Friday 19 July 2019 17:26, UK
One week on from the inaugural weekly WNBA Report Card and so much has changed. The league has greater parity than most professional sports leagues, which makes some of the bottom dwellers that much more disappointing.
However, with just a few days to go before taking a break for the All-Star Game, it’s important to finish strong, which has been the case for some unexpected teams.
Apart from those individuals playing in the annual showpiece in Las Vegas on July 27, everyone will be rested and looking to come out of the gates to make a final push toward the playoffs in the second half of the regular season.
That this team is continuing to rise is an incredible achievement. After last week’s Report Card, Seattle has stormed to three straight wins to sit with 11 wins and eight losses, behind the ridiculous (MVP challenging?) season of Natasha Howard.
Her latest performance of 33 points (a career high), seven rebounds and three blocks against a well-organised Minnesota Lynx shows how much she means to the Storm, during a year in which they are recovering from the loss of the star that led the team to a championship last season, Breanna Stewart, and the long-time floor general Sue Bird.
Filling the point guard position is Jordin Canada, and while the extra responsibility in such young hands might lead to slightly more turnovers than Bird averaged last season, there are games when the second-year player is showing flashes of brilliance.
In last week’s game against the Dallas Wings, she managed 14 points, 12 assists and five steals and did not give up the ball on a single occasion. She followed this up against the New York Liberty with nine points, nine rebounds, eight assists and three steals.
There are still a few veteran heads to keep this team ticking over, such as Alysha Clark, and some toughness in the form of Australia’s Sami Whitcomb, and now that head coach Dan Hughes is back on the sidelines, it feels like this team will refuse to be written off.
When new head coach James Wade spoke about Courtney Vandersloot being the best point guard in the league, she said “winning has to come with it” before she can be discussed in that next tier. It laid down the challenge, and is one she and the Chicago Sky are rising to.
Sloot is averaging 9.7 points and leading the league in assists (by a wide margin) with 8.2 per game. She controls the team by constantly pushing the ball and inspires her team-mates to new heights.
Allie Quigley is hitting three-point shots at the highest rate of her career (47.5 per cent) and averaging her highest rebound totals and second highest number of assists. The second-year wing Diamond DeShields has not been quite as efficient as her rookie campaign in 2018, but she is the focus of every team’s defense this year and is leading the team in points per game.
All three were selected to the All-Star Game, and it just goes to show that Wade’s system of pace and tough defense is working.
With a good mix of veteran leadership and hot new talent - from Stef Dolson and Jantel Lavender to Astou Ndour and Katie Lou Samuelson - the Sky are proving to be one of the most exciting teams in basketball right now, and this past week of three consecutive wins has them on everybody’s watch list.
While they were tipped to start a run of good form in last week’s Report Card, the return of Amanda Zahui B, Bria Hartley and the addition of Marine Johannes has not resulted in wins this week.
In fairness to the Liberty, it’s not exactly been an easy couple games. A pasting by the Las Vegas Aces on July 7 clearly left a bad taste in New York’s mouth as they continued to lose against the Chicago Sky and Seattle Storm.
One reason for this might be due to Tina Charles’ struggles. Despite earning an All-Star selection, the past two games saw Charles finish with just 13 and nine points, respectively.
It’s difficult to say what the key to winning is for this team. When Charles plays well and scores more than 20 points, they are 4-4. When the rest of the team steps up to help when Charles scores less than 16 points, they are 3-6 in the win-loss column.
However, when the second Liberty All-Star Kia Nurse steps up in scoring and finishes with more than 20 points, the team is 4-1.
The only games New York is guaranteed a win is when everybody on the roster is fulfilling their role to the best of their potential, and unfortunately they are far too inconsistent to do that.
For a team that did so well last year and brought back largely the same team, Atlanta’s dream of making it back to the play-off semi-final is all but gone. The injury that Angel McCoughtry suffered toward the end of 2018’s regular season was obviously problematic, but the fact the Dream played so well without her to secure a space in the penultimate round said a lot about who was still there.
It reached a point where Tiffany Hayes was receiving tips for an MVP season, especially after Nicki Collen won the Coach Of The Year award. Hayes returned to the team just days before the opening game of the season and suffered in the first few weeks. By the end of June she had started to hit her stride but has remained inconsistent, and the team has struggled to build any sort of momentum at all.
In the most recent loss to the Chicago Sky, Hayes hurt herself on a non-contact play, and Collen almost fainted on the sidelines at the end of a crucial game that finished 77-76.
The Dream are missing McCoughtry, but to be this far down the standings is not where anyone expected the franchise to be. With their two most recent games being tough losses, it does not look like it’s getting better any time soon.
