Dream Beat Shock in Detroit at High Noon Matchup

The Atlanta Dream doubled its win total from last year, beating the Detroit Shock 98-95 on Wednesday in overtime after Deanna Nolan missed a 3-pointer that would have given the Shock the lead with 16 seconds on the overtime clock. The Dream are 8-10 on the season, doubling last year's win total.

Ivory Latta had 22 points.

The Associated Press writeup is here. The Detroit Free Press writeup is here.

More on the game later.

"Marynell Meadors Makes WHAT Now?"

From an article about the WNBA and overseas play from Sports Illustrated in 2002.

"In the WNBA players' salaries account for less than 20% of the teams' gross revenue, and the league's lowest-paid coach makes far more than the league's highest-paid player."

Mind you, the highest paid player in the WNBA should just be scraping against the barrier of $100K per year. If this is true, this means that WNBA coaches make six-figure salaries.

My question: given what we've seen of WNBA coaching...why is this so?

Most Popular Team in *Two* Cities

Go to this post from the Mystics Insider, a regular column from the Washington Post about the goings on in the land of DC.

Question: "What is wrong with this headline?"

Tulsans to Meet With WNBA President: Franchise in the Making?

The push for a WNBA team in Tulsa - it exists in the Tulsa media, if nowhere else - continues as WNBA President Donna Orender will meet this evening with Tulsa community leaders regarding Tulsa's chances of securing a WNBA franchise, whether relcation or expansion.

Atlanta Dream President Bill Bolen is interviewed regarding the last time a new franchise was created - ours. Bolen lets Dream fans know that in terms of ESPN rankings, Atlanta is the #1 TV market for the WNBA.

A quote from the article:

"You have to be willing to invest and take the time to build a brand," Bolen said in a Tuesday phone interview. "If an ownership group isn't willing to take the time and build resources to build a brand, even in a great market like Atlanta, things won't happen overnight. We still have a long way to go."

More Euroleague and Eurocup

It looks like that Sancho Lyttleand Erika de Souza are going to be very busy in the off-season. Not only will they both be playing in the Spanish League, but they'll also have Euroleague responsiblities.

Ros Casares, Erika's team, will be playing in Group A. Perfumerias, Sancho Lyttle's new team, will be playing in Group B.

In addition, Eurocup was also announced, and Dynamo Kursk - Michelle Snow's team - will be playing in Eurocup. This is the price you pay for becoming a better team - your players are in demand in Europe, and that means longer schedules and later returns to training camp.

In the Paint and on the Break

Swanny's Stats has some new special stats up on his site.

The first of these he calls Paint Production: namely, what is the highest percentage of field goals made from between one and five feet away from the basket? Lauren Jackson of the Storm made 71.4 percent of field goals she attempted from this distance, which leads the WNBA. Sancho Lyttle is 7th at 64.6 percent, Erika de Souza is 13th at 61.5 percent, and Chamique Holdsclaw is 20th at 56.7 percent. (The worst? Dominique Canty of the Sky has only made 40 percent of the shots she's attempted from close range.)

However, let's look at Erika de Souza. She is 67-for-109 from close range - this leads the WNBA in most shots made and most shots attempted from point-blank range. From close up, de Souza will make that kind of shot, and if she misses it, she'll just rebound it and try it again.

The other stat is Fast Break Points, which regards both points and assists made on the breakaway. Diana Taurasi of the Mercury leads with 63 points (and Cappie Pondexter is one point behind her.) However, Chamique Holdsclaw is 4th in the WNBA with 44 points, Izi is tied for 9th with 35 points, Sancho Lyttle is 12th, and Angel McCoughtry is tied for 13th. Atlanta loves the transition game.

For most fast break assists? That would be Cappie Pondexter and Temeka Johnson of the Sun, whose 24 and 23 assists leave the whole league choking on their dust. Leading the Dream are Shalee Lehning with 9 fast break assists, followed by a tie between Iziane Castro Marques and Nikki Teasley with 7 assists each.

The team breakdown of Fast Break Points and Assists:

Holdsclaw: 44-6
Castro Marques: 35-7
Lyttle: 32-5
McCoughtry: 28-7
de Souza: 17-0
Miller: 10-6
Lehning: 7-9
Teasley: 7-7
Snow: 6-0
Young: 6-0
Lacy: 4-0
Latta: 2-1

Erika Excited About Being an All-Star

The WNBA website interviews Erika de Souza on being named to the WNBA Eastern Conference All-Star team.

Some quotes:


How special is this to be named one of the first All-Stars in Atlanta Dream history?

This is a big deal. To be in the All-Star Game, it is so important for me and for the Dream. Last year was so difficult; we were trying to give our best in the league, in the first season of the team. As for myself, I had two good games and then got injured for almost the rest of the season. So, this is the reason this opportunity is so important; it shows the improvement we are having as a team and me as a WNBA player.

(* * *)

Talk about leaving the WNBA after one season to go play in Spain and then returning five years later. You were an MVP over there, was it a matter of feeling like you accomplished everything you could?

I missed many things about the WNBA. I always look for the group results. It is true that Ros Casares have been winning everything inside Spain over the past two years. Another important thing for me, it is the Brazilian team. We have a young team and I still have to help my people to have good results in the important international championships.


Something tells me we'll be seeing Erika in the Olympics in three years.

Atlanta Dream: The Mid-Season Review

We've finally reached the halfway point of the 2009 Atlanta Dream season. My poll question will be a good starting point for this post. The Dream is 7-10. Is this record a cause for celebration, or concern?

