The WNBA finally put out a statement on the fact that San Antonio Silver Stars guard Becky Hammon will miss the games against New York and Connecticut on June 19 and 21 because of her Russian national team obligations at the Eurobasket championships.

Hammon played for San Antonio last night and helped the Silver Stars beat her old team, the New York Liberty. As we speak, she is en route to Latvia to join up with the Russian squad which improved to 5-0 with a 67-59 win over Italy on Sunday (former UConn star Svetlana Abrosimova had a game-high 19 points and nine rebounds to lead Russia).

My question is why has this been kept so quiet? Something tells me that if Connecticut Sun stars Asjha Jones or Lindsay Whalen were in a similar predicament, there would have been multiple reports, columns, so on and so forth. Yet, a quick scan of the coverage in the San Antonio paper this morning does not include one comment from Hammon on the issue. The only story on the issue does not include a quote from Hammon which is certainly hard to believe. I am sure there are people who bought tickets to either the game in New York or the one in Connecticut to see Hammon. There figure to be some rather upset ticket holders, especially in New York since Hammon was one of the most popular players in the history of the New York Liberty franchise. The silence surrounding this story is not only deafening, it is inexcusable.

Going back to the Eurobasket event, Latvia and France have secure berths in the quarterfinals meaning that Anete Jekabsone-Zogota and Sandrine Gruda, the leading scorers for the Latvian and French teams, will not get an early start on their trip to the U.S. to join the Connecticut Sun. Since the event is being held in Latvia, Jekabsone-Zogota will flying straight to the U.S. and should join the Sun later this month. Gruda has been given permission to go home to France for a few days before heading to the U.S.