Worth It: Alex Bunton

Posted on 10 October, 2018

As Alex Bunton’s name was announced, she ran out of the Australian Opals huddle, high-fiving a row of gold-jersey teammates onto the court.

She reached her place in the lineup beside fellow World Cup debutants Alannah Smith and Ezi Magbegor, glanced up at the arena big screen and smiled.

The 24-year-old was the first Canberran to suit up for the Opals at a basketball world championship since Sue Geh in 1986. But that wasn’t why she was smiling.

Over the past 10 years, Bunton’s budding career has taken hit after hit, enduring nine knee surgeries, ankle surgery, and surgery to repair a broken nose – just to name the big ones. In July, while recovering from major knee surgery, her sole goal was making the tryout camp for the World Cup.

As a last resort to repair her busted left knee, she had a tibial tubercle transfer in November 2017, which is the professional term for drilling out a small chunk of bone connected to the patella tendon in your knee and screwing it back into a new location on the tibia with titanium screws. If it worked, re-tracking the movement of her knee cap would stop it from scraping against cartilage on every movement, wearing it down.

“It was the most painful thing I’ve ever been through,” says Bunton. “But it’s the most amazing thing that has happened to me so far.”

The Women’s Basketball World Cup had been a distant goal of Bunton’s for the past year. It was a tangible target, representing something much bigger. She had to prove to herself and everyone else in Australian basketball that her career wasn’t over.

As a 14-year-old new to the game, Bunton dislocated her knee for the first time. She figured injuries were part of sport, sat on the sideline for two months, then got back out there. She continued improving and with height and strength on her side was selected for ACT teams, then given a scholarship to the Australian Institute of Sport.

Bunton represented Australia at the Under 17 and Under 19 World Championships, but then dislocated her healthy right knee during an AIS tour of Japan.

By 17, she had undergone major reconstructive surgeries on both knees.

Joining the Canberra Capitals in 2012, Bunton was touted as the next big thing, replacing Marianna Tolo who had pursued a contract in France.

Over the next four years, she was selected in multiple Australian squads while playing for the Caps, then Adelaide and Dandenong. A 196-centimeter frame, sculpted specifically for basketball had coaches in awe. But injuries kept preventing Bunton from leaping to the next level.

In 2016, she made the camp for Rio but wasn’t selected in the team, then in 2017 made the side for the Asia Cup, then pulled out at the last minute for knee surgery.

Standing there in Tenerife on the Canary Islands off the West African Coast, linked to her teammates with long basketball limbs around shoulders, Bunton’s smile showed her parents, husband, and friends watching the game from the Dickson Tradies that it had been worth it.

The surgeries, the disappointments of being sidelined with repeated injuries. The physio, weights, running, boxing, and shooting sessions which often stacked up back-to-back-to-back on the same day. Bunton had contemplated starting university, then postponed it to focus on her rehab full-time.

“That was when it was like, ‘Oh gosh, I’m actually here,’” says Bunton. “You see yourself up on the big screen and people cheer,” she adds with a smile. “That was pretty awesome.”

Playing behind arguably the best player in the world – Liz Cambage – Bunton knew court time would hard to come by. She put her energy into doing whatever she could to help her team, whether that was shooting out of her seat on a teammate’s three pointer, setting hard screens on opponents, or encouraging everyone to keep fighting when they trailed Spain by eight in the semi-final fourth quarter.

“Having to adjust to what my new body is doing was kind of challenging,” says Bunton. “I had to learn that I can live without pain and I can hold my own against all these women from across the world… People would bounce off me,” she adds with a laugh.

Bunton bodied up against 206-centimeter WNBA superstar Brittney Griner, then blocked former WNBA MVP Elena Delle Donne, following up with a layup at the other end.

“The experience as a whole was like nothing I could ever have imagined,” she says. “It was just so much better.”

The Opals came away with silver, beating expectations after a fifth place finish in Rio.

Making it through the camp, pre-tournament games, and World Cup with no knee swelling or pain has Bunton replacing fears of retirement with hopes of a dominant WNBL season, potential of European and WNBA contracts on the cards, and Tokyo Olympics on the horizon.

“This just gave me so much confidence,” she says. “Being on a world stage opens doors for you. And I’m open to whatever comes my way.”