For anyone who lived through the horrible 4-30 season, there must be some relief that it won't happen again in 2009. Very likely the Dream will win at least ten games this year. My prediction at the beginning of the year was a 15-19 record, and the Dream are not far off that mark - they need only go 8-9 the rest of the season to get there.

One fact: the Dream is definitely better than last year, and as a matter of fact, they have become a stronger team as the season has progressed. The loss of Nikki Teasley doesn't appear to have adversely affected the team, and the only question might be why the Dream let Ivory Latta go instead of Teasley.

Furthermore, there doesn't appear to be a lot of variance in the Dream's losses - at least in terms of final score, the Dream doesn't seem to be a wildly inconsistent team. Let's look at each of these losses:

June 6: 77-71, @Washington
June 12: 81-73, @Chicago
June 21: 93-81, New York
June 23: 99-98, Chicago
June 27: 82-68, @Connecticut
June 30: 91-85, Minnesota
July 5: 78-74, @Indiana
July 11: 71-69, @New York
July 17: 84-79, @Indiana
July 19: 89-86, @New York

The first item should stand out is that seven of those losses are road losses. Another is that the 20-point losses of the past aren't there. The worst loss this year was a 14-point loss to the Sun on the road; the next was a 12-point loss to New York in Philips. After that, all of our losses are single-digit losses.

And furthermore, seven of those losses are by six points or less - essentially, those are two-possession losses. Three are by three points or less. If things had swung the other way just a little bit in some of those games, the Dream could be 10-7 instead of 7-10.

As of this writing, the Dream are still in the playoff hunt. They're in fifth place in the Eastern Conference, but it is a three way tie for last with New York and Detroit - all three teams are 1 1/2 games out of that fourth playoff spot.

So looking at the season, why are we 7-10? Is it the fault of the players or the fault of the management? There are some egregious weaknesses in the 2009 Dream. The first among many is the 3-point ball. As we've all known, the Dream can neither shoot the three, nor can they defend it.

The Dream hit 29.5 percent of the 3-pointers they take - only the Los Angeles Sparks are worse. In defending the three, we're the third worst team in the league - opponents shoot 37.8 percent. In terms of the gap between values - we're #1 in the WNBA. Our hope was that Nikki Teasley would take that on that job, but nothing came of that.

As a result, we don't take a lot of 3s and our opponents are emboldened. We also can't take 3s if our players are not 3-point shooters. When we don't take threes we can't spread out the opponent defense. Generally, if you have no players that can take the three, the fault has to go to the player for not being able to shoot it - but it has to go to the management for not acquiring such players.

Furthermore, it seems that the Dream rarely contest the 3-pointer. There are too many times I've seen when the Dream lost a perimeter shooter, or stood back on the wing and watched the 3-pointer go in. We don't attack from the post and we don't attack from the perimeter. Is that the fault of the players, or it the fault of the coaching?

With Sancho Lyttle and Erika de Souza delivering high-accuracy shots from point-blank range, shooting percentage isn't a problem. In rebounding, the Dream is the second best rebounding team in the league, and we are fourth in rebounding differential. We used to get beat up under the glass; now, we deliver the beating to other teams.

Unfortunately, the Dream turn the ball over a lot. We're dead last in turnovers, turning the ball over 18.6 times a game. The good thing is that at least when it doesn't come to defending the three, we force a lot of turnovers ourselves- we're second best in opponent turnovers - but overall, we still turn the ball over more often than not.

We also don't have much control of ourselves. We're second in personal fouls in the league. We're third in foul differential. Combine that with the turnovers and at times we seem like a team that's unfocused and out of control. If it weren't for our post play, this team would be a lot worse than it is.

This gets back to the question of all questions - Marynell Meadors. On Dream message boards and on other boards, Meadors is seen as an impediment rather than a bonus in the Dream's goal to become a winning team. A few times this year, she's made dubious lapses. At times, she seems to forget the very presence of players on the bench, and her substitution practices have been condemned as being dodgy.

However, in terms of player acquisition, Meadors has been a plus. Picking Sancho Lyttle might have been a no-brainer in the Dispersal Draft - but at least we picked her. If McCoughtry isn't the best rookie in the WNBA, she's second-best. Coco Miller was a fine acquisition, an average point guard who can give some guidance (hopefully) to Shalee Lehning and Ivory Latta. Chamique Holdsclaw isn't the player that she was before, but for a person with a reputation as a headcase, she brings a lot of stability to the club.

The rumor is that Meadors will retire after the 2009 season and move into the GM spot. However, if we can make a run at the playoffs - should Marynell Meadors be in the driver's seat for that run?

In terms of the franchise's health as a whole - average attendance has dropped by more than 1000, the biggest drop in attendance of any team in the WNBA in terms of absolute numbers. This is disturbing. It could be that the new simply wore off the product. It could just be the economy. It could be that Ivory Latta was so much of a fan favorite that when she was released at the end of training camp, some fans stayed away. With the Dream making the biggest turnaround of any team in the WNBA, why are fans staying away?

Am I happy with what's going on? I would have to say a cautious "yes". Maybe a 6 or a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10. Having two All-Stars would make anyone happy, but this team is definitely a work in progress. We're not even close to being a WNBA Championship team, not yet anyway. There will be lots of difficult choices that have to be made, and I don't know if our coach is the one that can make them. (If she's just the GM next year, it's a moot point.)

So to wrap up the mid-season review, I'm going to play a little game: I'll go over each player of the Dream roster, and we'll give an argument for that player staying on the Dream's roster - and an argument for why she should get out of town. The list, in no particular order:

Erika de Souza

Pro: De Souza is the secret weapon. She's "The Beast" and that bank shot of hers is unbeatable. You have a friggin All-Star on your hands here. She gets into position and gets the rebound. She's the height and the power. She's only 27 years old, and she gives the Dream an international following. Furthermore, no one seems to know how good she is. Can you believe the Sparks and the Sun let her go? What were they smoking?

