Catching Ducks

A twitter conversation between Lauren Jackson and Richard "WNBAlien" Cohen:


Lauren Jackson: Does GB have a women's league? I have 1 more year in me in Europe. I reckon I'd love it here...

Richard Cohen: @laurenej15 We barely have a league, and you'd be lucky to earn enough to keep your hair blonde.

Labels: Seattle Storm

From his twitter, and a response:


Richard Cohen: Hey, you'll never guess, but Candace Parker is gonna be newly dedicated to defense this yr. Again. Once more. Honest. Every possession.

tollick: when does she start? Because the answer was not "during the pre-season game."

Labels: WNBA

A while ago, Richard Cohen wrote a haiku poem for each WNBA team. Here's Seattle's:


Remove the heart, the
body still beats. Finds itself.
When rejoined, beware.

Labels: poetry, Seattle Storm

At the beginning of the season, Richard Cohen did previews of all of the WNBA teams. This is from his preview of the 2011 Tulsa Shock:


"Aw come on, it’s the last one, can’t I just say 'they’re horrible' and leave it at that? You want more? Really? Fine. They’re really, really horrible."

Labels: WNBA

Today over at WNBAlien, Richard Cohen reviewed some of the things people entered into their search engines to arrive at his site. Here's one of my favorites:


why doesn’t brian agler play belinda snell

Because Brian Agler hates bench players. I think a bench may have fallen on him as a small child.

Labels: Seattle Storm

I got a little behind in my Storm news because of my exams (which I passed -- hooray!), and it's time to catch up! I'll try to go in chronological order.


The Tulsa @ Seattle game last Friday...

Jayda Evans's article for the Times: "Seattle (1-3) avoided matching its worst start in franchise history, when it was 0-4 in its inaugural season."

Over at WNBAlien, Richard Cohen has a theory about Camille Little's increased aggressiveness in the game: "Camille Little – perhaps more comfortable as the definitive power forward in a lineup with [Katie] Smith rather than [Tina] Thompson – [and Sue Bird] were the scorers for the Storm."


Between games...

After the Tulsa game, Jayda Evans had news about Svetlana Abrosimova: "Russian guard Svetlana Abrosimova is closer to rejoining the Storm. Her agent said Friday that she's expected to be signed by the end of June."


The Seattle @ L.A. game last night (that I just watched)...

First of all, when even the L.A. announcers are talking about what a dreadful schedule the Storm have, you know it's bad!

It was a tight game all the way through, and came right down to the wire. L.A. managed to pull out the win, but I was relieved to see that the Storm team that finally showed up in the second half against Tulsa has stuck around. They were making (mostly) good passes, working hard on defense, getting rebounds, Ewelina Kobryn played well, and -- perhaps most shockingly! -- Katie Smith has remembered how to hit three-pointers (she went 5-9 from beyond the arc).

Jayda Evans' has an official article, but the quote I found most interesting came from the liveblog: "In looking at Seattle's 1-4 record, I disagreed with Bird about it ultimately not looking bad. It's 1-4, how can that not be bad? 'But would you say we're better than we were yesterday?' Yes. 'Well...' Then Bird went to shower and shake off the 67-65 loss at LA behind a half luck-half skillful shot from [Nneka] Ogwumike with 2.1 seconds left in the game."

Richard Cohen also assumes this was a depressing game for the Storm: "This was a dispiriting loss for the Storm, in a game they were in control of for much of the second half."

And in another season, I'd probably agree. But the Storm were SO BAD the first three games, that I will take a hard-fought almost-won game as a good sign of things to come.


After the game...

Katie Smith's birthday is today (she turns 38 -- she's almost exactly six months older than me!), and she celebrated last night in L.A. with Alana Beard and Marissa Coleman (who play for L.A.). That confused me at first, but then I remembered that all three of them played for Washington back in 2010. Ah, the crazy shifting loyalties of women's basketball!

Labels: Seattle Storm

Last summer I enjoyed reading Richard Cohen's writings about the WNBA over at SportsPageMagazine.com. I've been dropping by there regularly, but nothing of his was showing up. Today, thanks to Women's Hoops Blog, I found out why -- he has his own website now: WNBAlien. I quoted him a lot last summer, and I foresee that trend continuing.

This is from his June 12th post, discussing the Chicago Sky:

"It’s early days, but Sky fans have to have loved what they saw this weekend. The Vandersloot/Prince backcourt is starting to look like a nascent version of the Bird/Wright duo in Seattle to me, which is high-praise indeed. Obviously they don’t have the experience or the guile just yet, but Sloot has the smarts and skills to run the offense, and Prince has the more aggressive offensive game to complement her. They also both have the ballhandling and shooting abilities to allow them to switch point-guard and off-guard duties at times, just like Bird and Wright with the Storm. Watching that pair grow together in Chicago is going to be one of the primary joys of being a Sky fan in the coming years."

