WNBA takes a break for the Olympics, but stars don’t

Kristi Toliver can’t remember the last time she had a few days off work.

The Sparks guard plays basketball year-round, leaving to compete overseas shortly after the WNBA season ends and returning right before it picks up again.

So what will she do during the WNBA’s five-week break for the Olympic Games in London?

Visit her family and friends in Virginia? Get entirely away on a dream vacation trip?

No and no.

She says she’s going to spend much of her time right back on a basketball court — for practice.

“I plan on being a Trojan for a couple of weeks,” said Toliver, who plans to sharpen up her game in workouts with a former college coach who is now an assistant at USC.

It’s tough to blame Toliver for striving to keep her basketball mojo.

She’s having a breakout season, averaging 17.4 points — up from 11.2 a year ago — second on the Sparks behind Candace Parker.

Asked if she was worried about losing steam during the WNBA’s long hiatus, which extends from July 13 through Aug. 17, Toliver shook her head. “I’m not worried about not playing games,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to really tighten your game, so I’m looking forward to it.”

The break came as the Sparks had won five consecutive games, their longest winning streak of the season, to pull within a game of first-place Minnesota in the Western Conference. Last season, the Sparks missed the playoffs; now they lead the league in rebounding (37.6 a game) and blocks (5.8) and are expected to go deep into the postseason.

Even with the Sparks rolling, Coach Carol Ross welcomed the break in games. She’s giving the players 10 days off before they reconvene for practice.

“In my mind, it’s training camp, part two,” Ross said. She added that the break is an opportunity to “get really good at basic basketball” and “evaluate what we’ve done poorly and either fix it or dump it.”

The only player who will miss most of those practices is Parker, who is headed to London to play for the United States.

Parker has played for the Sparks in only 27 of a possible 68 games the last two regular seasons because of injuries, but the extra mileage from the Olympics doesn’t concern her.

“We don’t practice really extremely hard,” she said of the Olympic team. “We’re not going all out.”

The team’s travel and playing schedule is no doubt draining, though.

“Once you get back to the states, everything kind of hits you at once and you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, what did I just go through for those two weeks?’” said Sparks forward DeLisha Milton-Jones, a member of the U.S. team for the 2000 Games in Sydney and 2008 Games in Beijing.

“I was on foreign soil, eating foreign food. My sleep patterns were thrown off. We were playing games every other day. It was really a lot.”

Milton-Jones isn’t playing for the U.S. this time, but she is confident Parker will quickly rediscover her All-Star WNBA form. “Once you get a good week or two under your belt, you’re fine,” she said. “You become acclimated again.”

Laurel Richie, president of the WNBA, said the interruption is worth it, the payoff greatly overshadowing any complications. “It is a great opportunity for our sport and our league … to get international exposure [for] our players,” she said.

Similarly, the NHL has taken a break during the Winter Olympics and Major League Soccer paused during the 2010 World Cup.

Everything considered, Toliver said she’s glad the WNBA takes a break for the Olympics, allowing players to either rest or hone their skills while the league’s stars play in front of a worldwide audience.

The pause, she added, doesn’t favor any one team.

“Everybody’s going through it, so it’s not a disadvantage to anyone,” she said.

melissa.rohlin@latimes.com