Can you believe it, Los Angeles at Golden State this Saturday has playoff implications, insofar as the team that wins that game shall be #8 in the standings.
The Sparks have won eight of nine, and seem to have kicked that ridiculous habit of taking off one quarter per game.
I’ve missed most of Los Angeles’ turnaround. I’m not as close to finishing this book of my chess teacher’s teachings as I thought, and time is running out. I’m either dying or fading fast, and I won’t be able to put this book together in a mad rush — I don’t have the energy for that, so it’ll be limping to the finish.
My chess coach said for years that one day I’d travel too far for basketball. If it turns out that making 25 trips to San Francisco in a summer is my undoing, well, he was right again.
The Sparks are closer to assembling the Pac-12 All-Star Team that I requested in May. Minnesota gave up on their plan for their 2024 1st round draft pick, and where else could Pili go but to Coach Roberts’ team?
She didn’t play Tuesday vs. Indiana, and I’ll be OK with it if she doesn’t play Thursday vs. Connecticut, either. Save her for the visit to San Francisco.
I haven’t been credentialed as media for that game yet. I hope it’s not for some weird reason like I gave them this URL as my outlet, though I’ve been putting everything on friscodelrosario dot space. I reckon I’ll drop this on both pages, in case they actually look.
When Golden State lost Kayla Thornton, their leading scorer and rebounder, one’s first thought might’ve been: Well, they’re cooked. On second thought, however, the Valkyries are built to be greater than the sum of their parts, so they might get along without Thornton better than other teams would if they lost an All-Star.
It looks like both are true. Golden State doesn’t have another scoring threat as reliable as Thornton, and though 11 were invited to audition, none is bursting into that role. But they’re still winning games with smoke and mirrors and attitude.
Attitude doesn’t put the ball in the basket, though. In the 78-72 loss to Las Vegas Wednesday, Fan favorite Kate Martin found herself so open for a 10-footer on the right baseline that she missed it badly. My favorite Valkyrie, Carla Leite, is shooting less than 15% outside the 3-point arc.