Top Stories of the Week: WNBA All-Star Weekend and Team USA’s men’s basketball camp dominate late July headlines

July has almost come to a close. Here are the Top Stories of the Week:

Elena Delle Donne and Kristi Toliver play in the WNBA All-Star Game

On Saturday, Elena Delle Donne and Kristi Toliver played on the same team, namely Team Delle Donne in an All-Star Game format that is not unlike the NBA All-Star Game’s new format last season. Team Delle Donne lost to Team Parker, 119-112 in an exciting game from start to finish, but Toliver made a serious case for herself to be the game’s MVP thanks to scoring 21 of her 23 points in the second half including several clutch buckets in the fourth quarter.

The Mystics are on break until next Tuesday when they head on the road to play the Dream, who are now second place in the WNBA standings. Washington is seventh.

John Wall participates in USA Basketball men’s national team minicamp

USA Basketball held its men’s basketball team minicamp in Las Vegas last week in preparation for the 2019 FIBA World Cup in China, assuming the United States qualifies. In international play, men’s national teams cannot directly qualify for the World Cup by winning the previous Olympic Games. So Team USA has to qualify via qualifiers like everyone else.

The USA Basketball men’s national team is currently made of players in the G-League and Europe where they are in the second round of qualifiers. The Americans are in second place in Group E of the FIBA where they are 5-1 in a group that includes Argentina, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, Panama, and Mexico. Qualifiers will go on until December. As long as the USA stays in the top three places, they’ll qualify for the World Cup.

Going back to the Wizards who are in consideration for the American World Cup and Olympic Games, John Wall and Bradley Beal are members of the pool. Wall attended camp and participated in drills.

Beal didn’t participate in the camp because he became the father of a son last Monday!

Wall has been going through a number of style changes this summer. He’s grown his hair out and wears corn rows (a la Allen Iverson) from time to time. He now has visible tattoos on his arms. And he had such a bad camp portrait to the point where the Wizards deleted the tweet. But here’s that bad photo once more.

The combination of growing his hair out and gaining muscle over the years made Wall look a bit out of shape. That’s not good heading into Team USA’s camp, where he’s been struggling to get considered for any international play.

Don’t worry though. Ball is Life released an offseason documentary of Wall training this offseason, and he’s in great shape. I think the MVP goals are a stretch, but you never know if the Wizards managed to get a 50+ win season and win the top seed in the Eastern Conference Playoffs next season.

I’ll finish this section with video highlights of Wall’s video highlights from camp:

July is now about to be in the history books. It was a light week in terms of the stories on the schedule, but they are big nonetheless. Here’s to kicking off August on the right note where the Mystics get on a long playoff run and the Wizards also stay in the positive spotlight.

Enjoy the rest of your weekends everyone.