Tag Archives: Seattle Storm

WNBA Today, 08/03/2011: With a Rebel Yell…

Those of you who hang around certain online portals for WNBA arguing – also known as message boards – may well have read my bitching about this year’s WNBA national TV schedule before the season even began. I had one central complaint. The game of women’s basketball doesn’t have many stars. Not true stars that are known by an average sportsfan, rather than someone who specifically follows the women’s game. Over four years at the University of Connecticut, Maya Moore became one of those rare crossover personalities. Your average American man in the street, who watches the NFL, NBA, some MLB and gets into the NCAA during March Madness actually knew who she was. Even Bill Simmons gave her some credit in his columns and podcasts during the NCAA tournament of her senior year.

So when the Minnesota Lynx won the lottery, and everyone in the World knew they’d be taking Maya, it would’ve made sense to put the Lynx on ABC or ESPN as soon as possible, right? Carry the fans over, pull in people who remember her from UConn and see if you can draw people to the pro game via your shiny new star. Apparently not. The national TV schedule came out, and the Lynx appeared once. And not only was there just a single appearance, we were going to have to wait until August for that game to take place. Sportsfans have short memories – you’re not going to create much carry-over attention when Moore hasn’t been in the public consciousness for over four months. Stupid. Anyway, last night Maya Moore finally made her debut on national television in a Lynx jersey. Surprise, surprise, it seems like she enjoys the spotlight. If only this game had taken place months ago.

Of course the night wasn’t just about Moore. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/31/2011: Are they still zebras if they don’t wear stripes?

Don’t you hate when it’s impossible to discuss a basketball game without talking about the officials? I try to leave them alone whenever possible, because I fully accept that it’s a damn hard job, and that even when you do it well no one gives you any credit. Refereeing any basketball game is difficult; officiating at the professional level is exponentially harder because of the increase in speed and physicality. But I’m sorry, you just can’t fully discuss Saturday’s games without mentioning the zebras (I know they don’t wear stripes in this league. Tough. I like the nickname). Well you can’t fully discuss two of the games, anyway. As ever, Tulsa contests could be refereed by Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and the Little Mermaid without much difference to the outcome.

The first game of the night was in New York, where Phoenix were the visitors. We probably could’ve guessed that this would be a tough game to marshal. After forcing a trade to New York prior to the 2010 season, Cappie Pondexter’s matchups with her former team have been a little spicy to say the least. She was thrown out of the first encounter last season for her part in a fracas, and then channelled her energy more positively to shoot the Merc off the floor in the second meeting. Beyond the history with Pondexter, Mercury games frequently end up chippy. Diana Taurasi and head coach Corey Gaines both bitch about every call, and Taurasi constantly creates contact at both ends of the floor. It can’t be fun for the refs. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/30/2011: Ohhh, we’re half way there…

You know we’ve hit the meat of the WNBA season when a day with only two games feels like a nice, relaxing, easy evening for me. I’m also reliably informed that while last weekend may have been the official mid-point of the season in terms of date, last night’s games took us to exactly halfway through the schedule. 102 games down, 102 to go. Then the playoffs, of course. And WNBAlien just keeps on ticking.

The basketball gods even made it ridiculously easy to choose which game to focus on last night, offering up one tight contest and one overwhelming, comprehensive blowout. Considering the first game was top vs. bottom in the East, while the second featured last season’s champs against the current Western leaders, you might’ve thought the latter would’ve been the close one. You’d have been about as accurate as a Nicky Anosike fadeaway.

Aw, that’s a little unfair. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/27/2011: They’re back!

So the WNBA was finally back last night, with the first proper games since last Thursday. Weird how five days can feel like so long in the middle of the season when the offseason lasts nearly eight months. Anyway, even I feel like five games in one piece is a bit much to cover, so we’re going to split this up. The entire Western Conference played last night, but the five teams that still matter were encompassed by three games. So this column will cover those three contests, and tomorrow I’ll get to the East. It means Washington and Tulsa are in the wrong half, but at this point I barely consider them to count. It’s a five-team race on either side, and everyone outside of delusional Mystics front-office personnel knows it. On to the games.

