Limping Liberty head into Olympic Break on 3-game Slide
If you’re a follower of the Liberty, the upcoming Olympic break will be a bittersweet one for you. You’ll be bored without games to watch (or maybe watching them isn’t always an enjoyable experience –that's up to you7), but happy that the team can return to full strength.
For a month now, the Liberty have been hit hard with the injury bug. It started with DeMaya Walker, a great veteran presence, getting banged up, continued with Plenette Pierson, and ended when Kia Vaughn was concussed a couple of weeks back. All but Pierson have returned to the floor, but as Vaughn admitted after last Friday’s game, she’s a little rusty. Walker and Pierson will benefit from this time off, and should bring some hope back to the team.
At this point in the season, you’re going to have to choose from being an optimistic fan of the team’s 2012 success, or a fan of drafting Brittney Griner. As the Liberty fall further and further from the top of the Eastern Conference, the Player of the Year has to enter your mind. The Liberty will most likely be in the WNBA Draft Lottery, which means they’ll get one of the top 4 picks. The more they lose, the better the chance of Griner – just a thought.
For the time being, however, Coach Whisenant remains confident the team can compete late in the season, and why shouldn’t he be? The team has a star in Pondexter, a great shooter in Mitchell, and game-changing bigs in Vaughn and Pierson. All they need is a healthy lineup, and a little bit of chemistry. A month off might give them both.
