The End of the Holdsclaw Era

The following message was sent by Dream COO Toby Wyman to the season-ticket holders of the Atlanta Dream on May 11, 2010:

As we continue to build this franchise on and off the floor, we are at times faced with making tough decisions. We are currently challenged with one of the most difficult decisions this organization has encountered. Unfortunately, Chamique Holdsclaw recently expressed a desire to be traded. Chamique was an integral part of our success last year and we had every intention of keeping her and having her continue to play a key role with the Dream. We are actively pursuing a resolution to grant her request and we appreciate all that Chamique has done to help our young franchise.

So now, it's out in the open. The question isn't if there will be trade, the question is "when". After tons of smoke, we finally have fire.

Chamique Holdsclaw's tenure with the Atlanta Dream began on December 17, 2008 when they swapped the #13 pick to the Los Angeles Sparks in the 2009 WNBA Draft - the Dream already had the #1 pick - for the rights to Holdsclaw. (The Sparks would pick up Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton out of Purdue with the pick they acquired.) There were high hopes because Chamique Holdsclaw was probably one of the greatest women's basketball players of all time. (*) Even though Holdsclaw had her detractors - Holdsclaw's battles with depression were well documented and her walking away from the Sparks during the 2007 season let many fans down - The Claw was certainly a big-name acquisition for Atlanta.

At the time, the two biggest names on the Dream were Betty Lennox and Ivory Latta. Lennox had battled with coach Marynell Meadors and the only question among Dream observers was how Lennox would leave, not if. With Latta cut at the end of the 2009 training camp in favor of Shalee Lehning, this made Holdsclaw the biggest name on the team. Sancho Lyttle and Erika de Souza had yet to surprise the Dream with their great 2009 seasons. McCoughtry was the #1 pick in the WNBA Draft but she was still a rookie and some suggested that there would be other players in the draft at least as good as McCoughtry.

Holdsclaw could return to a leadership role in more ways than one in Atlanta . But it seemed that injuries plagued Holdsclaw before she even put on the Powder Blue uniform of the Dream. Playing for the Wisla Can-Pack Krakow team in Poland , a knee injury sent Holdsclaw home in mid-season. Holdsclaw was only able to play 11 games for the Poles in 2008-09. Even so, the goal was for Holdsclaw to have her knee rehabbed in the interim and to return to the Dream for the start of the 2009 WNBA season.

When Holdsclaw returned to the Dream, there was still some gasoline left in the tank. Holdsclaw exploded for 28 points in a Dream game against the Shock, and three weeks later scored another 28 against the Lynx in Minnesota . The Dream were 18-16 in 2008 and 14 of those 18 wins came with Holdsclaw. Holdsclaw's ability to move the ball for the Dream offense was outstanding - she could either burst by a defender or stop-and-start, throwing off the defender's timing and leaving her helpless.

As the season progressed Holdsclaw's knees caught up with her. She would only play in 25 games of the 2009 season. Her Player Efficiency Rating was 14.85 - the equivalent of an average player and not a superstar. In terms of PER, it was Holdsclaw's worst season. (For a player at Holdsclaw's level, "average" is bad.) Like a car's overheated engine, Holdsclaw's knees finally conked out and she missed the final nine games of the regular season. She returned for one game of the playoffs against the Detroit Shock but was a non-factor, scoring 3 points in 13 minutes of play. Holdsclaw did not return for the second game, watching from the bench, and the Dream were eliminated.

Even so, Holdsclaw was one of the parts of a successful 2009 season and many hoped that a (healthy) Holdsclaw would be back in 2010. Holdclaw's health problems persisted. She signed with the Good Angels Kosice team for the 2009-10 European season and after a couple of games, the Slovaks sent Holdsclaw right back home. The impression given by the Slovaks was that she had failed her physical, and Holdsclaw confirmed it in a Twitter post:

When I didn’t pass my physical in October with the team in Slovakia , I was disappointed. I felt this way because as an athlete, all you want to do is compete, and for a short time I was unable to do so. This whole experience has been really humbling.