The opening matchup last night was San Antonio‘s trip to Washington. So we had one team that had gone through all the hoopla of hosting the All-Star Game in previous days, and one that spent the weekend messing with their roster. The starting fives were the same as usual for both teams, but Washington had recent pickup DeMya Walker in uniform coming off the bench. Karima Christmas and Ta’Shia Phillips are both gone, as you probably know by now, but Alana Beard and Monique Currie are still in street clothes, leaving the Mystics currently down to nine.

Or eight, depending on your perspective. It’s hard to tell if Nicky Anosike’s head is actually in Washington yet. Her shooting touch certainly isn’t. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/25/2011: Where Trade Winds Might Blow, Western Edition

Before we get to the Western Conference half of the trade possibilities feature, first let’s round up the signing news from around the league. Chicago filled their empty spot by signing Eshaya Murphy to a seven-day contract (which makes my reminder that they still held her rights a couple of days ago look surprisingly prescient). After four seasons in the WNBA spread across six different cities, Murphy’s yet to shoot over 38% in any of them. So don’t expect her to set the World on fire. She will at least give them another option on the wing though, which is better than nothing. And nothing is about what they were getting from Angie Bjorklund.

No news yet out of New York on their 11th roster spot, but there was more movement in Washington today. DeMya Walker was officially acquired, but slipped into the release was the news that Karima Christmas wasn’t the only player who’d been waived – Ta’Shia Phillips is gone too. Taken by Atlanta with the 8th pick in this year’s draft, presumably on instructions from Washington who acquired her as part of the Lindsey Harding trade later the same day, it’s shocking to see the Mystics quit on Phillips so quickly. She hasn’t looked great in the brief glimpses we’ve seen of her on WNBA floors by any means, but this is a 6-6 center. And the team is terrible. These are the kids you should be building with, not discarding at the first opportunity in favour of journeymen like Walker whose careers are nearly over. It’s a bizarre move from Washington.

How do you decide that Phillips is worth the #8 pick, work with her for barely a couple of months, and then throw her away when your season’s already heading down the toilet? Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/22/2011: Cuts and Blowouts

Before we tackle last night’s game, first let’s take a look at all the roster movement that’s been going on today. As I mentioned here a couple of times this week, any non-guaranteed contract that is still on a team’s roster at the mid-point of the WNBA season automatically becomes guaranteed for the rest of the season. We hit that mid-point today, so several teams waived players late last night and the names have been trickling out all day long. In alphabetical team order:

 

Chicago

Angie Bjorklund was waived by the Sky, which wouldn’t have been a huge surprise even if it wasn’t the day before deals became guaranteed. Rookie wing Bjorklund really hasn’t done much all year, and has barely played. On the rare occasions she’s appeared, she’s looked like the old version of Erin Thorn – the one who couldn’t do anything except stand around and shoot – only with less talent. That’s a fringe WNBA player at best.

There’s been no sign yet as to who the Sky will fill the roster spot with. It’s quite possible it’ll simply be Bjorklund returning, because the mid-point of the season is also when seven-day contracts become an option. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/20/2011: Keeping the Dream alive, and other WNBA stories

Three games yesterday in the WNBA, and we’re back to more camp days so they were scattered throughout the afternoon and evening. Doesn’t this league realise that it disrupts my whole pattern when they play games so early? Frankly I think that packing arenas with thousands of screaming kids should come a distant second to pleasing me, but apparently the WNBA disagrees.

Forced to drag themselves out of bed for an early tip yesterday were Atlanta, coming off the back of their fourth win of the season on Saturday against Chicago, and their visitors Indiana. The Fever had lost two in a row after their seven-game win streak came to an end, so whether they were playing at 2 in the afternoon or 3 in the morning, they would’ve been keen to get back to winning ways.

Indiana head coach Lin Dunn made a couple of switches to her starting lineup in the hope of bringing some fresh energy to her group, inserting guard Shavonte Zellous for ‘power’ forward Tangela Smith, which in effect moves Tamika Catchings to the four in place of Smith. She also re-benched center Jessica Davenport for Tammy Sutton-Brown. Both were interesting changes to make against Atlanta especially. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/17/2011: Last year was a long time ago

Two games in the WNBA yesterday, both featuring franchises who reached the WNBA Finals last year. Each of them were facing conference rivals who have outperformed them so far this season, so there was a feeling of 2010 powers trying to cling on to the coattails of improved 2011 squads. Things can change pretty fast in this league.

