NEW YORK — Betnijah Laney didn't always want to be a basketball player. When she was younger she wanted to be a dancer and a cheerleader. In fact, she hated the game growing up.
"I sucked. I was probably the worst person on the court," Laney said Tuesday, sitting in front of a WNBA backdrop in a conference room in Las Vegas, where she'll play in her very first All-Star Game.
"Early on in my career, I didn't know whether I would get (to the WNBA) or not," Laney added. "It was just more so about sticking to it and now that I've been having success it's like, 'OK, you can you can do this, as well.' So I just want to continue to grow and you know just to hopefully have more accomplishments."
Laney, who is now 27, has come a long way since her AAU and Rutgers days. And her evolution has brought her to a new kind of elite club, the cream of the crop of the W.
Wednesday's All-Star Game, which will be played between the voted-in All-Stars and Team USA, will feature the very best of the most competitive women's league in the world. We're talking Tina Charles, Sue Bird, Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones, DeWanna Bonner. And Laney is one of a few newcomers to the big time.
"I have a bit of butterflies, but you know hopefully those leave as soon as I touch the court," Laney said of playing Wednesday, "because it is a little different, it's something I haven't experienced before. So just trying to take those feelings and just use them to kind of fuel myself to just be great tomorrow."
Even though she's one of the All-Star newbies, she'll at least get to do it alongside her friend, Chicago Sky's Kahleah Copper — who she played with in AAU and at Rutgers — also making her All-Star debut. The pair got to do their first All-Star media interviews together on Tuesday. (Both actually laughed recalling how the day they got their calls from the league inviting them to the All-Star Game, they thought they were getting calls about existing fines they needed to pay). Laney, who is more of an introvert, also expressed how much easier being a newbie on the scene is because she gets to do it with familiar faces like Copper. And Copper was the first person to reach out to congratulate her on her All-Star bid last month.
Laney is in her sixth season in the W. After getting drafted by the Chicago Sky in 2015, she bounced around the league before hitting her stride last season. That growth she referred to? It's never stopped. It's carried her all these years. The Laney we see today, who's become a force for the Liberty over the first half of the season, is the product of her diligence presenting itself front and center.
Sure, there are plenty of players who can drop 20 or more points in a game, but it's not every year you get a player who puts up 20-plus in eight straight games to start the season.
And her career hasn't even come close to hitting its peak yet.
So, when she jogs onto the court Wednesday at the Mandalay Bay Event Center for Team WNBA, there should absolutely be no lingering doubts about who she is: an All-Star. What follows after that? As they like to say here in the Big Apple, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.
Asked about being on a future Team USA roster, Laney said: "If I continue to do what I'm doing, that could be a possibility."
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