Erika de Souza is the best player in the Eastern Conference. Period.

Con: Remember last year when Erika got hurt? That was part of the reason we sucked so bad - we didn't have a center. Furthermore, Erika is playing for Ros Casares, one of the best teams in Europe. That means she plays a lot - there's a full season of the Spanish league and a bunch of Euroleague games. And then the Brazilians want her on the national team.

She's good, but she is going get really old, really fast. There's an old saying from Branch Rickey in baseball that applies to the WNBA: "if you have to trade someone too early, or too late - trade them too early". Trade Erika for a good point guard, and watch us rise to the top.

Sancho Lyttle

Pro: Oh, Sancho! You are indeed blessed. You're a top ten WNBA player and you're an All-Star. And the amazing thing is that you haven't even played basketball competitively until you were 18. She's 25 years old - so believe it or not, we've not seen the best of Sancho. If you had to build a team around someone, build it around Sancho.

Con: Well...she fouls a lot. But...oh forget it. Who are we kidding? Trading Sancho would be a disaster. There is no argument for getting rid of Sancho. Unless Phoenix wants to trade Taurasi or Nicky Anosike thinks Minnesota is too cold.

Nikki Teasley

Nikki, you weren't really that bad. I just wanted to get that in there.

Coco Miller

Pro: That was a good acquisition. Frankly, we need as much help at the point as we can get, and Coco is decent. She's a Georgia girl, so she puts a handful of butts in seats. She's a first round draft pick. She might hit 31 in September, but we need all the help we can get, and Miller might be all the help we can get. She's better than her sister.

Con: The majority of the league is better than her sister. Coco isn't the future of the point guard position. Sometimes, she just has horrible games. I know she was the most improved player in 2002, but she's as improved as she's going to get. Let's find a real point guard.

Angel McCoughtry

Pro: Angel McCoughtry would be the best player in the WNBA if Meadors would just let her play. She's probably the best rookie in the league behind Bonner. Angel loves to win, and this is a player who will do whatever it takes to win. Her upside is tremendous. Can you imagine how good she will be in five years?

Con: McCoughtry tends not to follow orders, and because of that, she's ended up in Meadors's doghouse. It's easier to get out of the Siberian gulags than The Doghouse, and if the coach and the player aren't seeing eye to eye, you know who goes. The only reason Meadors didn't trade her is because she'd look dumb trading a #1 pick.

Angel wants to put the team on her back, but the WNBA don't work that way. Furthermore, she's trying to hit the 3-pointer to prove her worth to the team. Stop shooting the 3-pointer! You could use that "Can you imagine how good she will be in five years?" line and make an awesome trade with it.

Michelle Snow:

Pro: I'm not going to condemn a player with a sample size of n=1 years. Everybody has a bad year. This is Michelle's bad year. She was awesome in Houston, but then again, she was starting in Houston. I don't think that Michelle has adjusted to her role as a bench player. Give it time, and if Sancho or Erika get hurt, you'll learn why they sang Michelle Snow's praises in Houston.

Con: Maybe so, but Snow has one fault - she's a fouling machine. You give her starters minutes and you'll never know how good she is because she'll have fouled out by the third quarter. Everyone following the WNBA agrees that she's a shadow of herself, anyway, why not just sell some other sucker Michelle's past?

Furthermore, Snow's fouls are really aggressive ones - elbows and all. Snow has no self-control. She wakes our opponents out of their stupor, and they regain their focus and try to shove the ball down our throats. Do we really need that kind of player coming off the bench?

Ivory Latta:

Pro: who said that Marynell Meadors can't learn from her mistakes? It was a mistake to have cut Latta from this team, and now, Latta has started to show us why. She's good for 10 points a game and a few assists. Our points weren't providing punch, and she provides what was missing.

Furthermore, the fans love Ivory. Don't piss off the fans. Ivory has a potential to put up 20 point games, and she can shoot the 3-pointer.

Con: Latta might be the streakiest player on the Dream since Izi - didn't she disappear a lot in the 2008 season? Her height is a disadvantage, because 3-point shooters can just shoot over her. Ivory has been in the league for three years and is no one's first choice - Lehning is the future of the Dream at point guard. Besides, if even Marynell Meadors couldn't see her potential greatness and cut her after camp, then how good can Ivory really be?

Chamique Holdsclaw

Pro: Do you know why the Dream is so good in 2009? Two words: Chamique Holdsclaw. For all of her head problems, she has been the heart of this team. She never gives up. She moves the ball better than any player that I've ever seen. She's the real leader of this squad.

You can replace skills - but never leadership. When the chips are down, everyone looks in the direction of the Claw. She has the right answer. And her games recently have been amazing.

Con: Claw started slow. That hurt us. She admitted she wasn't 100 percent. Now that Teasley is gone, Holdsclaw has the worst knees on the club. Sooner or later, that knee will go and then, "bye bye Dream".

Do you know who has the most turnovers in the WNBA? Chamique Holdsclaw, with 53. Her fouls are pretty high as well - not Michelle Snow-high, but her tendency to foul to get to the basket has been increasing year by year because she doesn't have those rookie moves anymore. Holdsclaw belongs to the past, and is at best a stop-gap measure.

Tamera Young

Pro: Face it, Young hasn't had it easy. She was the first round draft pick during a season where the Dream lost 30 games, and too much was expected of her. She's had an ankle injury this year which has kept her out of a lot of games. What Tamera needs is teaching and above all, minutes. You just can't yank a player like Young off the bench; she needs time to warm up. She has a lot of potential, but it just isn't being developed and Meadors doesn't know how to help her. Give her time.