The Eastern matchup featured 3-9 Atlanta hosting Chicago, who were sat at 7-7 and are potentially the most catchable team for the Dream to pass for a playoff spot. Already 1-1 against the Sky this season (in what will ultimately be a four-game season series), this wasn’t just a chance to pull a full game back on Chicago, but also to go ahead in the possible tiebreaker. After such a disappointing season for Atlanta so far, this looked like a big game going in. A loss would’ve left them four games outside the playoff positions, and while it’s still early, that’s a significant gap even before the All-Star break.

Both teams made alterations to their starting lineups. Chicago brought in Tamera Young for Cathrine Kraayeveld at the small forward spot, likely based on the idea that she’d be able to guard Angel McCoughtry far better than Kraay. McCoughtry was 12-40 from the field in her previous two games against Chicago, so they’d been doing something right in the prior matchups. For Atlanta, Coco Miller turned an ankle in practice and was ruled out of the game, so her place in the starting lineup had to be filled. After a one-game experiment with McCoughtry as the starter at power forward against New York (which worked last year in the playoffs, but failed miserably last Wednesday), Dream head coach Marynell Meadors replaced Miller with behemoth Alison Bales. So McCoughtry was back to small forward, Armintie Price to shooting guard, and the Dream were back to playing two true bigs. I still don’t understand why they made that switch against the Liberty in the first place.

Chicago were awful to start the game. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/15/2011: Sometimes, defenses win

ESPN2 had the WNBA schedule all to themselves last night, with just one game on the slate. Let’s be generous and call it a defensive struggle, shall we? The less complimentary description of Seattle’s trip to San Antonio would involve pointing out that neither side could’ve hit water shooting off the side of a boat for most of the evening. Yesterday’s column centered on the highest-scoring game in WNBA history – this one’s going to be a little different.

San Antonio made a predictable change to their starting lineup for this game. Swin Cash’s versatile offensive game would’ve made her a very difficult matchup for Jia Perkins, recently shifted from San Antonio’s high-scoring bench into the starting lineup as a theoretical ‘small forward’ (despite being a listed 5-8). So Perkins went back to the bench, and Scholanda Robinson resumed her position among the starters. Seattle went with the usual five (or ‘usual’ since Lauren Jackson went down, anyway).

These teams know each other very, very well. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/12/2011: Storm make heavy weather of Mystics

No games on Monday in the WNBA, but Seattle had their camp day game today, so we’re going to go with early coverage of the Storm’s matchup with the Washington Mystics instead of waiting until tomorrow. Details of the late game between LA and San Antonio will be in tomorrow’s piece. We’re deep enough into the season now that I think we all had a pretty decent idea of what to expect going into this one. Seattle are working hard to find some rhythm after a slow start and the loss of MVP Lauren Jackson; Washington are fighting through multiple injuries, massive turnover from last season, and excessive youth on their roster. Seattle went in as heavy favourites, especially with over 10,000 screaming kids cheering them on, but this is basketball: anything can happen.

After losing seven of their last eight games (and the win was over Tulsa), at least there was one piece of good news for Washington before this one got underway. Star power forward Crystal Langhorne, who’d missed their last three games with back pain, returned to the starting lineup. Rookie Victoria Dunlap has done a pretty nice job in her absence, but Lang is their best player and the only consistent interior threat on this roster (considering Nicky Anosike doesn’t seem capable of shooting straight from two feet any more). Having her back could only improve their chances. Hopefully Dunlap’s development while Langhorne was gone could give them more punch off the bench, now that the kid was back amongst the reserves. Still no Alana Beard or Monique Currie, of course. Seattle’s list remains the same – LJ out, and at least half the bench won’t play unless someone’s up by 20 with three minutes left.

Seattle got out to a fast start, which was hardly surprising after the beating they put on LA in the fourth quarter of Saturday night’s game. Continue reading →