Tech. Her mother got the opportunity to do so a result of legislative change, only further highlighting just how far women’s basketball has come.

“I’ve seen it evolve for a long time,” Brink said. “I mean, I’m only 22 but I’ve heard a lot of stories from my mom. She was a Title IX kid, and wouldn’t play basketball in college if it weren’t for Title IX. It’s been a long road, for sure.”

Then, there’s all the little things she’s done to improve her on-court performance — things that might pale in comparison to all the hard work and hours, but nonetheless have positively impacted her performance. One small change she made ahead of her senior year of college was getting the EVO ICL, an implantable lens that corrects nearsightedness through a minimally invasive procedure.

“Ever since the fourth grade, I definitely really struggled with my eyesight,” Brink said. “I started wearing contacts from a very young age, and I was approached about the opportunity, and it was honestly life changing. I never had to worry about a contact falling out during a game. There were games before where a contact would fall out and I would stupidly put it back in, and then my eye would be infected. So, it really just makes life as an athlete so much easier, and even if you’re not an athlete. So being able to wake up every day seeing is just, it’s really life changing.”

Today, the in-game component of Brink’s rookie season is over. But, the injury she suffered is one that’s increasingly common among female athletes, and one that likely won’t hinder her career long-term. A long list of stars have completely recovered from ACL tears — both past and present — including Paige Bueckers, Kate Martin, Angel McCoughtry, Becky Hammon, and countless others spanning multiple generations.

Photo by Meg Oliphant/Getty Images

Brink has maintained a positive attitude throughout the journey.

“Now, my favorite moments are just being at Crypto [the Spark’s home arena] and cheering my teammates on.”