To replace Holdsclaw the Slovaks got...Angel McCoughtry, who did extremely well under the same circumstances - even dunking in a game against a weaker Slovak club. McCoughtry and Candice Dupree took the Good Angels Kosice team deep into Euroleague. Holdsclaw ended up with K. V. Imperial in Cyprus - a good team and perennial Eurocup contender, but not exactly a top rank European team - the kind of team where average WNBA players might play. (**)

Holdsclaw returned to Atlanta at the end of the Cypriot season. One clue that things might have changed for Holdsclaw in Atlanta was that Jennifer Lacy was still unsigned by the Dream. Holdsclaw is a close friend of Lacy's and part of the draw in playing in Atlanta was that they'd be on the same team. Lacy would be entering the fourth year of her WNBA career and would be due a significant salary raise. If Atlanta signed Lacy, the Dream would be stuck with Lacy's dismal production under Meadors; if the Dream didn't they took the risk of losing Holdsclaw who might bolt. (***)

Before camp, the Dream declined to sign Lacy and Lacy became a free agent. Lacy ended up at the Washington Mystics camp, Chamique Holdsclaw's former stamping grounds. Holdsclaw was definitely in Atlanta - she was sighted at a shoe promotion - but there were no pictures of her in camp. There was no promotional material highlighting Holdsclaw in camp, but Holdsclaw and Lacy had made appearances for the Dream (for example, at Georgia Tech in an attempt to promote the club) in the early part of 2010.

With Thursday, May 13th - Media Day - looming ahead, with Friday being the day where all WNBA rosters are finalized and with Saturday being the first game of the 2010 WNBA regular season with the Dream traveling to San Antonio , something had to give. It gave yesterday evening. Someone posted on the Dream Facebook page that Holdsclaw might be leaving and the season-ticket holders revealed the contents of their e-mails.

(* * *)

The question now is what the Dream will do with Holdsclaw. They can trade Holdsclaw, but the question is "does any other team want Holdsclaw?" Holdsclaw's on-court production depends on her shaky health and Holdsclaw's salary requirements would be high - The Claw has been in the league since 1999. Meadors would probably take any trade she could get if there were no other options...past trades by Meadors of Dream players indicate that for particular unnamed players that have left Atlanta , Meadors would have taken two used basketballs (one patched) in trade.

Another option is that the Dream could flat-out release Holdsclaw. This leaves any other team free to pick her up. The downside is that the Dream gave up a first-round draft pick for one year of an underperforming Holdsclaw. A final option would be to suspend Holdsclaw for not showing up to camp, and I don't know how suspension affects a player.

The two big questions are:

1) Is the Dream good enough to make the playoffs this year even without Holdsclaw? My answer is "yes". Lyttle, de Souza and McCoughtry make the Dream a contender.

2) Who will take over Holdsclaw's role on the Dream? Holdsclaw brought two advantages to the Dream. She was personable, and she was a team leader.

What little I've seen of Angel McCoughtry suggests that McCoughtry could step into a team leader position even as a second year player. McCoughtry has the drive and the will to win; she simply has to avoid trying to do everything for the Dream. Can McCoughtry make her teammates better, the test of a true leader? If she can, then McCoughtry becomes the Field General. Everything from last year and Euroleague suggests that McCoughtry is The One.

Whether McCoughtry has the charisma of Holdsclaw is hard to say. McCoughtry has made appearances for the Dream on television, but does she want to get out there and mingle with the fans at minor functions and turn on the charm even when she doesn't want to? If McCoughtry wanted to be the Dream's ambassador, I believe she could do it - McCoughtry is the kind of person who could do almost anything she set her mind to through sheer determination.

Even though the Holdsclaw Era is over, the Dream lives on. It's just a rule of being a fan - your players don't stay with you forever. Definitely true for the Dream - the only players left from the 2008 squad are Erika de Souza and Iziane Castro Marques. With the Atlanta Dream, change is a fact of life, not a choice.

_____



(*) - My Hall of Fame Metric has Holdsclaw as the xxth greatest of the modern era, with a 94 percent chance of going into a hypothetical WNBA Hall of Fame.

(**) - Although I hear that it's beautiful in Cyprus .

