Coming Back Better: Steph Talbot is focused on what's ahead
With her sights set on the Paris Olympics, Talbot loved being back on court with Adelaide after nearly a year away, and is looking forward to everything the next year holds for her.
Credit: Sarah Reed / Getty
Steph Talbot was seemingly on top of the world.
Twelve months ago, Talbot was just about to complete her tenth WNBL season. She was coming off a bronze medal and Tournament All-Star Five selection at the 2022 FIBA Women’s World Cup, and she’d just signed a fresh two-year deal with the Los Angeles Sparks in the WNBA, after two seasons in Seattle.
However, in the third last round of the regular season, Talbot ruptured her ACL and her basketball world came crashing down. Despite being named the WNBL Defensive Player of the Year and making the All-WNBL Second Team just a few weeks later, Talbot was facing the reality of close to a year on the sidelines to recover and rehab her knee.
But just over a week ago, Talbot made her return to the court. At the tail end of the season, one in which her Adelaide Lightning have struggled to find success, Talbot played just over twenty minutes, contributed 14 points, seven rebounds, two assists and a block, while helping her teammates to just their sixth win of the season.
Needless to say, after all of that rehab work and sitting patiently, watching her teammates for months, it was a welcome experience for Talbot.
“It felt unreal just to be back on the court with the girls and playing the game that I love. It felt unreal,” Talbot told The Pick and Roll on Friday.
With just two games to play this season and a near three-week gap between games due to the FIBA qualifying window, Talbot is really just trying to get her game legs back and a little rhythm. Then, she’ll continue working towards her sixth WNBA season and ensuring she’s ready to get on that plane to Paris in late July for the 2024 Olympics.
It’s not been an easy road to get this point though. When you’re largely on your own, without teammates around, it can be hard to stay focused and positive through such a long rehab and recovery process.
Talbot certainly faced some challenges navigating that period.
“Eleven months is a long time, so definitely had my ups and downs in terms of motivation and all that,” she admitted.
“[It] probably helped once WNBL was back so I was around the girls a lot more on the daily. But, prior to that, the first six months it was just me, myself and I, plodding along every day. So, that was a bit tougher.”
Talbot leaned on her partner and her family in those early stages when she wasn’t around a team. They kept her in a positive mindset and provided a lot of emotional support. Any athlete that goes through a lengthy rehab process like this following a major injury can tell you how important that support can be.
Once she was back around the Adelaide Lightning as WNBL preseason began, and obviously continuing into this season, she’s leaned more on basketball people like coaches and teammates.
That support has been really important as Talbot has worked towards getting back to where she was before the injury. She’d been playing some of the best basketball of her career, but believes that the work she has put in will allow her to not just get back to that level, but possibly be even better.
“I feel confident that I’ll hopefully come back better,” said Talbot.
“It’s been my goal all along, you know you go down with an injury and the amount of people that tell you or say to you ‘You’ll be back bigger and stronger than ever’, I don’t know if they actually mean it when they say that or if it’s just a nice thing to say.
“But I kind of took that on and I’m definitely stronger, hopefully be fitter, worked on parts of my game I haven’t had the chance to work on so, hopefully once I get all the cobwebs out and I get that timing back, I’m confident that I’ll be back to where I was before.”
When you have that much time away from the game, it’s a chance to spend time working on things you often never get the chance to. Talbot’s normal schedule has been WNBL into WNBA into some form of Opals commitments and back into WNBL. Rinse, repeat.
That doesn’t leave much time to focus on particular areas of her game to improve. But this past eleven months has afforded her that opportunity. And Talbot has definitely taken advantage of that.
So what has she been working on?
“I mean, I’m ten times stronger than I was before which is scary cos I was already … I thought I was already strong, but clearly not,” explained Talbot.
“And just basketball skills, working on my left hand, working on ball skills, making my shot more consistent. Just little things that you don’t necessarily get time to work on when you play game after game after game.”
In her time on court last round, you could see evidence of that work. Talbot looked stronger in the way she attacked the basket and finished in the paint, she moved well with and off the ball, her stroke looked pure and confident, and she was her typical tenacious self on defence.
Those traits are hallmarks of Talbot’s career and a reason why she’s become a staple for the Australian Opals, and also amongst the best players in the world in the WNBA. With five seasons under her belt, she’ll join the Los Angeles Sparks for the upcoming season; a move she was to make last year before her injury derailed those plans.
Talbot, who will be in the second year of her two-year deal, isn’t quite sure just yet what to expect from the Sparks’ roster. With WNBA free agency having just started last week, there are a few chips still to fall, so Talbot’s role may be fluid depending on how that roster shakes out.
Curt Miller, the Sparks head coach and a two-time WNBA Coach of the Year, also moved to Los Angeles last year. His team though, missed the WNBA playoffs for just the second time in his eight years coaching in that league.
The Sparks, who lost star player Nneka Ogwumike in free agency, have a young roster and are about to add two lottery picks. They will have the number two and number four picks overall after a recent trade with Seattle, and also hold pick 12.
