man on women's sports

seen this weekend: Tamara Moore. From the WNBA 2005 transactions: April 24: The Phoenix Mercury have signed Tamara Moore. May 20: The Phoenix Mercury waived Tamara Moore (and Rita Williams.) May 31: The New York Liberty signed Tamara Moore. July 1: The New York Liberty signed Catherine Kraayeveld and waived Tamara Moore. It's been like that for Tamara in the WNBA, though she had in fact been with Phoenix after her trade from Detroit in '03 and through the '04 season. I so believe a business management case study must be made of Joe Bryant's really incredibly effective management style with the Sparks this year, of which Tamara was a notable beneficiary: she started 33 or 34 games for the team with the second best regular season record in the league. Most importantly, she was the high scorer for LA in Saturday's game at Anaheim.

seen this weekend: Christi Thomas . Seen but not heard. Was 0 for 0 in 20 minutes in Saturday's loss. Food for thought Sparks (we know Christi's heart, skill level and value: that's why I see this as a team function.)

seen this weekend: Nicole Powell. In fact, you can see this picture on LA's homepage at this minute; and quite appropriately, it was Nicole who ended LA's season prematurely. At the beginning of the third quarter, the (Sacramento) TV (webcast) announcer squealed at a Nicole miss: "Where is Nicole tonight?" At that 9:25 mark, Nicole had 0 points. Nicole heard the announcer: with LA leading 43 to 34, Nicole scored her first goal with 7:49 remaining in the third. She went on to score 17 points to bring Sac within 1 with 4:16 remaining in the game. She provided the assist to Kara Lawson's critical 3 pointer with 48 seconds left. This was Thurday's game at Sac. At the end of the webcast when the announcers said that it would be sent back to Cappy Poindexter and her crew in the NBA-TV studio, it was instead held at Arco Arena as Kara Lawson adjured the crowd to make it down to Anaheim for game 2. Anaheim? My mind did an incredible rewind as my best efforts had been unavailing to get pregame commentary by webcast either audio or video: for some time, all I could think was "LA, you knew you would not be playing in Staples Center for game 2, and you let this one slip away!" Nicole, Kara and Sac will contend in the finals.

seen this weekend: Ruth Riley. Heard but not seen: I heard a commercial during last night's radio webcast where midway through somebody with a really, really sweet voice said, I think, "This is Ruth Riley." Nah, this is Ruth Riley (pictured center with Tina Thompson, No. 7), and you really aren't going to be able to recognize the creature that arrives at the finals wearing "00" for the Shock. Double click photo for a larger view. Photo copyright the author 2004, 2006

# posted by wonderbot @ 8:42 AM