Con: There's nothing to develop. What did Young shoot last year? 33 percent. What is she shooting this year? 30 percent. That boat sailed a long time ago. She's on the Dream for political reasons - Meadors made a bad first round pick on a mid-major player and doesn't want to admit it by trading Young. But Young is just taking up space on the bench.

Shalee Lehning

Pro: When a rookie starts, you know they're good. They don't start rookies unless they're good, and Lehning is good. We know that she can dish the ball. She's leading the Dream in assists per game. If you watch her on the court, you can see that the veterans listen to her, and there is no question that Lehning runs the Dream offense. Shalee Lehning is the steal of the draft, a second round choice that turned out to be pretty damned good.

Con: The only thing Lehning is is "pretty" - she's the pretty white girl like Ann Strother was last year. The only reason she got the starts at point was because there were no other options and Ivory wasn't on the team. Lehning can't score. Even she admits that. You have to score in the WNBA if you want to play. Defenses don't agressively go after her and they gang up on the other players. She's a detriment.

Iziane Castro Marques

Pro: Marques provides the aggression in the Atlanta Dream offense - Holdsclaw moves the ball but Izi just drives the ball right down into the basket. She's not afraid of any defender - how many 1-on-3 fast breaks have we seen? - and if she can't get the bucket, she'll draw the foul. The Brazilian national team knows how good she is and are trying to get her back.

She might be streaky, but it's a good streaky - the kind of streaky that produces a 20 point game every week. I like that kind of streaky. I like it a lot.

Con: Yea, but when she's not scoring 20 points a game, she's scoring zero. She just becomes a black hole where the ball goes on the way to a missed shot and a defensive rebound. You could make the argument that she's the worst player in the W.

All of Castro Marques's great games? We lose all of those great games. She score points only when the Dream are looking shaky and when enemy defenses are on cruise control. If Meadors didn't like Izi personally, she would have never even been signed for the Dream. If Iziane Castro Marques is the best player on your squad, you're in trouble.

Jennifer Lacy

Pro: She was on the 2007 Mercury championship team. That has to account for something.

Con: Her shooting percentage has dropped in every year she's played. No one quakes with fear when facing Jennifer Lacy in the post. It's a good thing she has friends on the Dream, or she'd be playing in China or Eastern Europe.

The WNBA in Tulsa

Mike Strain of Tulsa World has written about the possibility that the WNBA might take up residence in Tulsa. Initial articles were conjecture, but now we have names.

Bill Cameron, the head of American Fidelity Insurance and David Box, a concert producer are listed as primary investors. The BOK center in Tulsa is looking for a tenant, and why not the WNBA? According to Strain, a press conference has been set for tomorrow at 3 pm Oklahoma time where Cameron and Box will probably discuss the effort in greater detail. On Wednesday night, WNBA President Donna Orender will meet with those interested in becoming premium seat holders.

With names and places finally set, I believe that anyone interested in the WNBA should be thinking seriously about the impact of Tulsa as a WNBA city, as well as whether the new franchise will be an expansion or a relocation.

In an earlier post, I wrote about William Haarlow's Five Rules for League Survival. Rule #2 comes to mind:

2. Markets must be selected based on potential. There must be a determination of the criteria that is most likely to influence the league's appeal and the economics of a franchise, i. e. size and growth of market, degree of saturation by other sports, target audience, operating cost, and previous experience with an attitude toward other leagues or teams. The league must avoid expanding into new markets at the expense of the talent pool.

Let's examine the potential of Tulsa as a market. Tulsa is the 44th largest city in the United States, and the metropolitan area of Tulsa includes almost a million residents. It grew by about 13 percent in size between 1990 and 2000, and the trend is that of increasing growth over time.

Older people probably still think of Tulsa as a small Oklahoma town, but the numbers prove otherwise. Atlanta and Sacramento are not that much bigger than Tulsa. Tulsa is bigger than Minneapolis, and definitely bigger than Uncasville, Connecticut (although the Sun are a special case). There's nothing obviously wrong with Tulsa in terms of population.

How much is Tulsa saturated by competing sports? There are several sports teams, but no pro team is at the major league level. There are the Drillers (AA baseball) and the Oilers (Minor-league hockey). There is the Tulsa 66ers, which is an NBA Development League, but not only does its attendance numbers not match the WNBA's (you can assume similar inflation goes on in both leagues - NBA D-League attendance is dismal) - the 66ers are an affilate of the Thunder which is situated in Oklahoma City.

There isn't much competition in Tulsa. The University of Tulsa has Division I football and basketball, but those teams generally haven't been very good. One would suspect that the overriding sport in Oklahoma is University of Oklahoma college football, which has the potential to knock any news about a Tulsa WNBA franchise to the back of back pages - a fifth-string linebacker could stub his toe in Oklahoma and it would get three columns. However, the Dream face the same problem when Georgia football warms up.

What about the target audience? That's a different story. Tulsa is a very conservative city. In the 2008 presidential election, John McCain won Tulsa Country with 62 percent of the vote. Every wide spot in the road west of Philadelphia likes to call itself the "buckle of the Bible Belt" but Oklahoma is very conservative in religion as well as politics. Oral Roberts University is headquartered in Tulsa.

There is the famous anonymous statement - wrongly attributed to Clay Bennett, the owner of the Thunder in Oklahoma City - in which it is claimed that the reason the Seattle Storm didn't move to Oklahoma City to join the former Sonics is because he didn't want "those kind of women" (lesbians) in Oklahoma City. Many WNBA players are lesbians, and many fans are lesbians. Would the Tulsa community support a WNBA team, or would women's basketball face a hostile reception?

