Catching Ducks

From Mechelle Voepel:

"When the Storm won the 2004 title, the league still had a best-of-three finals. Seattle still had an NBA team. Atlanta didn't have a WNBA squad.

Bird was only 23 -- she turned 24 four days after the Storm won the championship -- and still the heir apparent as the league's best point guard, but not quite there yet.

Lauren Jackson had already won a WNBA MVP award, in 2003. We knew she was a great player then, but we had to wait to see just how great. That has been answered: one of the greatest ever. She won her third WNBA MVP award this season and then was named 2010 WNBA Finals MVP on Thursday after a 15-point, nine-rebound performance.

Six years ago, Swin Cash was still basically happy in Detroit, having won a WNBA title there in '03. But as the Storm played Connecticut in the 2004 Finals, Cash was facing rehab for a knee injury suffered near the end of the regular season. In front of her were also back problems that would require surgery. She would have a long climb back as a premiere player, and she has done that. Cash had 18 points on Thursday, including two critical third-quarter 3-pointers.

Oh, and Tanisha Wright was a senior at Penn State in 2004. Little was a sophomore at North Carolina."



From the Storm Stats Guy (Kevin Pelton): "Le’coe Willingham, who won back-to-back championships with two different teams. Yes, Coe, you’re going to see Obama again."



From SBSeattle:

"But what makes this team great is simple to anyone who has watched the entire season: it’s hard to remember a team with such a strong expectation to win every single time they hit the court, no matter what the circumstances, no matter who the opponent. It’s hard to remember a team in any sport for whom anything short of winning was a disappointment on almost every single occasion, slow starts or late deficits notwithstanding."

Labels: Seattle Storm