Final score: Storm 77 – Mercury 58 (W) (1-0 preseason)

Submitted by | StormFanNo1

Swin and LJ was in the house in street clothes, looking as gorgeous as ever.

We won handily, but that is not important. I will give my opinion on the newcomers and returning players.

Most Impressive

Ashley Walker — Wow! She was good last year before she got injured, but she is much better than good now. She showed some mad offensive skills, treys, slashing to the basket, fast break, plays with back to the basket. With her in the bench we will not have a scoring drought from the bench this year.

Camille Little — Of course she is guaranteed to make the team. Still, it was good to see her give her best effort as always, doing all the little things that make a difference.

Aja Parham — Just as I was thinking she was on the cut list, she comes alive in the second half and goes into a scoring binge. She definitely made a strong case for herself today.

Good

A-Rob — She was always good defensively, but she showed some decent offensive skills today. I REALLY hope we can work her salary into the cap, since the other posts under consideration (Hampton, Bowman) did not impress.

OK

A.Lacey — She did ok, but also did rookie mistakes. She was good in play making and finding the open person. She finished with 5 assists, which makes a good case for herself as a backup pg.

L.Wilson — She played with a lot of energy and showed better judgement with ball handling. No turnovers compared to other pgs under consideration, but also no assists. Sometimes she gets overly aggressive with her defense though. She got three quick fouls over a span of a few minutes and had to leave the game.

Loree Moore — She made some really good moves, and some bone headed decisions. She needs to be smarter with her decision making.

L.Kurz — She showed some decent offensive skills. But we are crowded in the 6-6'2" perimeter players group. With Swin, Svet, and Tanisha joining soon and Aja coming up so strong, I don't think she has a shot at making the team. She would be a good option as a 12th or 13th player if we were allowed to keep that many.

Did not impress

D. Hampton — She missed a bunch of uncontested chippies, and was ineffective defense-wise.

H. Bowman — Unfortunately she did not help herself in this game. Expect her to get cut next week.

Based on this game, I would say keep A-Rob, cutting Bowman and Hampton. Save salary cap room for A-Rob by cutting Moore and keeping Lacey and/or Wilson (both on rookie salaries)

Aja could be battling Svet for the last spot.

Submitted by | LaurenRules

Camille was tremendous.

A-Walk had huge hustle and has improved her game, especially her offense, but is also more defensively minded.

Aja did a great job slashing to the basket. She'd make an excellent backup for Swin or Tanisha. She's also really tough, taking a hard fall onto her elbow and then sinking both her free throws.

A-Rob owned the lane when she was in, terrifying the Phoenix scrubs into at least three turnovers and into trying seriously boneheaded shots. Plus, she shot well and had some good post moves.

Of the guards, Lacey impressed me the most. Things ran better on the floor when she was in. She also had great hustle and rebounding. Moore did okay, but had some unfortunate turnovers.

The perimeter was pretty crowded with tall, slender blondes. One of them was so thin I was tempted to send out for pizza.

Bowman and Hampton were not good. Hampton's defense was especially bad — she was hopping up and down a lot. Both Camille and A-Rob were gliding by comparision.

Camille has lost quite a bit of weight. When she, A-Walk and A-Rob were on the bench, our rebounding was horrible. Also, the newbies didn't know how to run the offense, so the existing players had to keep coaching them on it. A-Walk doesn't seem to be bothered by her toe.

Fun game — I'm sitting nearer the bench this season, which is a BLAST.

The Dance Troupe looks smaller (in number) this year. Shelley is back. She's such a nice person, but, boy, I just can't stand her speaking voice.

Lots of Bing ads. The new unis look fine.

Oh, and the refs new outfits looked like Creamsicles. A-Rob told one of the refs that she looked like the ball.

I wish we could have 12-13 people. Tough roster cuts ahead.

Submitted by | Wingardium

I don't know about y'all, but it felt pretty durn good being back in the Key again. And it looks like we might just have a bench this year. What a concept....

By and large, I concur with the general thoughts on the players

Hampton and Bowman are gone. Neither helped themselves

I liked Moore and her hustle. We can use that

ARob is fighting for her job. Good... she needs to. Like someone said, we may need to keep her just because she's the only center.

Lacey was very impressive, as were Walker and Little.

Maybe the scrimmage was responsible, but this game was much more entertaining than I ever expected it to be. Decent scoring, good pace, not too terribly rough considering the mix of players. Of course, I may be easily entertained these days...

Random notes

They're clearly trying to make up for something in the Seattle Center budget with the price of parking. Note to self: arrive earlier and park on the durn street...

Absolutely wonderful to see Jenny Boucek on the Storm side of the scorers table again, and looking mighty fine she was too, with that intriguing little cowl-neck sweater...

I never really cared much for the Dance Troupe, but apparently one of the former dancers is all grown up and has returned to be a choreographer for the Troupe. Nice story to see. And yes, it seems as if they've downsized the Troupe from previous years. Economics? Maybe some dancers still have overseas commitments...

I thought the Baby Gymnasts were cute, and darn impressive. But hey, they're little rubber people at that age, and in truth, world champions aren't much older than those tykes. Want to really impress? Get some 60 year olds out there flipping around. That'd be a show...

The advertising on the scorers table was acting up, and at one point, the last section was out of sync with the rest. Thus, the north side of the arena were treated to gems like, "Storm Ba bing" for a while...

Good choice not to suit up Swin for the game. No sense damaging her, and someone had to keep LJ company on the bench. As for Our Big Aussie, she's looking fit, though shading a bit towards the Twisted Sister look...

Doppler started throwing out caps towards the end of the game, and put such English on one that it literally curved around the end of the row in front of me and landed at my feet. Peanuts and a prize!! Although, on inspection, the holographic sticker indicating that this cap was an Official Licensed Product was rather curious. One of the image layers consisted of the names of teams. Mercury, Fever, Sparks... OK. Monarchs? Still OK, that was a recent development. Comets... Sting... Rockers? Something tells me they ordered TONS of those stickers seven or eight years ago....

Oddly enough, I liked the ref uniforms, once I saw them in person. As someone else said, it's about time the WNBA got the refs in our own gear, and the 'ol orange and oatmeal ball is the most identifiable brand we have...

Page 1