Labels: WNBA

Probably the best thing about watching the WNBA draft at the Storm party was that I didn't really listen too much to the presenters. When they weren't actually announcing a draft (or interviewing a draftee), I talked to my mom. Over in the UK, Richard Cohen didn't really have that option, and was forced to listen to Carolyn Peck. Luckily, he found the bright side:


Okay, the one fun thing about watching [Carolyn] Peck is when [Rebecca] Lobo follows her nonsense with "Yeah, but..."

Labels: WNBA

In his analysis of yesterday's Seattle @ San Antonio game, Richard Cohen had some ideas about what's wrong with the Storm. Here are some of the bits I thought were most interesting:

"While many of their most obvious issues have been on offense this year, Seattle’s defense also isn’t what it used to be. [Ann] Wauters simply isn’t as mobile as Lauren Jackson, and isn’t anywhere near as comfortable in the Storm’s defensive system. It leads to slow rotations and inadequate help right at the core of the defense, which makes everyone else look bad. Danielle Robinson [of San Antonio], for example, is far too quick for [Sue] Bird, but part of Bird’s style defensively has always been to funnel opponents towards where she knows her help will be. She can’t cope herself, but she can at least push people in the right direction. That doesn’t work without teammates behind her in the right positions, who can slide over quickly. Wauters is at least a step slow, and it throws everyone else off."

"Some of the problems for Seattle’s offense are a case of a self-fulfilling prophecy. They know they’re struggling, and especially when a few efforts don’t drop early on, they start forcing things or rushing shots. The expectation that they’re going to struggle and knowledge that they’ve been poor offensively is in turn causing them to screw up. It’s a vicious circle that’s tough to break."

"Sue Bird’s trying to attack and score to help carry her underperforming team, but it’s not working in the slightest. She’s just pressing and forcing things too much, which leads to horrendous shooting nights like the 1-13 she produced in this game. She was open for a lot of them, but nothing would drop. When even Bird’s hopelessly struggling, Seattle know they’re in trouble."

It's all very depressing, but I like reading a more knowledgeable analysis.


But hey, here are two things that are not depressing:

1) Kevin Durant (NBA star) is a fan of the WNBA!

2) Tomorrow I turn in my resignation letter at work. Woo hoo!!!!!

Labels: Seattle Storm, WNBA, work

Back-to-back games this weekend! But now we have a breather before next weekend's Friday/Sunday game duo -- the last games of the regular season! (Where did the time go?)


Over at Swish Appeal, Nate Parham discusses the Seattle@San Antonio game: How The Seattle Storm Beat The San Antonio Silver Stars In The First Four Minutes Of The Fourth Quarter

"The Seattle Storm did not play that well in their 70-60 win over the San Antonio Silver Stars last night. In fact, the Silver Stars arguably outplayed their guests through three quarters despite being down by three points. Through three quarters, the Storm turned the ball over 17 times (30.58% of their possessions). They allowed the Silver Stars an above average free throw rate of 44.8% in the first half. The Storm didn't have an assist in a first quarter during which they shot only 33.33%. But what the Storm did do was play outstanding basketball for about four minutes in the fourth quarter."


Richard Cohen at WNBAlien discusses the Seattle@Tulsa game: Who Wants it More?

"Seattle started pushing the ball a little in the early minutes of the second half, remembering that you’re allowed to run back down the floor instead of walk if you happen to feel like it."

"Lauren Jackson had enjoyed going to her turnaround jump shot from about 10-feet all night, but she tried it twice to open the fourth quarter and both came up short. That’s usually a sign of tiredness, which would be understandable considering she’s still building her fitness back up after the injury. When Lacy flashed back to the first quarter with another three, the gap was down to four with seven minutes left. Then Seattle remembered that they have one of the best players in the World on their team, and that she’s 6’6” – tiredness be damned. Two feeds from Bird to Jackson for layups, both after she’d established strong position deep in the paint before even calling for the ball, reasserted Seattle’s position as the favourites to win this game."

"Seattle ball with 50 seconds left. Huge turnover [by Tulsa]. The game was dead and gone seconds later. You’d expect a veteran team like Seattle to run at least 22 seconds off the clock on a late possession like that, but Bird brought the ball down, used a Lauren Jackson screen to break open at the three-point line, and put the shot in the air with 14 still on the shot clock. That was a horrible decision for half a second, then the ball went through the hoop. "


And Richard Cohen on the Seattle@San Antonio game: Western battles roll into final week

"It was all about the West in the WNBA last night, with the battles for second and fourth in the conference played out across two games. In the end, everyone survived to fight another day. Which is a slightly more generous way of saying that absolutely nothing changed. But at least there was some reasonably entertaining basketball along the way."

