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Natasha Cloud’s emotional reaction to Texas school shooting

By Tyler Byrum

Cloud's emotional reaction to Texas school shooting originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington

The Washington Mystics organization held another media blackout following the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas to discuss gun violence and to stress their pleas for government action.

As she normally does, guard Natasha Cloud was the voice of the team, speaking on behalf of her teammates after Washington’s 70-50 win over the Atlanta Dream on Tuesday night in Washington. 

“Today we’re going to do a media blackout,” Cloud said following the contest. “I think that you are all aware of what is happening, what happened in Texas, what happened in Buffalo not even a week and a half ago. We have an issue in this country, not only white supremacy, we also have a gun violence issue. And this is us using our platform.”

An 18-year-old gunman opened fire on Tuesday, killing 19 children in their last week of school before the summer break. Two adults were also killed, with many more injured. It was the deadliest school shooting since a gunman killed 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., 10 years ago.

On May 15, there was a separate shooting in Buffalo, NY where 10 Black people were killed at a supermarket. City and federal officials called the shooting a racially motivated hate crime.

“This game doesn’t matter,” Cloud continued. “The [21] lives that were lost today from senseless gun violence in Texas, at an elementary school – we’re talking about our kids not being safe to go to school and our government is still not implementing sensible gun laws. This isn’t about taking people’s rights away from bearing arms. This is about putting sensible gun laws in so this doesn’t happen again.”

Cloud was direct in her comments asking society not to continue to make the same mistakes that allow these horrific incidents to happen. She claims nothing is being done at the legislative level because of money and for profit. She asked those who are tired of these shootings happening to write to local and federal representatives.

This is not the first time the Mystics have held a media blackout. For the fourth straight season, the team has dedicated at least one media availability to discussing societal issues in the United States.

During the team’s championship season in 2019, a stray bullet broke a window at Hendley Elementary in Southeast D.C. – less than two miles from the team’s arena and practice facility. No students or teachers were hurt in the shooting, but in the subsequent game the players refused to answer basketball questions.

While holding the blackout, speaking for the team, Cloud asked the D.C. government to adequately respond and create a solution. Cloud’s own blackout extended beyond just the one game and further into the season. 

Another media blackout took place following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wis. in 2020. The team took an even more drastic step by boycotting the game held on the evening of the shooting and wore white t-shirts that spelled out his name with seven bullet holes painted on them. Other teams inside the WNBA’s COVID-19 bubble in Bradenton, Fla. felt similarly and led the WNBA to postpone all contests for two days. 

Cloud sat out that 2020 season to focus on her own activism and not be distracted by basketball. Mystics teammate Ariel Atkins stepped forward to be the voice of the team during that time. 

Over the course of her seven-year career, Cloud has become a leading face in the WNBA for her activism and does not shy away from speaking on social issues. She has addressed racial discrimination, police violence, police reform, abortion issues, advocacy for women along with gun violence. 

“To the families in Texas, the Mystics are sending our love, our prayers. We pray for y’all today, we will continue to pray for you and we will continue to fight for you and we will fight for everyone in this country,”  Cloud said. 

Elena Delle Donne opted out of Team USA due to schedule, Mystics coach says

By Tyler Byrum
Delle Donne opted out of Team USA due to schedule, Mystics coach says originally appeared on NBC Sports WashingtonOver Labor Day weekend, members of Team USA reported to Las Vegas to begin training camp for the upcoming women's World Cup in Australia later this month. But on Monday, there was a surprising absence in the updated roster which sent shockwaves among WNBA fans. Long-time national team member and 2016 Olympic Gold medalist Elena Delle Donne was not on the list.Her omission, however, was not due to injury concerns or internal politics behind the scenes. It was a decision Delle Donne made, facing her first real offseason since the 2018-19 gap.Mystics head coach and Team USA assistant coach Mike Thibault explained her reasoning on Wednesday."As for Elena, it came down to a decision on her own that she looked at all the practice schedule and game schedule for this," Thibault said. "(The Mystics) were pretty methodical about how we addressed her during the season and the USA experience right now would be, I think we play something like eight games in 11 days or whatever it is in the tournament and on top of practices for several weeks, without our day-to-day medical, that would be a really big ask for her to do that full-time."Delle Donne is just coming off a WNBA season where she missed 11 games, nearly a third of the season, due to rest. After spending two years rehabbing from multiple back procedures, she and the team doctors wanted to ease her back into the fray. By year's end, the missed games, though, were few and far between.That's part of the reason why when she received an invite in August to training camp, there was renewed optimism that she could play with the national team.The two-time WNBA MVP has not played internationally since 2018. She's participated in training programs and attended the World Cup qualifying camp in February of 2022, but hasn't been healthy enough to play since she herniated three discs in her back in 2019.Prior to that point, she was a regular participant with Team USA. In addition to the Gold medal at the Rio Olympics, she also won gold at the 2018 FIBA World Cup and the 2011 World University Games. She owns a 26-0 record when playing with the National Team. When she did not play in the 2020 Toyko Olympics (played in 2021) she admitted that she "struggled" to watch games because it was tough to not be on the team. Stepping aside for this cycle is more about her long-term health. This offseason she is looking forward to training instead of rehab."This is a continue to build her game-type situation and so she wants a little bit of downtime and then get in the gym and start working on parts of the game that she wants to keep expanding and working on like she would in a normal offseason. The demands of the USA thing in a short amount of time would have put a lot of stress on her. She felt like her recovery and getting to the next thing was more important right now," Thibault said.Myisha Hines-Allen was also not on the list of participants for the upcoming training camp after being one of four Mystics to receive the original invite. Thibault said she chose to have surgery later this week on her left knee to take care of a nagging injury. It will take three to four months of recovery before she returns.Fellow teammates Ariel Atkins (2020 Olympic Gold medalist) and Shakira Austin (first appearance) are Washington's remaining members in the player pool.
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