(***) - If you buy the "Meadors is master manipulator" theory, one could conclude that Meadors let Lacy go in the hopes that Holdsclaw would soon depart afterwards. If so, the master plan failed because Holdsclaw's late trade request leaves the Dream scrambling.

Current Atlanta Dream Preseason Roster

Here is my current understanding of the Atlanta Dream's training camp roster:

C Alison Bales
C Yelena Leuchanka (O)
F-C Erika de Souza (NG)
C Shawn Goff
C Britany Miller

F Demetress Adams (NG)
F Tatum Brown (P, NR)
F Chamique Holdsclaw (NG)
F Sancho Lyttle (NG)
F Angel McCoughtry
F Chanel Mokango

F-G Iziane Castro Marques
G-F Armintie Price
G Dalma Ivanyi (NG)
G Shalee Lehning
G Coco Miller
G Kelly Miler
G Brittainey Raven

Anyone whose name is not followed by something in parenthesis has actually appeared in one of the two preseason games

O - indicates that the player is most likely overseas
NG - the game has never been seen in a preseason game, and there is no evidence that they're in training camp
P - there is photographic evidence that the player is with the Dream
NR - the player is not listed on the Dream's roster on the Atlanta Dream web page

Ardossi, White Released from Training Camp

Training camp has claimed two more victims - this time Brigitte Ardossi and Erica White.

Ardossi was an alumna of Georgia Tech, where she was selected by the Atlanta Dream in the second round of the 2010 Atlanta Dream last month. It was going to be a difficult job for her to get a spot in camp, and two unimpressive exhibition games didn't help her case.

Erica White was signed to the Atlanta Dream's training camp in March 2010. White, a LSU graduate, was drafted in the second round by the Houston Comets in the 2008 WNBA Draft. She played the entire year for the Comets, but only played briefly the following year for the Indiana Fever after the Comets were disbanded at the end of the 2008 season.

New Writeup on Dream-Mystics Preseason Game

Marynell Meadors receives a proclamation from the Tennessee House of Representatives. Pic by Thomas Corhern.

Thomas Corhern of the Cookeville Herald-Citizen wrote about the Dream-Mystics pre-season game held in Cookeville. Some choice quotes:

"Most of that took place because we didn't take care of the basketball," said Meadors, who coached at Tennessee Tech from 1970-86. "That really hurt us. We got set back on our heels and never really recovered from it. We fought back within eight or nine points. I didn't think our chemistry was good on the court. We just didn't seem to play with an edge and we've got to get that back."

Dream star Iziane Castro Marques, who led the team with 13 points, added, "It may not have been the result we wanted, but it was a good teaching point for us."

...

"Those aren't good games for them," Meadors said. "They're usually much better scorers than they were. Izzy just got here on Thursday. She practiced with us once then we came down here. When you have players coming into camp at various times, it's really hard to get good chemistry. We'll get them in next week and work on those things."

McCoughtry added, "Fortunately it's still the preseason, but we're still trying to find our chemistry. We'll be fine, but we've still got some work to do."

For the rest, read the article. (I'm posting the pictures on the blog as to not eat the bandwidth of the Herald-Citizen.) The paper called the game a "success". We also got this cryptic sentence:

With a depleted roster thanks to the European championships overseas, and former Tennessee standout Chamique Holdsclaw unavailable for the contest, the Dream (0-2) was lacking a bit of its oomph.

Why unavailable?

Other pictures:

Lehning vs. Kobryn
Lehning vs. Currie

Post Exhibition Game Pic (Damned Small)

Another picture of the Dream, this time taken after practice. Someone got on the bus!

(Note: in order to see the picture full size, you have to quote the link. Yes, I hate these teeny-tiny pictures probably as much as you hate them, but that's how Twitter wants to work the system. Twitter wants the hits, so you have to click on the picture.)

E2/2010 - Mystics 77, Dream 58

Okay. The Dream have lost a lot of games in their history by 19 points or more. Hey, last year we lost games by 19 points or more. The last game that we lost that badly was...no, wait, we didn't lose by 19 points last year. The biggest losses we had were by 18 points. You have to go back to August of 2008 to find a loss of that magnitude, where the Dream lost to Connecticut 98-72 at Philips Arena.

