Price Giving Ole Miss a Boost in Off-Season

Shalee Lehning isn't the only Atlanta Dream player doing some coaching in the WNBA off-season. Armintie Price comments about the success of her University of Mississippi team - Ole Miss - where she is an assistant coach during the off-season.

I am enjoying this season and the coaching perspective I have gained, but I cannot wait to get back to Atlanta! I want so badly to get out on the court and help this team but this is their moment and their season. I will continue to do my best to give them the advice and teaching that they need to get them to the tournament. And in the process, I will keep learning as a player and as a coach to be the best.

If you have a question, you might want to leave a comment at Dream Diary - The Official Atlanta Dream Blog.

Happy New Year from Armintie Price!

In addition to the Pleasant Dreams blog, there is also the Dream Diary, the official Atlanta Dream blog. Arminite Price helps us ring in the New Year:

I met with the Shot Doctor the week before Christmas and it went great. I am supposed to meet with him again before the season.

Until next time Fans…

Love ya and Go Dream!

I hope that the Shot Doctor is the cure for all ills, real or perceived.

The A. P. Wire is Back!

Armintie Price has a new post up at Dream Diary - The Official Atlanta Dream Blog:

If you didn't know, Price is coaching at Mississippi right now:

The season here at Ole Miss is going well. We lost a tough game on Sunday against ninth-ranked Ohio State by two points. But I do believe games like that will help us in conference play the next two months.

I'll have to catch a few Ole Miss games on TV this year, just to find Armintie Price.

Armintie Price Blogs Again

The second installment of Armintie Price's blog - "The A. P. Wire" - is up at Dream Diary: The Official Atlanta Dream Blog.

I hope everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving. My husband and I spent the week in Boca Raton, Florida with the Ole Miss team. We had a tournament at FAU (Florida Atlantic University) and we won the tourney!!

Catching Up

It's nothing short of amazing. You wait one week, and a lot can change in the WNBA, both for the Dream and elsewhere.

* The most important piece of news that struck was that the Sacramento Monarchs had folded. The Monarchs had been in the league all 13 years of its existence, leaving only four original teams that have been with the league from day one - New York, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Utah/San Antonio. Houston, Charlotte, Cleveland and now Sacramento have bitten the dust.

I felt that it was a shame that the Maloofs - the owners of the Sacramento Monarchs - decided to give so much little notice of their decision. Mechelle Voepel heard that there was going to be a change somewhere along the way in the WNBA about a week ago, but had no details. Now, the shoe has dropped.

The hope - and I think it's an outside hope at best - is that the Monarchs can relocate to Oakland. I mean, with all of the jokes aside, if the WNBA can't survive in San Francisco then it can't survive anywhere. The problem with such a relocation is the venue. The Cow Palace is a decrepit arena in a bad part of town. As for going to the Oracle Arena - where the Warriors play - the obstacle appears to be Chris Cohan, the owner of the Warriors. (I can't figure out why. Either he thinks that lesbian fans will give him the cooties, or he feels that a successful WNBA franchise would point out to one and all how sorry the Warriors are.)

Furthermore, basketball in San Francisco might not be a slam dunk. Frisco Del Rosario writes that "Professional women's basketball has never been more than a curiosity [in San Francisco]." The San Francisco Pioneers in the WBL couldn't draw. The San Jose Lasers in the ABL couldn't draw either. After coming back home after a visit to San Fran, I see Frisco's point. San Francisco is a bad sports town for the same reason that Los Angeles is one - there's just so much to do in those cities that basketball isn't going to capture anyone's attention, whereas if you live in Dallas.... (*)

I hope - I really hope - that the Monarchs can find a home in the Bay Area. I believe the prospects, however, are dim.

* Another surprise was Ros Casares's loss in Euroleague to Cras Basket Taranto in Italy. What was more suprising is how far El Ros fell behind. They were down 60-36 at one time in the third quarter, but somehow managed to crawl to within five points, 72-67 with 1:27 left in the game on a shot by Delisha Milton-Jones. That would be as close as Ros Casares came, as El Ros could only score two more points, losing 78-69 on the road.

This just goes to show you how tough Euroleague is. Anybody can beat anybody. Ros Casares's dream of being undefeated in both the Spanish League and Euroleague goes by the wayside. Me, I blame Becky Hammon. (**)

* Armintie Price got married as well. I believe that the Atlanta Dream's website is posting photos. Congratulations to Armintie Price, and here's to many years of married bliss.

* Georgia Tech lost to Oklahoma State on the road, and beat Florida Gulf Coast at home in the Women's National Invitation Tournament. Georgia Tech starts out 2-1 on the year.

I'll get back on track sooner or later. It was probably good for me to be away from the keyboard for a week, anyway.

____

(*) A joke for Ethan over at Actionless Activity.
(**) Another josh, this time to Becky Hammon's many fans.

Armintie Price Gets Married

Scarab posted the following at RebKell:

My apologies if this was already posted somewhere. Don't know how I missed that Arminitie is married now! I'm slipping.

Anyway...congrats to Arminitie and Reginald Herrington who tied the knot on October 10, 2009!

Congratulations from the Pleasant Dreams Blog as well. May married life suit you kindly!

Numerology

Armintie Price will have to choose a number: will it be #24, which was her old number at Ole Miss? Or will it be #22, which was her number with the Sky?

Do you remember who else wore #22 for the Dream? You can highlight the white text below to find out:

ANSWER: Betty Lennox

Interestingly, if she chooses #24, it will be the "reverse" of #42, which was Nikki Teasley's number.

