RebKell's Junkie Boards

[Stormeo]

[NYL_WNBA_FAN]

[Bob Lamm]

[Bob Lamm]

For me, the distribution of minutes tonight against Las Vegas is quite intriguing going forward:

Laney 36, Ionescu 32, Stokes 32, Whitcomb 28, Allen 25
Onyenwere 19, Odom 11, Shook 5, Richards 5, Jones 4

Leoanna Odom's play really impressed me. I wasn't a huge fan last season but she did a lot tonight in limited minutes. And considering that it was her first game of the season and she's probably not 100% physically yet.

I just wish she could play backup point guard.

_________________
Remember Roe v. Wade. Work for and support legal abortion all over the world and full reproductive rights for everyone.

[myrtle]

[myrtle]

I'm also intrigued at the possibility of getting both Allen and Onyenwere on the floor together. Not sure how to make that work, but they both do good things so it's too bad one always goes off when the other is on the floor.

[Lib Fan]

Why so few touches for Bec Allen in the second half, Walt ?
She did get you back in the game when it looked like the Aces
would blow out the Liberty in the first half.

_________________
Lets Go Liberty
Brooklyn 2021
Bring Back Maddie!

[root_thing]

Here are my random thoughts after last night:

1) Aside from the horrendous officiating that led to a totally unjustified 29-9 free throw difference in favor of LVA, the problem yesterday was Ionescu. She struggled with her shot, and on defense Sabrina couldn't contain Jackie Young. I think she needs to start off the game more aggressively. Sabrina seems to think she can feel her way around for the first quarter and a half, mostly playing pass-first PG, then suddenly flip a switch and be a scorer. I’m not sure she can do that at the pro level.

2) If the Liberty intend to rely on only one post player, then that person has to be active and play with high energy. Whatever management thinks of Shook’s long-term skill potential, she is personality-wise a very passive person. Her tendency is to be conservative, which is sort of passable on offense but totally unacceptable in this defensive scheme. Hopkins complained that the team got off to a slow start against both Atlanta and Las Vegas because they lacked intensity. Well, if your center is just naturally a low-energy player, and Sabrina spends the beginning of each game sort of probing and deferring to others, then your team is likely to start off playing low energy basketball.

3) Stokes is not only a tougher, more physical defender than Shook, but Kiah is also a way better rebounder. Stokes is very strong and deceptively athletic. She can adequately fill the role of sole post on defense. Unfortunately, Kiah shows no interest in offense. Passing her the ball has a 75% chance of being a turnover because Stokes never expects the pass. With her on the floor, the Liberty offense is always playing 4 on 5.

4) Now that Howard has missed two games, NY should be entitled to a Hardship player. Gray certainly brings energy and toughness. If only she were a couple of inches taller. Mack and Anigwe are also available again if management wants to try more height and athleticism.

5) Onyenwere is proving herself to be a very good WNBA small forward. Unfortunately, she’s stuck playing PF. Michaela is listed at 6-0, but I remember a lot of UCLA fans thought she was more like 5-11. Whatever the case, it does seem like Allen, Richards, and now Odom do a better job defending at PF. That extra 2 or 3 inches in length makes a big difference. Maybe they should shift Laney to SG at times and let Onyenwere play SF. With Odom back, they can use her and Allen at PF. The positions on defense are fluid anyway. Yesterday, Allen spent a lot of time guarding the PG, Gray while Laney was often defending Wilson at PF.

6) If you’re going to play small-ball, it seems to me that the team needs to score more easy points off fastbreaks. NY rarely beats their opponent down the court. Part of the reason is because Ionescu and Whitcomb aren’t that fast. Last season, they brought in Kea not only because they needed another true point guard, but also because they needed someone better at pushing pace. Technically, NY doesn’t even have a true PG on their roster right now. Ionescu often functioned as a PG at Oregon, but officially she was either an SF or SG. Sabrina had Cazorla as the PG for her first three years, and then Minyon Moore as a senior. So, the Liberty are not only using wings as PFs, they are also using wings at PG. New York definitely needs better point guard options. However, I get the feeling they’re not going to do anything this year. Next season, they can try to talk Johannes or Dojkvic into coming over or maybe we get Kea redux if she fully recovers from her injury.

