A WNBA superstar teared up about feeling 'unvaluable' following her highly-discussed Tokyo Olympics snub

• Nneka Ogwumike was cut from USA Basketball's squad in a shocking move before the Tokyo Olympics.
• The WNBA superstar previously won MVP of the qualifying tournament and led team scoring in 2020.
• In her first public comments post-Olympics, Ogwumike cried and said she felt "invaluable."
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The USA Basketball women's squad won its seventh consecutive gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.

But Nneka Ogwumike - the 2016 WNBA MVP and the WNBA players' association president - was not part of the winning effort.

In a major shock ahead of the games, USA Basketball's decision-makers opted against bringing Ogwumike to Japan as a member of the 12-player team. The 31-year-old was a significant contributor to the squad's efforts leading up to the Olympics, earning MVP honors in the Olympic qualifying tournament and leading the team in scoring for 2020.

On Monday, just two days after Team USA's gold-medal win against Japan, Ogwumike addressed the media for the Los Angeles Sparks - her WNBA team. And when she was asked about the emotional toll missing the games took on her, the six-time WNBA All-Star was remarkably candid about her struggle.

"They always say that in trials, you grow stronger, and that what is inside of you is exacerbated," Ogwumike said. "I would like to say that, out of that, I have always been described as resilient, and I had to tell myself that a lot to make sure that I believed it because it's been a few weeks of feeling unvaluable or unworthy."

"It's been very difficult," she continued as tears welled up in her eyes. "I'm sorry. I swear I wasn't gonna cry. It's been very difficult. I just want to play basketball. I'm sorry, you guys. I just want to play and have fun."

Ogwumike is working to shift her focus away from the Olympics and towards the second half of the WNBA season. Her Sparks struggled earlier in the summer due in large part to the injury bug biting many of its foremost stars, including Ogwumike and her sister - Chiney.

"Now I'm just really grateful to be playing with my team," she added. "I'm grateful to be on a team with people that care about me, and I just want to play. I just want to play basketball."

Still, the 6-foot-2 power forward knew she had to spend some time "trying to figure out how I want to come out of this," as she said during the press conference.

"Because I think when you endure situations that are tough in life, you can choose many different roads," she added.

She chose to bite her tongue, though plenty of others spoke out on her behalf. Chiney posted a lengthy statement on Twitter in which she said her sister "deserves her respect" and was "snubbed" as "the ONLY WNBA MVP that has yet to be named to an Olympic Roster." Their younger sister, Erica, later referred to the snub as an "injustice."

And Ogwumike had plenty of supporters outside of her family, too. Former Los Angeles superstar Candace Parker, who found herself in an eerily similar situation before the 2016 Rio Olympics, described Ogwumike's situation as "bulls---" during one of her own WNBA media availabilities.

Sparks coach Derek Fisher went as far as calling the snub "a travesty."

"They always have my back," Ogwumike said later in Monday's press conference. "I have teammates for life. Candace [Parker] always has my back."

Check out a clip of her comments below:

-Spectrum SportsNet (@SpectrumSN) August 9, 2021