Aside from that, if Tulsa is not doing much to support its current sports teams, why are investors so sure that Tulsa would support a WNBA team? One answer might be that a WNBA team would have the advantage of not being a minor league team, and not being a mid-major university team. Like it or not, the WNBA is major league. It might be major league in a niche sport, but the WNBA is as far up as you can go when it comes to women's basketball in the United States. Tulsa would be rubbing shoulders with New York, Chicago and Los Angeles - at least on the basketball court and in the sports pages. Having a WNBA team is another step toward Tulsa being recognized as a big-time city.

Furthermore, there is another advantage. If you're big in Tulsa and you're a supporter of the Tulsa franchise, that makes you a pal of Donna Orender. And if you're a pal of Donna O., you're a pal of NBA Commissioner David Stern. Tulsa might get in the NBA through the back door of having a WNBA franchise first.

One question worth asking - an important one - is that if Tulsa gets a WNBA team, would it be a relocated team or a brand new team? If the team is an expansion to 14 teams, one has to ask if there is enough talent to support a team in Tulsa.

The first year of the Atlanta Dream was horrible - a 4-30 record where the Dream players were the castoffs of the WNBA. Chicago, a team founded in 2006, still doesn't have a winning season. You can imagine that a Tulsa expansion team will be terrible - and I mean terrible at the 1998 Mystics/2008 Dream level - unless there are some rules changes in terms of the draft and in terms of protecting players to bring a Tulsa squad up to speed more quickly.

Tulsa's new team would have a lot of fans right off the bat - the first year, at least. But what about the second year? Atlanta's team has suffered the biggest drop in attenance from any team from the year before, because the novelty has worn off and too many fans were traumatized by that horrible first season. Could Tulsa survive a dropoff?

Furthermore, do Cameron and Box have the cash to make a Tulsa franchise work? I've not been able to find out how much capital either of these guys have. Would this be another Hilton Koch situation, or are Cameron and Box's pockets deep enough to weather the inevitable initial losses of owning a franchise in a historically new league?

I don't know how this will play out, but I can say one thing - it is worth paying very close attention to anything reported out of Oklahoma.

National Sports Rankings With New WNBA Simulations

National Sports Rankings has just updated their WNBA sims. We'll pass on these two links:

Link #1: A regular season game. The link is set to Phoenix @ Indiana, but you can choose your own teams. You can play 3, 5, and 7-game series and have a variety of options.

Link Site.

Link #2: The 2009 All-Star Game. Unfortunately, one reserve had to be left off each team, since there is only room for 10 players in the box score.

Link Site #2.

You can't choose teams to play against the 2009 All-Star Team, but with both links you can set up some interesting matches. For example, I pitted the 2009 Atlanta Dream against its 2008 counterpart. Surprisingly, the old Dream won, 89-84, behind Betty Lennox with 21 points and last year's Erika de Souza with 23 points and 15 rebounds.

17/2009 - Liberty 89, Dream 86

Who wants it more?

Before I begin the write-up on the Dream-Liberty game, I want to go back in time to the Dream-Fever game a few days ago.

For awards in that game, I'd have to have given the Dreamer of the Game to Erika de Souza, and furthermore, I'd have to say that de Souza's performance was the best performance by a Dream player so far in 2009. Try to argue against it. 23 points. 14 rebounds, with 7 offensive rebounds. 10-for-15 shooting. Whenever Erika even got close to the basket, it seemed that she was hitting that wonderful bank shot of hers.

As for the Bad Dream, I was tempted to award it to "The Atlanta Dream Bench". There's nothing in the "rules" that says that the demerit can't be given to a group of people - and really, looking at the bench, there's not much difference between any of them.

Starters: 63 points
Bench: 16 points

To paraphrase Rebecca of the Game Notes of Doom blog, the Dream bench was made of FAILamantium. I don't think I've seen such a discrepancy between the starters and the bench in a long time (except for Lehning, who just played like a bench player). Basically, Castro Marques, Lehning, Lacy, Miller, Snow and Young were all pretty much the same exact amount of useless. For various reasons, Jennifer Lacy, Shalee Lehning and Coco Miller become the first ever shared winners of the Bad Dream award.

And now, on to yesterday's game. The announcer was Mike Crispino - wasn't he the announcer of the Dream/Fever game? I suspect he wanders the land with a hobo's stick and bindle, announcing games for a glass of water and a crust of bread. The Liberty started Loree Moore, Shameka Christon, Essence Carson, Cathrine Kraayeveld, and Janel McCarville. The Dream started Sancho Lyttle, Erika de Souza, Chamique Holdsclaw, Iziane Castro Marques and....

...Shalee Lehning, who had won a second straight start. There was also the addition of a hyphen to Izi's name - it has become "Castro-Marques", at least on her jersey. I'll have to contact the Dream organization to see if this is now the official spelling of Izi's name.

Anyway, the game started poorly from both sides - they looked horrible. The Dream started off 2-for-8 and home team New York started 1-for-8. Atlanta built a lead, but New York then had the lead, and then lost the lead again to Atlanta, adn then got the lead back. I don't think either team was more than six points away from the other. By the end of the first, the score was 18-16 in favor of New York.

There was some smart guard play from both sides. Lehning, about to be forced out of bounds, threw the ball off of Essence Carson's leg. Leilani Mitchell made a great ball save near the end of the first quarter. However, this wasn't a game whose defining characteristic would be great point guard play.

