- Star has a $1 million contract to play in China
- It comes after he was banned from playing for Australia
- Australians have criticized his latest brain explosion.
Polarizing Australian basketball player Liz Cambage has sparked controversy once again after being ejected from a game in China for brutally elbowing one opponent in the head and punching another in the face.
The former WNBA player and Australian Opal found her career in jeopardy after allegedly making racial comments towards the Nigerian national team in a warm-up match ahead of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
Opals teammates and members of the Nigerian team alleged that Cambage called his opponents “monkeys” and told them to “go back to your third world country” during a break in the game.
That put her on the offside with her Nigerian-American Los Angeles Sparks teammates and she was eventually released by the franchise.
Her comments also divided the Opals camp and she has since been blacklisted from representing her country again.
Cambage (second from right) can be seen punching an opponent in the face from behind during a match in China.
The vision then shows Cambage elbowing an opponent in the head before acting as if nothing happened, then yelling at a match referee and taking a dramatic bow to the crowd.
The 32-year-old currently has a $1 million contract with Chinese team Sichuan Yuanda.
However, Cambage landed firmly on her feet, earning a $1 million contract with the Chengdu-based Sichuan Yuanda women’s team for just three months of work.
Her bumper payday means Cambage earns more than four times as much as the WNBA’s highest-paid stars, with Supermax contracts capped at $234,936 per season.
However, that money has done little to calm the center’s temper after she was ousted at the weekend for a pair of unsavory incidents.
In the first, Cambage lunges and hits an opponent on the side of the head from behind while defending.
Lucky to still be on the court, she then delivered a nasty elbow to an opponent’s head while on offense.
That led to her being ejected from the match, but Cambage was far from done.
After refusing to leave the court while attempting to have officials review the incident on video, he stormed toward an official in a threatening manner and shouted in his face, before mocking the crowd and bowing.
Cambage (pictured, second from left) was eventually banned from representing the Opals again after her long list of indiscretions.
Cambage (left) did not endear herself to her Nigerian teammates in the WNBA, where she was released by the Los Angeles Sparks.
Cambage herself shared her club’s highlights that were posted on Instagram, with the SiChuan Yuanda Basketball Club writing: ‘Liz Cambage had a very efficient performance today, scoring 21 points 11reb 2ast 2stl 2blk, with 7 of 8 shooting from two points and 1 out. of 1 three-point attempt’.
There was no mention of the violent outbursts or her ejection, even though one of the highlights shows her making contact with the head of the same opponent seen in the other videos.
Cambage did not mention those incidents, but commented several times about her dismissal from the WNBA.
“It’s not my fault my toes make me win more than that league,” he commented with a shrug emoji.
“It made it very easy to walk away from horrible treatment and go enjoy my summers.”
Basketball fans were quick to ferociously attack the Australian star for her actions, calling her a “clown” and saying “a leopard doesn’t change its spots.”
As the Opals prepare for a tough campaign at the Paris Olympics, several online commentators said they were glad Cambage was not part of the tournament.
“I’m a proud Australian but Liz is an embarrassment not only to the majority of Australians but to all those players and ‘unbiased’ viewers around the world who follow the sport,” one fan posted.
“Liz has some issues to work out,” another posted.
‘What a waste of talent. She could have gone down as one of the all-time greats if she wasn’t a magnet for drama. I’m so glad she got kicked out of the Opals. “Her behavior is frankly disgraceful,” added another.
Cambage’s team lost the match 96-85 and Inner Mongolia tied the series 1-1.