Ben York of SlamOnline.com with a great look at Lauren Jackson’s place in the women’s basketball landscape.

Because of her originality as a player and as a person, there isn’t, and will never be, another Lauren Jackson.

For lack of a better term, Jackson is cool. She makes women’s basketball cool to those who, perhaps, didn’t think so before. That’s just the aura she exudes and it’s certainly not a conscious thing on her part. She has multiple tattoos. Loves Nine Inch Nails. She’s pursuing a degree in psychology and wants to do more social work once her basketball career ends.

In the Seattle Times, Jayda Evans chats with new WNBA President Laurel Richie about her background and her vision for the league.

ST: Growing up outside Cleveland, sports had to be infused in you, right?

LR: Our family (four children) is a basketball family. My dad, when they were building the first arena for the Cleveland Cavaliers, he drove out there while it was still under construction and said, “Whatever two seats are right here, these are the season tickets I want.” And he was a season-ticket-holder until three years ago. He’s 86 now. The kids would draw straws to see who’d go to the playoff games with him.

SwishAppeal.com is still looking back at Opening Day and Nate Parham found synergy to be a key difference between the Storm and the Mercury.

Where that lack of spacing shows up most clearly is in their synergy ratings: the Storm’s 1.15 synergy rating was on par with their league-high synergy from last season, whereas the Mercury’s .85 was indicative of poor ball movement. For the Storm, part of what helped them out was the addition of Katie Smith, whose ability to not only handle the ball but move well without it to find gaps in the Mercury’s defense for scoring opportunities helped the offense flow.

WNBA.com has the (extremely) early leaders in the Race to the MVP, and the frontrunner so far is a Storm player – but Sue Bird, not Jackson, who comes in at No. 3.

A double-double in game one will get you some love here in the Race to the MVP rankings. Not only did Sue finish with 13 and 10 on Saturday, but she also delivered bounce passes with Bird-like accuracy that fans have all come to expect, love and/or fear (depending on fandom).

While in Seattle, Richie also appeared on King 5’s New Day Northwest program. Here’s the video:

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