As Atlanta's fans watched the game on Live Access, we got to see the Liberty's regular dance team, the Torch Patrol. C. Vivian Stringer of Rutgers University stopped by to watch the game. New York fans hoped Stringer might provide Vaughn a few tips.

The Liberty started the second quarter hot - their first three field goals were all 3-pointers, two by Cathrine Kraayeveld. Face it, we can't defend the three. You know it, I know it, the league knows it. Sancho Lyttle had three fouls and that put Sancho on the bench. New York was starting to build up a lead.

This was the time that my WNBA Live Access faded out on me. I think it knew that it just didn't want me to see the second quarter. While Mike Crispino was talking about the play of "tuh-MEH-ra Young" - or the lack of it - the Liberty were building up steam. With Atlanta up 25-23, it didn't take long before the Libs were up by 10, 37-27.

It was getting hot out there. Michelle Snow lost the small amount of cool which the basketball deities provided her, and they never provided Snow much of it. Snow threw Shameka Christon to the floor, and all Snow got for her trouble was a flagrant foul #1. Then Izi decided that she wanted to jabber with Tiffany Jackson, I believe. Frustration was starting to show.

The only impression it must have given the Liberty was that we were a team in meltdown. New York would be the only team that would score in the second quarter after the altercation. They finished the quarter 44-29, up by 15. They had scored 21 points to Atlanta's 6 points after Atlanta was up 25-23.

How bad had things gotten? Shalee Lehning was leading the team in rebounding. When your point is leading in rebounds, you have a problem.

New York was simply shooting better than we were - about 41 percent to 34 percent, and we had no 3-point power. We were getting the offensive rebounds, but we kept sending the Liberty to the line. We had only been to the line four times - we hit each of our free throws - but New York had visited the line 14 times. Without our shooting power, this looked like it was going to be a disastrous game.

The halftime show wasn't helping setting our stomachs. For halftime, they brought three singers up to sing covers of songs. A girl named Ashley sung "Listen" by Beyonce fairly well. Nikki sang a cover of Seal singing "People Get Ready" with a lot of cracking in the high registers. And someone named Jenna sang...well, to be brutally honest, I don't know what she sang. It was incomprehensible and sounded like a banshee in a blender. (Jenna won the contest, but the audience might have been applauding the Worst Singer. New Yorkers like their fun.)

The third period started horribly. Izi picked up a technical just a few minutes in - jabbering at a referee? The Liberty was still in its high gear, and the Libs built up a 20-point lead, 57-37.

Most people would have shut off the Live Access or gone home if they were at MSG. It looked up until that point that the Dream had just -- well, there's no nice way of saying it. They quit. They were playing that "Ole" defense, where the matador waves his cape as the bull blows by him. The Dream were just waving their capes, thinking about the next game and where they were going to eat after this game.

And then...Chamique Holdsclaw must have told herself, "To hell with this. I'm not going to look into the mirror and say 'Claw, you just quit'. I don't care if we're eighty points behind, I'm not going to quit." And she didn't. She began getting the fouls and scoring the free throws. The Liberty went over the limit and Holdsclaw went to the line a few times. She moved up to around 16 points scored for the game. If there's such a thing as "intangibles", then Holdsclaw was proof of that, and the attitude was contagious.

The Deram began to wake up. They went on a 14-2 run. Then, Claw added a couple of more free throws. The score was now 59-55 and despite the fact that the Liberty would finish the quarter 10-for-22 on 3-pointers after 30 minutes, New York had clearly become complacent. They would score the 3-pointer and sit and admire their handiwork - only to look down the court and find Izi on the fastbreak, having already answered with two points of her own.

With Atlanta down 70-62, the Libs fouled Izi when she was attempting a 3-pointer. It hurt, because every time Atlanta went to the free throw stripe, they scored. Izi sank all three attempts and the score was 70-65. Mitchell tried to get a shot off at the buzzer, but no dice. The Dream had sank 19-for-19 from the free throw line, and were down by five going into the last quarter.

Both teams were now shooting equally well, except from 3-point range. The Dream were beginning to take the advantage in rebounds. At the free throw line, the Dream were pinpoint. The game was now winnable for Atlanta.

Dream fans watched the Timeless Torches perform - yet another New York Liberty dance team, their skills would be honored at the All-Star game. I wondered if the fat black guy who wears #20 was going to make an appearance on the Jumbotron again.

For the first couple of minutes in the fourth, scoring was hard to come by. Essence Carson managed to put New York up by seven, but Lyttle - one of three Dream players with four personal fouls - got a shot and a free throw (the Dream moved to 20-for-20) to close the score to 74-70. And then, Lyttle scored again.

74-72.

Then Latta went to the hoop, and missed it, but Erika de Souza got the rebound and banked it back in.

74-74. After a 20-point hole, the Dream had come back with 5:50 on the clock. New York wisely called a time out.

With tiny balls being fired from the ball cannon to keep the fans happy, the Liberty regained their composure. The question was whether or not they could hold off a Dream team that felt that New York was on the ropes. The Liberty would take tenative leads, but the Dream had their starters back on the court and simply answered by tying the score.

With 35 seconds left, Chamique Holdsclaw scored her 25th and 26th points of the game on a pair of free throws to tie the game at 84-84. The Dream had gone 24-for-24 at the free throw line, the third best free-throw performance in WNBA history.

New York called a time out. They knew Atlanta's vulnerability - the three. Shameka Christon was on to a career high day and 15 seconds later, she nailed a 3-pointer for her 30th point. The Liberty were up 87-84 with 20.7 seconds left on the clock.