But even that game had high points. Betty "Big Buckets" Lennox scored 19 points. Katie Mattera had 13 points and six rebounds. And we don't even have those players on the Dream anymore. Looking at the box score, high points are few and far between.

* The Dream shot 27.1 percent from the floor. First half shooting was 22.2 percent. Thank goodness this was the preseason. We still didn't have Sancho Lyttle, or Erika de Souza or Chamique Holdsclaw...and where on earth is The Claw? She's becoming harder to find around the Dream training camp than Waldo.
* Atlanta had 12 first quarter turnovers. Alison Bales turned the ball over four times in the first quarter.
* This was a Michael Price officiated game, and he must have purchased a brand new whistle. The Mystics were whistled for 36 personal fouls. The Dream were whistled for 28 personal fouls. The Dream had 37 foul line visits and the Mystics had 27. Price must have needed an oxygen tank after the game.

I've not seen a report on the game. Maybe everyone's trying to pretend that it never happened. I know I am. If there was a high point to this game, it can't be found anywhere in the box score. The "high point" is that it didn't happen during the regular season.

We'll take a look at the game flow a la Dean Oliver.

Pace:

Estimated possessions = [(69-15+23+0.4*27)+(59-10+21+0.4*37)]/2 = ...approximately 86.

The Dream's offensive rating was 58/60 = 67.4 and the Washington's offensive rating was 89.5. The Dream's offensive rating comes from the fact that the Dream couldn't hit the side of a barn offensively.

Game flow: The Dream's cold start put them behind early on in the game and they pretty much stayed behind by double-digits for most of the game. The Dream were never in it. In the second half of the third quarter the Dream closed Washington's lead to single-digits but the closest the Dream were able to come were eight points.

Shooting percentage: Mystics 37.7 percent, Dream 27.1 percent.
Effective shooting percentage: Mystics 39.9 percent, Dream 28.8 percent. Neither team had much of a range. The Mystics went 3-for-16 from 3-point range, the Dream went 2-for-18.

Turnovers: Dream 21, Mystics 23. Not the best game when it came to moving the ball around.
Offensive rebound percentage: Mystics 45.4 percent, Dream 24.3 percent. Having neither Lyttle nor de Souza hurts in these games.
Free throw visits: Dream 37, Mystics 27. However, the Dream's big advantage at the free throw line was negated when they shot 65 percent from the line. Atlanta only hit two more free throws than Washington.

All in all, it was easy for Washington to dominate. The Dream simply didn't show up.

And now, let's look at the Dream's individual performances.

Chanel Mokango: We'll get something straight right off. There were no great individual performances - the best performances were mediocre. Therefore, there was no "Dreamer of the Game"...there were merely survivors.

Mokango was one of the players who actually reached the level of mediocrity. Four points, one rebound. 1-for-4 shooting, and three personal fouls - but she did have a couple of steals and a blocked shot, so there you go.

Iziane Castro Marques: Castro Marques is back! And sure enough, she went 5-for-13 and missed every 3-point shot she made. (She tried six of them.) She went 3-for-6 from the free throw line. 13 points scored, but 19 scoring opportunities. She led in points, but gave the Mystics a lot of opportunities with what she missed. Bleah.

Armintie Price: Price got the start...and scored one point. She returned to her old free-throw shooting ways, going 1-for-4 at the free throw line. However, Price had three assists and a steal so it wasn't all bad.

Brittainey Raven: Raven scored 7 points - five of them at the free throw line. She went 1-for-5, including 0-for-3 at the 3-point line. Four rebounds helped, a -14 raw plus/minus did not.

Alison Bales: She managed to recover from the previous awful game into a mediocre one. She played 25 minutes and had the most time on the floor than any player. She scored 7 points, but had five turnovers to lead the team. Five turnovers to lead the team, with four in the first quarter. Three personal fouls. Not the kind of game you want to add on your resume.

