Margo Dydek knows that a lot of people suspected she was saving herself for the Sydney Olympics while playing last summer for the WNBA's Utah Starzz. It would have made some sense. The 7-foot-2 center was the main reason Poland's women's team was optimistic during its Olympic debut at the 2000 Games in Sydney.
But Dydek says the assumption was off-base.
"I know a lot of people, they say this," said Dydek soon after she had arrived in Salt Lake City for her fourth WNBA season with the Starzz earlier this week.
Despite Dydek's seven blocked shots and nine points in 17 minutes, the Starzz dropped a two-point loss Wednesday at Phoenix. Next up is today's 6 p.m. game against the Minnesota Lynx at the Target Center, with the Starzz returning home for a pair of exhibition games — Tuesday at Weber State and Thursday at the Delta Center.
Dydek's Wednesday performance underscores her "I have new energy" claim at the start of a new WNBA season.
"I was not playing how I want to play last year, and people can say I was not caring about WNBA," she said. "But I was — it's why I was frustrated,"
Dydek admitted "the Olympics was pretty important" but added that she wanted to play well in the WNBA season as well — and not just because a good summer of 2000 action would help her prepare for the Olympics.
Dydek says her different goals in each of her three seasons of year-round basketball — with her Polish-league team, with Poland in European play and with the Starzz in the WNBA — keep her from getting burnt out. "All the time, it's different goals," she says.
While the last WNBA season did not turn out as she would have liked, she was surprised when she returned to her Polish team, which did well in the 2000 European Championships — and found a much different club than she had left. Just weeks before the Sydney Games, Poland's team seemed weary to Dydek.
"After WNBA, when I come back to prepare, the team looked strange. I don't know, maybe it was like the preparation was too long. They stayed together four months with only four or five days off, so they were looking, like, tired. The atmosphere was, like, heavy," she said. "We played much, much better at the European championship. I don't know. Something strange, it was not the same team."
Despite the euphoria of an Olympic debut, the Polish national team didn't perform the way it had expected in Sydney. Poland won three of five in the preliminary round but lost lopsidedly its two medal-round games to the finalists United States and Australia.
"Eighth place, for the first time in history is not so bad either," Dydek said, "but my impression was like we were playing much better the year before. The team when we were winning, it was OK. But I don't like it when we were losing bad, like 20 points."
Dydek noticed little hero-worship of the female hoopsters in Poland after the Games. Like the players, they thought the showing was good for a debut but had hoped for better. And Polish athletes had more success in other sports, like race-walking, judo, running and wrestling.
While the Polish team hungered for a better finish, the Olympic experience was good for Dydek and her sisters. One, Kashka, was a teammate on Team Poland, while a younger sister, Marta, was in Australia during the Games for youth conferences as a future Olympic hopeful.
"Sometimes you have to cry, you were so happy and laughing," Dydek recalled. "It was a great experience for me.
"The atmosphere at Olympics — everybody know each other. Sometimes I don't even recognize some people," Dydek said, meaning she didn't know in which events they participated.
"But it was really nice. . . . Even from the other countries when you were going to lunch, everybody was just so nice, they say, 'Hi,' even when they don't know each other."
E-MAIL: lham@desnews.com