At 15 seconds left, it was up to Holdsclaw to attempt a 3-pointer. Unfortunately, she missed it. Sancho Lyttle got the offensive rebound and scored, but this left Atlanta down 87-86 with 14.2 seconds left.

Atlanta would have to foul, but inexplicably, it took ten seconds for someone to foul one of the Liberty players. With 4.9 seconds left, Shameka Christon was sent to the line in a game where free throws played paramount importants.

She hit both of them. The Liberty were up 89-86, and the Dream had the ball with 4.9 seconds left. Chamique Holdsclaw would be the player to try to redeem herself by shooting the 3-pointer...but she missed.

Chamique was 0-for-3 in 3-pointers...with two of those shots taken with 15 seconds or less left in the game. If either or both of those had fallen, it would have been a brand new ball game. But it just wasn't meant to be. We were 2-for-14 on the night in 3-pointers. But even with 3-point shooting as a problem, the Dream simply decided that they weren't going to roll over and die. If there's any consolation in a loss, that would be it.

Are Lyttle and de Souza All-Star Reserves?

The All-Star Team reserves haven't been announced, but Chamique Holdsclaw on Twitter is already congratulating Sancho Lyttle and Erika de Souza for making the list of Eastern Conference reserves.

Let's hope its true. It would be a remarkable accomplishment - considering as how the reserves are chosen by the coaches.

UPDATE: As Anonymous in the comments said, it's true. It's the first All-Star selection for both Lyttle and de Souza.

Go Sancho and Erika! Beat up the Western posts!

Dream Lose in New York 89-86 on Sunday

"All right. Knock it off."

We've ended up with another loss on our record, unable to get over the hill that is the New York Liberty in Madison Square Garden. The New Yawkers won 89-86 in a game that was very tight in the final quarter. If we plan on winning in New York, it might not be until 2010.

Due to the fact that work is heavy, it might be a while before we get a significant writeup - but one is coming. After that writeup, there will be a "mid-season postmortem" - the Dream have played seventeen games and the season is officially half-over.

A gallery of Atlanta-New York images can be found here.

Matt Ehalt of the New York Daily News writes here.

Doug Feinberg's Associated Press writeup is here.

The writeup of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is...well, you tell me. Go here and see if you can find it.

Fever Gets 11th Straight Win With Victory Against Dream

By the time I got home, I only had time to watch the second half of the game against the Fever. We ended up losing it 84-79.

The box score is here.

I will be away from keyboard tomorrow. Gotta see my family, you know. I don't even know if there will be a full writeup for this game. I only have two comments.

1) During the half of the game I watched - the second half - we did good.
2) What the hell was going on in the last seconds of that game? If you watched this game, you know what I'm talking about.

WNBA Games on ESPN Get Ratings Boost

From Sports Media Watch

The WNBA got off to a good start on ESPN2. Two WNBA telecasts in June averaged 269,000 viewers on ESPN2, up 12% from 240,000 viewers for the comparable games in '08. The two games averaged a 0.2 cable rating, even with last year.

How much is this? It's about as much as Major League Soccer has averaged for its broadcasts over the last three years. As a matter of fact, the 0.3 rating that the National Hockey League gets on Versus isn't that much higher.

Get Your Nfinity Kicks

According to Atlanta dBusiness news, Nfinity footwear will be working with promotions with the Atlanta Dream. Nfinity is a business that creates footwear for women, and they are rolling out their new Nfinity Basketball shoe.

It's worth taking a look at, at least. I wonder if Atlanta will switch over to Nfinity gear the same way that the Seattle Storm went to those all-yellow sneakers.

Angel Gets "Slammed"

SLAM Online, the basketball magazine with attitude, interviews Angel McCoughtry of the Atlanta Dream. It's a nice, long interview and definitely worth reading.

Some excerpts:

SLAM: What is your main role on this team?
AM: My role on this team, so far, is to come in off the bench and bring energy and an extra spark.

...

SLAM: You tend to remind me of Sheryl Swoopes as far as the rare combination of your rare combination of defensive toughness and versatile scoring. What player does your game most resemble?
AM: On the men’s side, my game resembles Dwayne Wade because he gets steals, he’s athletic and can get into the lane and shoot. In the women’s game they compare me to Swoopes.

...

SLAM: Any endorsement deals yet?
AM: The economy is a little rough right now. I’m taking the endorsements one by one. I have a shoe deal with Peak. They offered a really good contract. Please look out for some commercials soon. I have a book coming out. And I hope to get into modeling.

Big Booms

According to the Associated Press, Lauren Jackson of the Seattle Storm is out indefinitely with an Achilles injury. She will pretty much be day to day. She will remain in Seattle for the treatment of the injury.

With Jackson off the court, you'd think the front runner for MVP would be Diana Taurasi. However, her status is up in the air after her court date in Phoenix for drunk driving charges. The Mercury didn't wait for the league to take action and suspended Taurasi for two games without pay (remember, the WNBA season is only 34 games long.) She will be suspended for the July 18th and July 22nd games.

Taursi made the following statement:

“I am deeply sorry and embarrassed for causing this distraction for my teammates, the Phoenix Mercury, the WNBA, family and fans. While I cannot say more with regards to the specifics of the case, I do want to make sure that everyone knows how much I appreciate their support and that I’ve learned a valuable lesson. I am committed to making sure a lot of good comes from this experience.”

The WNBA said, "sounds good to us" and passed the buck on any further action.

Statistical Gas

Chamique Holdsclaw is 12th in field goals blocked so far this year with 12 blocked. The most blocked? Sophia Young of San Antonio with 19 field goals blocked.

