Mercury star Kahleah Copper represented Team USA in th 2026 FIBA World Cup and earned the gold medal with a star-studded cast alongside here.
“It’s kind of a weird thing where you go from being in the middle of a season to playing with people who you wanted to kill all season,” Copper said. “We also get to enjoy each other outside of that. We get to really work for something bigger than ourselves.”
She played crucial minutes and took the lead defensively, as she’s done so many times on the biggest stages of her career.
“It just shows who I am,” Copper said. “You go to a USA team and you’re not playing the same role that you played on your team. There’s something else that you gotta do in order for the team to have success and for me, I had to go out there and guard. I took pride in that – I took pride in my role. When you’re out there with other greats, everybody sacrifices a little bit of themselves for a gold medal, so it’s all worth it.”
Copper’s resumé and winning mentality make her an easy choice for any coach who wants to their team to the mountain top: ’24 Olympic Gold, 2x FIBA Gold, ’25 Unrivaled Champ, ’22 Euroleague MVP, ’21 WNBA Champ & Finals MVP
“When you think about experience you think about the physicality,” Copper said. “You’re thinking about other teams and how they play. Our vets did an incredible job, not just handling that, but feeding it to the young players, telling them what to expect and supporting them while they were able to figure it out also.”
That mentality showed once again when Copper and the Americans took down teammate Valou Ayayi and France in the Gold Medal game, 97-79.
The Phoenix Mercury are back from the World Cup break on Thursday to take on the Fire in Portland at 7 PM (MST).
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