Survival of Fittest May Best Describe Sparks’ Success

In the Sparks’ rush toward a possible WNBA championship, there has been one constant.

You don’t see it until the final two or three minutes of their games. It’s most visible in the close games.

Coach Michael Cooper’s team is in better physical condition than its opponents.

Exhibit A: The Sparks have played back-to-back games seven times, five in different cities. They split the first pair and won the next six, most recently wins over New York (at home) and at Phoenix on July 20-21.

Exhibit B: In games decided by six or fewer points, the Sparks have won eight of nine.

Exhibit C: The truth lies in the trembling knees of softened-up foes in the final minutes. Most recent examples: The final-minute wins at Minnesota and Detroit, where opposing players were clearly running on empty tanks.

Spark practices must be something.

And so it was last Thursday, when we inspected Cooper’s two-hour practice at America West Arena in Phoenix.

After loosening up and stretching routines, the Sparks ran full-court, three-player weaves at 95% speed for five minutes. After that came five minutes of side-to-side wind sprints.

Then came free throws. That is, free throws while exhausted--Cooper’s favorite kind.

The players lined up on the baseline, bent over and gasping, and Cooper selected players to come to the line to take two shots. One miss and everyone had to run a down-and-back. This drill would be repeated later, but it would be double down-and-backs.

Now came more three-player weaves, but this time four lengths, not down-and-back.

Forty minutes into practice, Cooper had his “bigs” (centers and forwards) dribble full-court and back against defending “smalls” (guards) for 10 minutes.

Then came half-court sets, with the offense running a down-and-back if anyone missed a shot or the defense running if it allowed a basket.

Finally, at 2:15 p.m., 75 minutes into practice, Cooper moved on to Mercury game-plan strategies. There were 10 minutes of walk-through sets, incorporated with defensive plans. At 2:40 p.m. there was a full-court scrimmage, using offenses and defenses Cooper expected to deploy against Phoenix.

And when it ended, at 3 p.m.--need we say it?--they ran some more.

The fact that the road to the WNBA championship now goes through Inglewood is by grand design, Cooper said.

“Before the season began, in training camp, I asked the players how many wins it would take to get home-court advantage throughout the playoffs,” he said.

“They all thought 23, 24 would do it. I told them it would take 27, 28. The conditioning program we started in training camp was designed to make us stronger the closer we got to the end of the season. I told them when we started we’d be in our best shape during this six-game road trip to end the season.”

NOT-SO-FULL HOUSE

WNBA attendance hasn’t just flattened out, it has dropped substantially.

In its first two seasons, average game attendance rose from 9,669 to 10,869. But it dipped to 10,207 last summer and may not even reach 9,000 this season. A recent check showed 8,876, with most teams having two games left.

Only Washington (the leader at 15,003), New York (14,013) and Houston (12,244) are up over 1999. The other preexisting nine teams are all down, including the Sparks, who dropped from 7,625 to 6,563. The four expansion teams averaged 8,981.

The league’s spin is that it was obliged to shorten its 32-game schedule to enable those countries whose women’s teams are in the Sydney Olympics maximum preparation time. That cut into the NBA playoff season and into family vacation schedules.

But some general managers in the league say some NBA parent clubs--including the Lakers--are not spending the minimum $250,000 on promotion, as required under their franchise agreements.

LAYUPS

Nearly everyone expects Tennessee junior Tamika Catchings (15.7 points, 7.9 rebounds last season) to be one of the WNBA’s first three draft picks next spring. However, she’s already on one WNBA team’s staff. She’s a community relations intern for the Phoenix Mercury this summer. Next summer figure her address to be Seattle, Indiana or Charlotte, who have the first three picks in the draft. . . . When the WNBA’s Queen of the Moms, Cleveland’s Suzie McConnell Serio announced her retirement Sunday, she closed the curtain on one of the league’s most compelling stories. McConnell Serio, 34, was the point guard on the 1988 U.S. Olympic gold-medal team and a Penn State All-American before that. In the off-season, she’s the head coach at Oakland Catholic High in Pittsburgh. She also has four children, the last of whom nearly arrived during a game she was coaching a few years ago. She called time and was rushed to the hospital in labor. Husband Pete Serio came out of the stands to coach while his wife gave birth. Immensely popular in Cleveland, there were repeated standing ovations for her Sunday in her last regular-season home game, when she had eight points and seven rebounds in a 77-60 win over Washington. “I have two great teams--my husband and four children, and my teammates,” she told the crowd. “I just need to spend more time with my children.”