Women's Hoops Blog

Jayda Evans covers college and pro women's basketball. While its her first year on the Washington beat, she has covered the Storm since its inception. She'll offer observations, critiques, occasional off-beat tales and answers to select e-mail inquires. Evans also has written a book on the Storm and women's hoops, called "Game On!"

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June 11, 2007 1:05 PM

Bird lovers

Posted by Jayda Evans

Goodness. Write one sentence and there's a mini war. For the record, what I meant in the previous blog about Lauren Jackson and Betty Lennox being the only Storm players who can create on their own is exactly that. I'm not dogging Sue Bird, but Bird rarely steps outside of coach Anne Donovan's system to create her own shot. If she did, she'd have more nights like she did in Sacramento (21 points) on Thursday or the playoffs in 2004.

I realize Bird has to be a distributor by position, but I think she could also freestyle more. Jackson and Lennox do - sure it gets them pulled from the game - but it generates offense. And when you get to the playoffs, facing a team a maximum of five times by the time you reach the Finals, you need to do something different because everything else has been scouted. Again, creativity comes into play.

So, it's not a knock on Bird. She's All-Decade. But she can also be orchestrated and I think that hurts the team more than it helps sometimes.

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