Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2022 1:42:37 GMT -5
Whatta surprise, Birdy didn't play.
Happy that everyone else who has been in Camp did, though. Happy Jasmine Walker played for LA, I'm sure that was a good feeling. Here are my thoughts and conclusion-jumps for those who care:The big story of the night though was Olivia Nelson-Ododa playing damn near the whole game and performing better here for the Sparks than she did at times for UConn.
That signals to me that Lauren Cox's roster spot is in legitimate danger. And yeah, obviously Zahui B., Chiney O., and Hollywood L. were all allegedly unavailable and ONO was given much of her 35 minutes out of necessity, but you can't deny that she had a really strong performance – especially since the Storm had their full complement of post players to work with for this game. There's only enough room for two Ogwumikes, Cambage, Zahui B., and one other – they ain't keeping six posts. Jasmine Walker at least can pretend to play SF (although she started in the post tonight, fwiw). Cox's only hope at this point may be Chiney Ogwumike retiring, which, I mean... we all probably agree that she should.I see that Rae Burrell didn't make the trip up here. No idea why. If she isn't healthy by the time rosters get finalized, she's absolutely in danger of being cut – especially when you have 3rd-round draftee Amy Atwell outplaying all of the other rookie perimeter players, along with leading the whole team in +/- tonight (+18).
For the Storm, nothing seemed too notable, other than Stewart playing and being healthy! Yay! I did notice that Westbrook got more playing time early on in the game with the main rotation than any other rookie – including Cunane. But I think Westbrook was thrown in there like that simply because Bird sat out and we needed another ballhandler – I think Raina Perez also checked into the game before Cunane did. Still, if Westbrook somehow made the roster as the third PG, I wouldn't hate it. (Though I'll remind everyone that I am not contractually obligated to like it, either!)
Two of Cunane's four shot attempts were 3s. She's a stretch-5 in the sense that she can hit the occasional 3, but I don't think she's developed the instincts yet to really look for that shot as a primary one in her complement of scoring moves. Last I heard though, her sticking point was gonna be about defense. She had 5 boards tonight in her 14 minutes – although we know rebounds really have little to nothing to do with actual defense.