Angel McCoughtry: 11 points and six rebounds. McCoughtry shot 3-for-12 to match the team's fortunes. She had four personal fouls, falling into the same kind of pattern that we saw in 2009. On the other hand, her +1 raw plus/minus led the team.

Shalee Lehning: 18 minutes played. Two points. Three assists. 1-for-3 shooting. Two personal fouls.

Erica White: She had the smallest amount of time on the court - 8 minutes, 52 seconds. She went 4-for-4 from the free throw line for four total points. She was 0-for-2 shooting from the court with one turnover.

Coco Miller: Coco Miller isn't going to help herself in camp with this kind of game. Miller went 0-for-3 and scored both of her 2 points at the free throw line. She had three rebounds and two assists, but scored three personal fouls - an average of one every four minutes.

Kelly Miller: She played 13 minutes and scored only three points. One rebounds, one assist, one personal foul. Her -17 in raw plus/minus was the worst on the team.

Brigitte Ardossi: Less than ten minutes played. Two points on 0-for-2 shooting. One rebounds, two fouls, two turnovers. "There's no emoticon for what I'm feeling."

Shawn Goff: 2 points. Believe it or not, it wasn't the worst offensive output of any of the starters - Price only scored one point. Two rebounds, two personal fouls...but four turnovers. Only Alison Bales had more turnovers than Goff did. Goff would have gotten the Bad Dream of the Game award, but it wouldn't be fair to give that award to her since she was helped by so many people.

(* * *)

Okay, between now and Friday evening, the Dream have to begin cutting players. It looks to me like Marynell Meadors will have some tough decisions to make.

The next game for the Dream will be on Saturday, in San Antonio as they open the 2010 regular season against the Silver Stars on the road. Afterward, they fly right back to Atlanta for the home opener against the defending Eastern Conference champions, the Indiana Fever. The new Dream is about to go on-line - we can only hope that we've finally worked some of the bugs out.

More Training Camp Pics

A couple of pictures from the Atlanta Dream training camp (posted by @AtlantaDream on Twitpic).



First, see the Dream recover from practice at Cookville High School. See all of the Dream players recovering, and see if you can find out who they are...because the org won't release a training camp roster (grumble).



Second, see Shalee Lehning take on a future WNBA fan in a practice drill. A lot of blowhards like to talk about how they'd score 50 points against a WNBA'er, but I think Lehning can take this guy.

Current Atlanta Dream Preseason Roster

Here is my current understanding of the Atlanta Dream's training camp roster:

C Alison Bales
C Yelena Leuchanka (*)
F-C Erika de Souza
C Shawn Goff
C Britany Miller

F Demetress Adams
F Brigitte Ardossi
F Tatum Brown
F Chamique Holdsclaw
F Sancho Lyttle
F Angel McCoughtry
F Chanel Mokango

F-G Iziane Castro Marques
G-F Armintie Price
G Dalma Ivanyi
G Shalee Lehning
G Coco Miller
G Kelly Miler
G Brittainey Raven
G Erica White

bold type - not listed on Atlanta Dream website
(*) - currently overseas

We have photographic evidence that Brown is there. Goff comes from the University of Mississippi sports website. Miller only comes from the CBS Sports WNBA Transactions page, and we don't know how accurate the news is yet.

Chandi Jones Waived

It looks like a pedigree from the University of Houston - Sancho Lyttle's [i]alma mater[/i] - isn't enough. According to the cbssports.com web page, Jones has been given her release from the Atlanta Dream.

Chandi Jones, we hardly knew you. Since information about training camp is released with the same frequency of the Manhattan Project Newsletter in 1945, she might be back on the team two hours from now. So keep checking the websites.

April 2010: Training Camp Picture Goodness

Today is April 25th. Training Camp. The first picture out of training camp this morning is from this Twitpic. The pic is pretty big, so I can't post the entire pic without shrinking it significantly.

So for you detectives out there, maybe you can tell me which players are there? These two smaller pics are cropped out of the larger one:





UPDATE: More training camp pics posted by the Atlanta Dream on Facebook:

Meadors addresses the assembled players.
Calisthenics time!
Time to play.
McCoughtry hits the iron.