"Currently holding a half-game edge on Phoenix for second place in the West, if Seattle can cling on to that spot they’ll host games 1 and 3 (if necessary) in the first round of the playoffs. Game three in Key Arena, versus game three anywhere else on the planet, makes a huge difference to Seattle’s chances of advancing."

"The scoring for the half finished on a veteran play from Tanisha Wright, exploiting the physical advantage she has over Silver Stars rookie Danielle Robinson. Holding Robinson off with her body, hauling the lob pass in with her other arm and converting the layup, Wright’s basket gave Seattle a 30-29 lead at the break. It hadn’t exactly been an offensive showcase, but then anyone who came to a Seattle-San Antonio game expecting that was sorely misguided."

"The third quarter was a painful illustration of the positives and negatives about the Seattle Storm. Sometimes the precise and deliberate offense that runs through option after option to find the best shot available just ends up slow and ugly. They wander around looking fairly aimless, while the shot clock ticks inexorably down towards zero. But with Jackson nailing a three from deep beyond the line when she was forced to put it in the air to beat the clock, and Cash banking in a jumper she had to take for the exact same reason, Seattle somehow led 42-36."

"With [Sue] Bird at the helm Seattle held [San Antonio] at bay. It wasn’t always her scoring, but Bird took over in the fourth quarter and imposed a level of composure that the Storm had lacked earlier in the game. She still committed her sixth and seventh turnovers of the game in the course of the period – her highest total of the season, which makes this a strange game to be waxing lyrical about her qualities – but her leadership and control were key in Seattle clinging on to their lead."

Labels: Seattle Storm

Richard Cohen of WNBAlien is my favorite WNBA commentator. He lives in England, so he doesn't have a favorite team, he just covers everybody and everything.

He does, however, have a vested interest in the British national team. Here's some recent tweets about them:


From yesterday:

"Wow, GB ladies up 56-37 at halftime. Either this is one of our best offensive games in eons, or S.Korea are truly terrible."

"Can't remember the last time @gbbasketball women scored over 100. Answer might be 'never'. Game must be being played at extraordinary pace."


From today:

"Another v.good, solid win for our @gbbasketball women. Our ballhandling concerns me though. We'd give up 50 turnovers if we played Tulsa."

Labels: Olympics

I got my first chance to see Elena Delle Donne play today, and... wow. She is everything that I have heard she is. She reminded me of Lauren Jackson, in the way that she made impossible-looking shots, in the way that she shot from all over the court, and in the way that she grabbed passes that I thought would sail out-of-bounds. That's she's 6'5" and blonde is a mere coincidence!

Anyway... She plays for Delaware, a team that has -- previous to today's 1st round NCAA game -- never been nationally televised before. So today I, and a lot of other people, finally got to see her play. Here's WNBAlien's Richard Cohen take on her, via twitter:


"Okay, so having been completely underwhelmed by [Ohio State's Samantha] Prahalis earlier, I'm now seeing [Elena] Delle Donne. Consider me thoroughly whelmed. [...] I see some [Candace] Parker and some [Lauren] Jackson - when those come to mind as comparisons, it's a good start."


ETA: ESPN has some EDD highlights.

Labels: college basketball, Seattle Storm

Sue Bird was 10-11 from the field in tonight's game, eventually scoring 31 points. Sometime in the first half, Richard Cohen tweeted this to Phoenix's defense:


"She has 21 points in 17 minutes! Stop running away from her when she goes round a pick! For the love of..."

Labels: Seattle Storm

In tonight's game at San Antonio, Tina Thompson had 11 points in the first quarter, 16 points & 9 rebounds in the first half, and ended the game with 27 points & 13 rebounds. Sometime in the first half, Richard "WNBAlien" Cohen tweeted:


"What's the over/under on # of teams who phone Tina Thompson during offseason just to check if she's really, really retired? 11.5?"

Labels: Seattle Storm

From this column:


"Last night’s sole WNBA game was the epitome of Mercury basketball – high energy, a scoreline that reached triple-digits, and some of the most pathetic and discombobulated defense you’re ever likely to see on a WNBA floor."

Labels: WNBA

From today's column, about yesterday's games. Specifically the Minnesota @ Phoenix game:


"The second half was a little different. They were still going head-to-head, firing away at each other, but whaddaya know? The Mercury decided to play a little defense. Shows you just how desperate they were for a win – they were willing to break the habit of a lifetime. Of course, they didn’t go overboard. After threes from Penny Taylor and Marie Ferdinand-Harris put the Mercury in front by four late in the third quarter, they were still happy to leave [Maya] Moore wandering around outside the three-point line without anyone paying much attention to her. She sank two triples in the closing minutes, took her personal tally to 20 for the day, and took the Lynx into the fourth quarter up 64-62."