These are the things with which I occupy myself.

The Newest Member of the Dream: Armintie Price

I believe it was Chantelle Anderson who wrote that trades were the hardest part of the sports business - you can give your heart and soul to a team and its community, but in the end, you're just a commodity to be bought, or sold, or tossed to the side. Two WNBA players have learned that lesson today: Tamera Young, and Armintie Price.

Young was a first round draft pick in 2008 out of James Madison University. Young and Amber Holt were the only players from mid-major universities to make the first round of the 2008 WNBA Draft and was the first player ever to be drafted out of James Madison. Things were looking up for Young, and the fans in Atlanta found Young one of the few highlights of the season, with Young's characteristic pigtails sparking "Pigtail Power" signs all over Philips Arena.

With a weak Atlanta team in 2008, Young was able to average 22.6 minutes a game and score 7.3 points per game. However, she only shot 33.3 percent from the field and 69.1 percent from the free throw line. The hope was that Young would improve over the 2009 season. However, the Dream signed Chamique Holdsclaw in the off-season and Angel McCoughtry was signed as the #1 pick of the 2009 WNBA Draft. With so many talented players to choose from, Young found herself fighting for playing time.

She suffered an ankle injury that took her out of several games. By that time, she was left as the last option and it looked like she would never fight her way off the bench. Her shooting hadn't improved, her rebounding power had dropped precipitously and she was still in the sub-70 percent range in free throws. Fans wondered if there was some sort of hostility between Meadors and Young, or if Meadors's pride - Young was a first round pick after all - was the only thing keeping Young with Atlanta.

Today, the other shoe dropped. Young was traded to the Chicago Sky for Armintie Price. Price was the #3 draft pick of the 2007 WNBA Draft. Price was a forward-guard, five inches shorter than Young and a lot smaller. It seemed like an even-for-even trade.

According to the Font of All Knowledge - Wikipedia - Price comes from a religious family - she's a member of the Apostolic Faith - to the point where she wore a skort during her high school basketball career to please her mother (she wasn't even allowed to play basketball until the eight grade). Price has a blog on Yardbarker and a web site of her own, which gives some details about her faith. Price needed something akin to a parental dispensation when she left for college so she could abandon the skorts. (The Apostolics forbid women to wear pants.)

She was known as a relentless player at Ole Miss, and was the only guard ever to lead the Southeastern Conference in rebounding. As Carol Ross, her coach at Mississippi said, "People want to put her in a box, and there is no box for her."

Price earned SEC Defensive Player of the Year honors twice over her four years at Mississippi. She was All-SEC First Team in her senior year, and was named as a third-team AP All American. Her final year was marked with a sad benchmark - the death of her mother from ovarian cancer.

In her first year with the Sky, she scored 7.9 poitns per game and 6.0 rebounds per game and was named the 2007 WNBA Rookie of the Year. However, her production and minutes declined every year after that. In 2008 she was only a part-time starter and scored 6.9 ppg. This year, she hasn't started at all and averages only 3.5 ppg in just 14.7 minutes of play.

(* * *)

So how can we evaluate the trade? I'll do it using three different metrics:

1) Total Adjusted Wins Score, which is not only an additive metric, but a cumulative one - which means it awards on volume as well as quality.
2) Adjusted Wins Score per 33 1/3 minutes - if you want a per-minute AdjWS, then just divide by 33.333333....
3) Diamond Rating, which makes a stab at determining how good a player would be if they had more minutes.

For Total Adjusted Wins Score:

Price: 6.2 (77th out of 159)
Young: -3.4 (113th out of 159)

Before we consider AdjWS the be-all-and-end-all of metrics, Total AdjWS considers Tamera Young a better player than Chamique Holdsclaw! AdjWS absolutely hates shooting inaccuracy and turnovers and fouls, but doesn't consider all that a player brings to a table. Holdsclaw might be the kind of player that defies all metrics.

Maybe we need Adjusted Wins Score Per 33 1/3 minutes:

Price: 0.65
Young: -1.69 (Holdsclaw's is only -0.37 - Holdsclaw's Total score is worse than Young's simply because she's played more minutes.)

And now, we'll haul out Diamond Rating, which does a lot of comparisons and tries to project what a player might be able to do with better minutes. Only players who have played > 2.0 mpg and < 21.0 mpg are eligible.

Price: 7.39 (34th out of 89)
Young: -4.14 (61st out of 89)

It looks as though the Dream might have gotten the better end of the deal. Before saying so, Young might have simply needed a better atmosphere to blossom. That just happens. Her first year, she was forced to play starters minutes because the team was so bad; the second year she got no time at all because of the people in front of her (and maybe, because of other factors).

The great thing is that a move to a new city means a new chance to make a first impression. Here's hoping that both Armintie Price and Tamera Young make those good impressions. Pleasant Dreams welcomes Arminite Price to the Atlanta Dream - I think you'll like our fans a lot.

Tamera Young to Chicago; Armintie Price to Atlanta?

Update on the latest breaking news. Tamera Young is about seven minutes away as I type this from flying to Chicago. Little Smooth is no longer a member of the Atlanta Dream, and the era of Pigtail Power is over.

The most likely candidate for being Young's replacement is Armintie Price, a 2007 graduate of the University of Mississippi. Carol Ross, currently an assistant head coach at Atlanta, was the head coach at Ole Miss during Price's final year.

More on this later, obviously.