Liz Cambage maintains she didn't use racial slur in 2021 altercation; wants to play for Nigeria

It's been more than two years since Liz Cambage withdrew from the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 after reports of a physical and verbal altercation during a scrimmage against Nigeria. On Monday, she once again denied allegations she called Nigerian players "monkeys" and expressed the desire to play with them during the upcoming Paris Olympics.

In a sit-down interview with Taylor Rooks of Bleacher Report, Cambage emphasized her struggle with depression near the Tokyo Olympics. She claimed teammates and other personnel were aware of her lack of enthusiasm to be playing in the COVID-impacted Olympic Games, which allegedly caused them to take issue with her.

The former WNBA star, who was representing Australia at the time of the allegations, was also accused of telling Nigerian players, “Go back to your third-world country.”

Cambage later clarified she once said, "We should all go back to our countries," because she was so dissatisfied with her experience in Tokyo. She also claimed there is footage from the scrimmage to show she didn't use any slurs.

Three days after the altercation, she released a statement citing mental health, panic attacks and the “terrifying” idea of entering a bubble.

She compared the experience to 2016, which was an Olympic year she said marked the worst her mental health has ever been. She wrote openly about her struggle with depression for the Players' Tribune three years later.

The 31-year-old has a Nigerian father and seemed to drop a bombshell about her future basketball plans in the interview.

Shortly after footage of Cambage making that claim surfaced on social media, Nigeria women's basketball team player Promise Amukamara shared a rebuttal.

"I'm sorry but this is False," she wrote. In a series of later tweets, Amukamara asserted Cambage did call members of the Nigerian team monkeys and tell them to go back to their country, adding, "the only person she has been in “cahoots” w/ was the former coach of our National team & he’s no longer the coach, so there’s that!"

In 2022, Cambage announced she was stepping away from the WNBA following her midseason "contract divorce" with the Los Angeles Sparks. Before that, she spent three years with the Las Vegas Aces. She played in 2019 and 2021 and sat out in 2020 due to COVID-19.

The four-time All-Star told Rooks she never aspired to be in the WNBA and wasn't well-liked because she "knew [her] worth" after playing overseas. Some of her international stops include China, Australia and New Zealand. In March, The Athletic reported Cambage had officially signed with Maccabi Bnot Ashdod in Israel.

She was selected with the Tulsa Shock's (now the Dallas Wings franchise) second overall pick of the 2011 WNBA Draft and became increasingly vocal about problems with the WNBA's CBA and other issues throughout her career.

Cambage ended her interview with Rooks on a hopeful note about her future with the Nigerian team.

She noted she tried to assimilate to whiteness as a kid in Australia, but her African heritage is something she wears "with pride now."