_________________
You can always do something else.

[Bob Lamm]

Excellent analysis by root_thing. I'd just add this:

1. Apart from two games with a crucial player just beginning to learn the system, we still haven't seen the 2021 Liberty team as constructed by Kolb and Hopkins. Hopefully Howard will return before too long and then we'll begin to see how this new roster works together offensively and defensively. It's clear that even filling 40 post minutes with Stokes or Shook is problematic, as root_thing has well described. I look forward to the day when Howard gets 30 of those minutes.

2. Coming off a 2-20 season, I believe Kolb and Hopkins rightly felt: we've got to make dramatic changes. And this led them to: we're just going to get the best players we can and then sort out how to use them. I feel they did brilliantly getting Howard, Laney, Whitcomb, and Onyenwere. But it's obvious that this roster remains unbalanced: terrific options in terms of wing players, a starting point guard who perhaps should be a shooting guard, no backup point guard, and serious deficiencies in the post behind Howard.

With a much better roster base, Kolb and Hopkins will be able to consider moves for 2022 that will address the weaknesses of the current roster. For 2021, it's hard to imagine any significant roster moves.

I have confidence that Sabrina Ionescu will adjust to some of the challenges facing her, but it may take time. In any genuine sense, she's a rookie point guard in the WNBA. We know that's not easy.

_________________
Remember Roe v. Wade. Work for and support legal abortion all over the world and full reproductive rights for everyone.

[gpark33]

Is Sabrina injured? She couldn't hit the broad side of a barn last night. The two shots she made were not clean where she got good bounces off the rim. She almost had a double double with no points!

_________________
The teacher and the student.

[NYL_WNBA_FAN]

I think Sabrina is just in her own head. She’s known to be extremely hard on herself. I think any in-game struggles are temporarily snowballing. She’s got to work on the midrange game and the floaters. Especially going left.

But bricking 3s is not her norm. She’ll come out of that. And if a bad night features 9 rebounds and 9 assists, you could do worse.

I thought Stokes played her best defensive game since 2016. She was mostly awesome. Wilson beat her a couple of times but Kiah took Liz out of the game almost completely. If bad calls hadn’t nullified two clean blocks she’d have had three instead of one. She looked like the Kiah of old athletically. Quick jumping and timing. Now if she could catch and finish on the pick and roll....

I know they were down 19. I understand they never led. But I was pleased that once they began fronting and doubling their defense was nothing short of awesome.

Unlike Saturday where a lot of calls went their way and they clearly didn’t deserve to win, last night was different. They played extremely well over the final 25 minutes and deserved to win that game.

And this is without Howard and with Sab shooting 4 for her last 24 or thereabout. This is a good basketball team. By next year it’s likely to be great.

_________________
The poster formerly known as LibWNBAFan.

[Richyyy]

Hopkins apparently thinks there's something at least a little wrong with her, for what that's worth: https://twitter.com/MylesEhrlich/status/1400621918252904456?s=20

_________________
Independent WNBA coverage: http://www.wnbalien.com/

[Randy]

So couldn't he just ask her about it?

[NYL_WNBA_FAN]

[root_thing]

If anyone is up for a cheap laugh, here is an article about Betnijah Laney as well as two versions that look like they were translated into a foreign language before being retranslated back to English. For instance, here are the article titles:

[lynxmania]

[Bob Lamm]

As someone who's very, very old--and definitely not well informed about the language used by younger people today--is calling someone a "trash can" now a compliment?

_________________
Remember Roe v. Wade. Work for and support legal abortion all over the world and full reproductive rights for everyone.

[PickledGinger]

[pilight]

This is how nicknames are born

_________________
I'm a lonely frog
I ain't got a home

[ChiSky54]

Hysterical!

Reminds me of a 1980s MAD Magazine item that listed American movie titles that had been translated from English to Japanese and back. The one I always remembered was The Grapes of Wrath translated back as The Angry Grapes!

Stuff truly does get lost in the translation!

_________________
There is nothing new under the sun.

[Bob Lamm]

[Bob Lamm]

[PickledGinger]

[Bob Lamm]

[LibFan25]

I don't know what the hell is going on with Sabrina, maybe it's just a "rookie" wall slump or something is up with her. I just hope it's only mental

Once Howard gets back our Lineup has to go big or we gonna be losing to decent teams every night

Sabrina
Michaela
Laney
Stokes
Howard

That's a solid 5 for teams much bigger then us and we can still score even though Stokes is a offensive liability we need the size