So, having a veteran presence like Talbot, alongside newly acquired Canadian Kia Nurse, will be very important for that young roster. Talbot has been in contact with the Sparks and Miller during her rehab, but not in any great detail of late.
“We haven’t spoken a lot to be honest,” Talbot admitted. “We’ve been in contact a little bit as the last twelve months has gone on and I think they see me as a huge part of their group moving forward, especially since it looks like they’re re-building.
“But, we haven’t spoken in depth about what that looks like yet. I guess they’ll get more of the roster together and we’ll talk about that in the coming weeks or months.”
WNBA training camps open on 28 April, and Talbot is keen to get over to LA and settled in ahead of then. She may go over a week or two before that, but once the Lightning’s season is done later this month, she’ll continue to work out in Adelaide.
“I’m really enjoying working out here. I’ve got a good group around me, so I’ll continue to do that,” she said.
With this current break, Talbot will continue to work out and try to improve, strengthen her body further and just feel more and more comfortable on the court, but she’ll also turn into a fan as her Opals teammates and friends look to qualify for the Paris Olympics.
The Opals have three games in Belém, Brazil starting this Thursday against Brazil, Germany and Serbia, with three of those four teams to qualify for the Olympics. While Talbot was disappointed that she wasn’t able to be part of this qualification process, she certainly has her sights set on Paris and believes the Opals will do what they need to this week.
“Yeah, I was pretty bummed not to be going with them obviously, but they’ll be fine,” said Talbot.
“They have some solid vets. They have some nice, young youth coming through with a bit of spark, a bit of flair. And then you’ve got the likes of Ezi [Magbegor] and Lan [Alanna Smith] who are really starting to come into their own.
“So, it’s a tough pool in terms of there’s no easybeats, but I think they’ll be fine. I think they’ll get the job done, no dramas.”
That youth that Talbot mentions is one of the more exciting elements of the roster. Rejoining the Opals for the first time since the 2021 FIBA Asia Cup is UC Capitals and Seattle Storm guard, Jade Melbourne, while making their respective Opals debuts are Townsville Fire champion Steph Reid and Talbot’s Adelaide teammate, Isobel Borlase.
For someone like Borlase, who is just 19 years old and on the cusp of being drafted into the WNBA later this year, it’s a great opportunity to get some experience at senior international level. And it’s also a great opportunity for Opals coach Sandy Brondello to see what Borlase and Melbourne can add to the group, ahead of the Paris games.
Talbot knows from when she was coming up as a 21-year-old, how important these opportunities are for young players, and for the continuity of the Opals program.
“I think this experience will be massive for the likes of Issy in particular, but Jade [Melbourne] as well,” Talbot explained. “I think just learning what it takes to be successful at that next level. She’s [Borlase] an incredible talent and she’s a great playmaker, and I think she’ll continue to be able to do that at this level, but learning [that] you can’t have lapses on defence or you can’t not be focussed in a timeout.
“Just those little things that are nothing to do with her talent, more the mental side of the game that you kind of learn as you get older. And watching Madge [Tess Madgen] lead and things like that, she’ll learn a lot from.”
Talbot is clearly excited for how good this Opals team could be. With a great mix of experienced players like herself, Marianna Tolo, Bec Allen, Cayla George, Sami Whitcomb, Madgen and possibly Lauren Jackson, emerging leaders in Magbegor, Smith, Reid, Kristy Wallace and Shyla Heal, plus exciting prospects in Borlase, Melbourne, Shaneice Swain, Nyadiew Puoch and Georgia Amoore. Add to that others like Sara Blicavs, Alice Kunek and Darcee Garbin who have featured in several Opals campaigns, it’s clear the talent pool has never been deeper.
And despite the bronze medal win at the 2022 World Cup, Talbot believes the disappointment of the last Olympic campaign in Tokyo, means there is a desire and a hunger to want to show how good the Opals can be. And that prospect is very exciting for Talbot as she thinks about putting on that green and gold jersey again should she be able to play in Paris.
“Yeah definitely. I’m super excited for the next six to twelve months; going back to LA and then hopefully Paris, providing we qualify and I make that final team,” Talbot said.
“Definitely some unfinished business for Olympics. I think we all know in the back of our minds we’ve got work to do in terms of that, but we believe we’re good enough for sure.”
For now though, Talbot will focus on getting the most out of the final two games of the WNBL season with the Adelaide Lightning. After winning her return game, she’d love to get another win and help to start to turn around the culture of the Lightning.
Adelaide haven’t won a WNBL Finals game since 2019 and will fail to make the postseason for the second straight season, so for some of the younger players it’s important to learn how to win consistently.
They have a young, emerging group, and Talbot is signed for another three seasons, so she’s invested in helping to build a winner again; in helping them climb up the standings and starting to contend for championships again.
And Talbot believes they can do that.
“Yeah, we’ve struggled the last couple of years, but I fully believe we’re building the core to create something special here in the next couple years,” she said.
“We’ve got some great young players starting to come into their own and if we can keep a couple of the core players around, we’ll definitely be on the incline in the next year or two.”
The Adelaide Lightning’s next game is versus the Melbourne Boomers on Saturday 17 February at Adelaide 36ers Arena.