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BOB'S STORM FRONT: Two Seattle Storm WNBA players and a former Storm legend will from tomorrow trade Seattle's yellow and green uniforms for the classic green and gold of the Australian women's national team at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, reports our US correspondent BOB CRAVEN.

SEATTLE Storm WNBA legend Lauren Jackson is this week joined by Ezi Magbegor and Sami Whitcomb in Australia's national team for the Paris Olympic Games, with Whitcomb making her Olympic debut for the Opals at age 35. 

The amazing Lauren Jackson returns for her fifth Olympics at 43.

And they won't be Seattle's only Olympic reps, Storm head coach Noelle Quinn the lead assistant for the Canadian women's national team.

The FIBA World Champion USA women's team starts odds-on favourite to retain the gold it won in Tokyo but it is beatable.

The WNBA All-Stars proved it again this past weekend when the league reached its All-Star break.

It traditionally marks the halfway point in the season, even though a bit more than half the season's games have been played.  

This All-Star "break" will be a bit longer than normal with games at the Paris Olympics tipping off this weekend, which means it will be a month or so before the WNBA season starts up again.

In the Eastern Conference, the NY Liberty and the Connecticut Sun, as anticipated, are running away with things, with Sandy Brondello's Liberty on top of the Sun by 2½ games.  No one else is within 10 games of them. 

Things are a bit more even in the Western Conference, Minnesota, Seattle and defending champion Las Vegas in a virtual tie at the top, with Phoenix less than four games back of those three.

With the much-ballyhooed arrival of a super rookie class this season, headed by Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, the league is enjoying a banner season.

They've set records for attendance and revenue at the league level, but also most of the individual teams have also set records as well.  Clark and Reese have taken their respective teams from the basement of the Eastern Conference standings into the middle of the pack.

Both Clark and Reese have also set records, both for rookies and for the league.  A couple of weeks ago, Clark became the first rookie ever to post a triple-double which led to a win over NY.  Her line of 19-13-12 was historic, but two games prior to that, she missed a triple double by one rebound. 

Last week in a loss to Dallas, Clark set a new league record for assists in a game with 19.  Clark is leading all rookies in scoring at 17.1 points per game and is the league leader for all players in assists per game with 8.2.

Reese, for her part, has also been setting records.  She recently set an all-time league record with 15 consecutive double-doubles.  Last month, she and Kamilla Cardoso became the first set of rookie teammates to register 15+ points and 10+ rebounds in the same game in 26 years.

This year's All-Star Game pitted the USA Olympic Team against a team of WNBA All-Stars.  The Olympians, who have only practiced together for two days never really threatened as Team WNBA won it 117-109. 

It was the second consecutive win for the WNBA All-Stars over the Olympians.  The All-Stars also won in 2021 led by Dallas Wings star Arike Ogunbowale, who was MVP of that game and also of this one.  In this game, she set an All-Star Game record with 34 points. 

Clark and Reese were teammates for the first time in this game as both played for the WNBA All-Stars.  Reese was the game's leading rebounder with 11, while Clark led both teams in assists with 10, a new All-Star game record.

The test now is for one of the national teams to repeat what the WNBA All-Stars achieved to keep the USA from claiming gold in Paris.