Jennifer Lacy is 8th in percentage of field goals blocked (minimum 40 attempts). 12.1 percent of her field goal attempts are rejected. The leader is Chante Black of Connecticut with 22.0 percent of her shots blocked, over 1 in 5.

There are five WNBA players that haven't had a shot blocked this season (minimum 40 attempts). Kelly Mazzante (Phoenix), Erin Thorn and Brooke Wyckoff (Chicago), Kiesha Brown (Connecticut) and Edwige Lawson-Wade (San Antonio).

There are seven players this year who have had four shots blocked in the same game. One of those is Chamique Holdsclaw, who had four shots blocked in our recent loss at New York. Janel McCarville blocked two of those shots.

In terms of assists vs. field goals, Michelle Snow is 10th in percentage of assisted field goals, with 78.3 percent. Sancho Lyttle is 19th with 71.1 percent (all stats minimum 20 field goals). Brooke Wyckoff leads with 100 percent of her field goals assisted - 21 made, with all 21 coming off assists from other Sky players.

If you're looking for players who make their own shots - who have the highest percentage of unassisted field goals with a minimum of 20 field goals - Angel McCoughtry is 4th (70.0 percent), Iziane Castro Marques is 7th (63.6 percent) and Chamique Holdsclaw is 11th (62.4 percent). Kristi Harrower of Los Angeles leads with 77.3 percent of her field goals unassisted.

As for "assist pairs" - the Dream doesn't even make the top 20. The best assist pair is Sue Bird to Lauren Jackson. That combo has been responsible for 30 Seattle field goals.

(All stats from Swanny's Stats.)

15/2009 - Dream 91, Lynx 77: "Cheer Up Sleepy Jean"

"Hey. I won't let them beat you up."

The Dream manages gets an important road win, and they'll need that momentum as they head into Indianapolis tomorrow night to take on the Indiana Fever, winners of 11-straight. If you've got a lucky cabbit's foot, time to rub it, cause we're gonna need it.

Let's take a look at Dean Oliver's Four Factors:

Shooting percentage: The Atlanta Dream hit 53.1 percent of their shots, and that number is the end point of a decline. Atlanta started out shooting almost 70 percent and that shooting boost put them over the top against the Lynx, who only shot 35.6 percent.

I've written about how a team that has good 3-point percentage can overwhelm a better shooting team. However, the Dream was 7-for-9 at 3-point shooting, and the Lynx were 5-for-24. Nineteen missed opportunities, some of which were undoubtedly converted into Dream rebounds and later scores.

Offensive rebounds: Rebounds were generally equal, but in offensive rebounds the Lynx had a 12-5 advantage. In general, the Dream were kept away from the offensive boards, with Iziane Castro Marques - a guard - leading the ream in offensive rebounds. Charde Houston and Nicky Anosike had enough to match the Dream's offensive rebound total by themselves.

Turnovers: Even.

Free throw visits: The Lynx went to the line 25 times and the Dream 18 - however, the Dream shot 90 percent and the Lynx shot 80 percent. The Lynx could only take a four-point advantage away from the free throw line.

Now, we look at the Minnesota Lynx:

Nicky Anosike: 22 points, 5 rebounds. Oddly enough, she was rebounding under her average of 6.9 rpg. She had 4 personal fouls and 3 turnovers.
Charde Houston: 15 points and 12 rebounds for the game's only double-double. 4 assists to boot.
Roneeka Hodges: 12 points, but 1-for-7 shooting from the 3-point line.
Candice Wiggins: 7 points, with 2-for-10 shooting.
Renee Montgomery: 8 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists. And in just 24 minutes of play. She'll be good for the Lynx.

And now let's look at the Dream. As you can tell from the poll that's up, some don't care much for the post-mortem awards. So I'm going to take the sting out of it by referring to everyone under assumed names. See if you can guess which was which...and can you identify where the aliases come from?

The Knick: The Knick had an extremely good game with 28 points and 7 rebounds. She started out hot and stayed there. As a matter of fact, The Knick is not only the Dreamer of the Game, but this was the second best performance from an Atlanta Dream player all year, falling short of McCoughtry's amazing game against the Sky where Angel scored 26 points and 8 assists. The Knick will end up in the Hall of Fame, and games like this are the reason why.

Sacred One: Sacred One had 9 points and 10 rebounds, almost picking up the second double-double. Add three steals to that, and the hope is that even if Sacred One can't make the All-Star starting roster, she can at least make the reserves.

Estrela: Whenever our shining star has a good game, it usually means bad news for the Dream, but Estrela picked up 20 points with atypically good shooting. She hit 4 out of 5 3-pointers and finally provided some power behind the arc.

Homecoming Queen: It's great if your point guard can get assists. It's even better if your point guard can score and get assists. Homecoming Queen managed to get that done with 11 points. Not exactly a homecoming if it takes place in Minnesota, but it will do.

Preacher's Kid: The preacher's kid is always the one getting into trouble, and we wonder when she's going to get out of Marynell's doghouse. The PK had 12 points with 5-for-7 shooting, providing a lot of value for just 12 minutes played.

Above the Rim: 6 points and 4 rebounds, but a -9 plus/minus. However, she kept her personal fouls down to two.

The Beast: Not nearly as scary as she usually is. 3 points and 5 rebounds, but a +23 plus/minus.

Spin Move: Only took one shot - and missed it - but she had 5 assists.

Babadep: In the last five games, four of them have been subpar. This was one of them. Only played six minutes, while Shalalal scored an identical two points.

West Coast: Took three shots. Missed all of them. Bizarre defense played in the second and third quarters. Also picked up a couple of personal fouls. Sorry, West Coast, but you've got to take the Still Snoozin' award. That's okay. You'll need your sleep for Indiana.