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SEATTLE TIMES
Storm’s four owners are fans first – Jayda Evans
Times: In going from fans to owners, how much did you have to shut down the cheerleading part?
DT: I don’t think we shut down the cheerleading part, I just know that I’m hypersensitive to anything that’s not right. If the scoreboard isn’t correct, if the timing isn’t right, if there’s a piece of lint on the floor. I’m much, much more critical of things that I see that aren’t perfect, the way we’d want them to be, whereas before? I don’t think I even noticed that stuff.
LB: A fan is a fan is a fan, and we bought this team because we were fans. The difference is I feel responsible for creating a great experience. What’s their experience when they get here, how they are treated by the ushers, where they sit? had a lot of amazing feedback from fans. I love having that dialogue. Being a fan and being an owner really has its benefits because you really get to constantly look for improvement.
GG: I’m the one who was not a season-ticket holder from the beginning. I came in 2005. I feel like we’re hosts of this community jewel. The four of us, really, are in a unique position to make that experience as positive as possible. This probably sounds so corny, but we’re really models for humanity. What can a good human being be like? And it’s those women. They get to do what they love. They know it’s a privilege and they bring it every day.
Svetlana Abrosimova playing for love of the game – and a championship – Stevve Kelley
Thirteen years later, Abrosimova is sitting on a chair after a Storm practice before Wednesday night’s first game of the WNBA playoff series against the Los Angeles Sparks.
She is a UConn graduate, a former dean’s-list student with a degree in business administration and a former All-American. She is a nine-year league veteran.
She is playing 20 minutes a game with the Storm, averaging 7.6 points and 3.1 rebounds and is one of the difference-makers on the best bench in the Storm’s history.
Rewind – Live chat with Swin Cash
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SB NATION SEATTLE
Seattle Storm WNBA Playoff Push: The Quest for a Title Begins – Nate Parham
This is not a team that had to scratch and claw their way into the playoffs — it was virtually a given they were going to get there after jumping out to a huge lead in the standings early in the season, it was clinched in July, and they’ve had a month to get themselves mentally ready to move forward. So without an in-depth analysis of how the Storm dominated teams during a regular season that essentially became a means to tune up for now a month ago, the best way to describe what they Storm bring to the post-season is focus, poise, and immense confidence.
The Universal Appeal of Chanting “Beat-L-A!” – Nate Parham
But…come on…when a team from LA beats your team in the first round of the playoffs in three of the last four years, a hearty Beat LA chant is might no longer be “noble and pure”, but it’s definitely cathartic. Furthermore, with no other team in the city consistently in position to beat a LA team in a situation of any significance, Seattle fans don’t have a whole lot of opportunity to participate in this long history of openly hating on LA. And in contrast to other cities that have no basketball history with LA, at the very least Storm fans have history behind them while doing the chant even if the players are still just focused on winning a championship.
LOCAL
Storm playoffs: Where everybody knows your name – Todd Dybas, seattlepi.com
“You see (players) over and over,” Bird said. “You see a team over and over. At that point everybody knows everybody.”
That’s a microcosm of the opening round series between the Seattle Storm and Los Angeles Sparks which starts on Wednesday night at KeyArena (8 p.m., ESPN2; 1150 AM/KKNW).
The Storm has been to the playoffs eight times in the history of the organization and faced Los Angeles in five of those. This is the third consecutive year and fourth time in five years the teams will play in the opening round.
Seattle Storm to face nemesis again – with Jackson this time – Mike Allende, The News Tribune
No, the Seattle Storm doesn’t play the Los Angeles Sparks in the WNBA playoffs every year. It only seems that way.
For the third consecutive season and fifth time in eight years, the Storm and Sparks will meet in a first-round playoff matchup, with Game 1 tipping off at 8 p.m. today at KeyArena. Game 2 will be Saturday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and – if necessary – Game 3 will be Tuesday at KeyArena.
Storm try to forget about past playoff busts – Tim Booth, Associated Press
But not being nicked up entering the playoffs trumped any roll Seattle might have been on with a month to go in the regular season. Jackson will be healthy at the start of the playoffs for the first time since 2007, when Seattle was swept by Phoenix in the first round.
Two years ago, Jackson was sidelined by ankle surgery following the Olympics. Last year it was back problems that kept her a spectator. Both times, Seattle was dispatched by Los Angeles in three games.
NATIONAL
WNBA Western Conference Semifinals: Seattle Taking Nothing for Granted – Michelle Smith, Fanhouse.com
“I don’t know if dominant is the word I would use,” Bird said Tuesday as Seattle prepared for its opening-round series in the WNBA playoffs against the Los Angeles Sparks. “I think in like half our games we were down in the fourth quarter.”
WNBA First-Round Playoff Preview – Richard Cohen, SportsPageMagazine.com
The individual matchups for this series are intriguing, with one obvious pairing leaping off the page. LJ and Leslie may have been the storied rivalry from international competition, but Jackson and Milton-Jones have been tangling in the paint for years, with no quarter asked and none given. Elbows fly, shoulder-barges aren’t uncommon and the mute button for the floor mics gets a pretty heavy workout as well. Jackson still gets her numbers against LA, but she has to work hard for them.
Pre-Playoff Conference Call Transcript – WNBA.com
Q. You have such an experienced group that’s played together for a long time. How does that help you right now?
SUE BIRD: I think it helps. When I was on the call earlier when Sandy Brondello was talking about teams jelling and for some it may take longer. For us we jelled pretty quickly, mainly because we had a core group that was coming back and other players that were familiar to the WNBA, and I think that’s why we had the success we did early on. But now at this point I bet every team has jelled. Every team has had their ups and downs. Every team probably has good chemistry right now. So I don’t view us as the head of the pack by any regard. So we’ll see what happens.
Seattle Fresh and Focused – Mark Bodenrader, WNBA.com
Strategies aside, the Storm haven’t played a meaningful game in a while, so perhaps the bigger issue is whether the team has lost that mojo that made it so dominant earlier in the season. Agler doesn’t see that.
“Our team’s been pretty focused,” said Agler. “We’ve had a couple lapses obviously, our game in Tulsa was a lapse, and we’ve had some games where we didn’t play some of our key people big minutes and I think we took a loss or two in that kind of way, but our team’s got good leadership with Sue and Lauren and Swin. They’ve played together for a period of time and I feel like we have an opportunity to play real well.”
Race to the MVP – the Grand Finale – Frank Della Femina, WNBA.com
I had to. After three straight Player of the Month honors and five Player of the Week selections, there’s no way I could deny Lauren Jackson the No. 1 spot. Jackson’s made a career out of displaying a strong two-way game and continued to do so again this season. She finishes the 2010 season ranked fourth overall in ppg (20.5), fourth in free-throw percentage (91 percent), sixth in rpg (8.3), seventh in blocks (38) and seventh in double-doubles. Few players transcend over that many categories, and even fewer consistently rank in the top 10.
MULTIMEDIA
Cash promotes the importance of parks for children to be active.
King5.com has a ton of Storm interviews, including Jackson. Check out the website for far more.
Jackson on She’s Got Game with Brenda VanLengen and Mechelle Voepel.
Bird’s point is that Seattle battled and scraped just like everybody else — winning five of their last six games by 10 points or less. And having such an accomplished regular-season guarantees you nothing when it comes to the postseason.
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