Labels: WNBA

[Both are about last night's Seattle/Phoenix game.]


From vicki595: "I like this 'confuse the other team by using our reserves' plan [Coach] Brian [Agler]'s got going!"


In response to Phoenix coach Corey Gaines' post-game comment "We just didn't come to play", Richard Cohen wrote: "Ain't it strange how the Merc 'don't come to play' so often against Seattle? Complete spooky coincidence, I'm sure Corey..."

Labels: Seattle Storm

First of all, how awesome is Maya Moore? As quoted on the Storm website: "For whatever reason, we [Minnesota] couldn't get connected in the first half enough for a very hungry and motivated Seattle team. But that's what happens when we don't bring everything that we have for 40 minutes. We're disappointed in ourselves, but much respect to Seattle for coming in and doing what they needed to do." Always gracious, even in defeat. Love her!


The Storm website also has pictures, and the next to last one is a great picture of Tina Thompson pulling down the rebound with one second left in the game.


The Tumblr Fuck Yeah Seattle Storm has some great animated gifs of Sue Bird late in the game. The best are of her comical collapse to her knees when she realized her first free throw wasn't going in and her "thank you" hug to Tina Thompson after Thompson grabbed the rebound after Bird's second missed free throw.


And, over at WNBAlien, Richard Cohen's coverage of yesterday's games is called "Backwards Day in the WNBA". He had much to say about the Minnesota @ Seattle game:

"Seattle led 43-29 at the half, had shot 57% from the field, and held Minnesota’s starters to a combined 8-25. Key Arena was going wild. Still, everyone knew Minnesota had the potential to flip the switch and play to their true capacity, and that Seattle were fully capable of collapsing and giving the game away. While they were obviously excited, there was a palpable nervousness about the crowd for much of the second half."

[Very true! And I am impressed that he could sense that, considering he watched the game online from the other side of the planet.]

"The old stagers were huge for Seattle in the final minutes. While Bird committed a couple of horrendous turnovers, and Tanisha Wright – who, like Bird, had a great game for most of the evening – was wildly missing shots, the real veterans stepped up. [Tina] Thompson actually drove to the hoop rather than settling for one of her typical rainbow threes, and got herself to the line. Katie Smith hit a huge three from the corner – the only shot she made all night – when the Lynx had cut the gap to a point with under four minutes to play. The old girls were stepping up."

"With four seconds left, Seattle inbounded to Bird, a career 87% free throw shooter. Who promptly missed them both. Pressure and fatigue gets to the best of us. Amazingly for Seattle, who’d been killed on the glass in the fourth quarter, the ball came hard off the iron and Thompson won the battle again, corralling the ball and being fouled with a second left on the clock. Unlike Bird, she calmly sank both her free throws."

"For Seattle, forget the collapse in the fourth quarter – which can happen to anyone when you’ve been struggling all year and you’re facing a team as talented as the Lynx – and focus on the performance for 30 minutes. This was the real Storm. On offense – taking what the defense gives them, attacking when it’s available, knocking down open shots. On defense – knowing where they’re supposed to be, arriving on time, and fighting tooth and nail for every loose ball or half-chance at a stop."

Labels: Seattle Storm

WNBAlien is back! The draft is tomorrow, and he's got a two-part draft preview. Here is his understatement-of-the-century for the Storm:


"It’s been a painful offseason for Storm fans. Their star tandem of [Sue] Bird and [Lauren] Jackson, the pair this franchise has been built on for over a decade, have both been ruled out for the 2013 season due to injury. The Ann Wauters experiment was ended after just one season (understandably, neither side seemed to want it to continue) and Katie Smith left [to go to New York] for the Detroit [Shock] reunion. The additions of Temeka Johnson and Noelle Quinn will help paper over the cracks, but that’s about it. Optimism for the 2013 campaign isn’t exactly high in Seattle."

Labels: Seattle Storm, WNBA

From this WNBAlien post:


"There was a hilarious shambles at EuroBasket Women 2013 today, with Russia beating Italy by six points and neither team seeming certain at the finish whether they ought to be happy or not. Those who’d done the maths beforehand knew that Russia needed to win by at least seven to confirm their place in the next round, and when the result of the later Spain-Sweden game went against them, Russia were out. It was a ludicrous miscalculation by the Russian coaching staff, who clearly hadn’t drilled into their players that seven was the crucial figure."

Labels: sports