WNBA star Kelsey Plum is leaning into her Aces' 'superteam' hype: 'If that will get folks's consideration, nice'

• Kelsey Plum does not take subject with of us calling the Las Vegas Aces a WNBA “superteam.”
• The star guard instructed Insider it is “nice” if “that will get folks’s consideration” and helps develop the sport.
• Plum additionally famous that this is not the primary time star-studded groups have dominated the 27-year-old league.

Kelsey Plum is not shying away from her franchise’s new designation as a “superteam.”

However she’s not satisfied it is notably distinctive, both.

“Personally, I believe that if that works and that will get folks’s consideration, nice,” Plum mentioned. “However to me it is not something totally different than I simply assume super gamers within the league. And it makes for actually enjoyable leisure, which is what it is about.”

The fiery guard is one in every of 5 former WNBA All-Stars on this season’s Las Vegas Aces roster. Plum — who ranked second within the league with 20.2 factors per sport final 12 months — will now have her alternative of two WNBA MVPs when she seems to cross down within the paint.

Reigning league MVP A’ja Wilson, who helped lead the Aces to their first-ever WNBA title final season, has referred to as Las Vegas residence for the reason that very starting of her skilled basketball profession. However now, she’ll be joined within the submit by league legend Candace Parker, who made a shock resolution to go away her hometown Chicago Sky for Sin Metropolis this low season.

“Once you add somebody like Candace Parker to your roster, you are now on a worldwide scale,” Plum mentioned. “Already taking what we did final season and persevering with to make use of that momentum, now we have the world’s consideration, and that to me is thrilling.”

“There’s a variety of buzz proper now and for good purpose,” she added.

However whereas loads of observers have already dubbed this era as the WNBA superteam period — the East has the star-studded New York Liberty — Plum is reluctant to take it that far. She is aware of the league has seen loads of powerhouse squads in its 26 seasons.

Take the now-defunct Houston Comets, which received the WNBA’s first 4 titles behind the unimaginable trio of Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes, and Tina Thompson. A bit greater than a decade later, a Minnesota Lynx roster stacked with league legends Seimone Augustus, Lindsay Whalen, Maya Moore, Rebekkah Brunson, and, later, Sylvia Fowles received 4 championships of its personal over a seven-year span.

Plum additionally named the Los Angeles Sparks squad that took down these dominant Lynx in 2016. She remembers watching two of her now-teammates — Parker and level guard Chelsea Grey — assist energy the Sparks on that championship run.

“What’s so humorous is like, you speak about, ‘They’re now superteams,'” Plum mentioned. “For me personally, rising up watching the league, I really feel like there’s been superteams all through this point in time.”

Nonetheless, Plum acknowledges that the renewed consideration on “superteams” — mixed with “viewership rising tremendously” throughout their sport — offers her, her teammates, and her friends throughout the WNBA a singular alternative to additional elevate ladies’s basketball. It is a accountability she takes extremely critically.

“Greater than something, I believe that to have the ability to be part of this technology and what we’re doing to develop the sport actually simply pays respect to the those who received us up to now,” Plum mentioned. “So to be right here on this place, I really feel prefer it’s a privilege and I am gonna take advantage of it.”