Comets Looking for Fourth Consecutive Crown

The Houston Comets have three WNBA championship trophies and two new challenges: to win a fourth title and make the rest of the league forget about “The Shot.”

The 2000 season begins right where the last one ended, in the Compaq Center with a game between the Comets and the New York Liberty.

New York forced a deciding Game 3 in the WNBA Finals last September with a last-second, half-court shot by Teresa Weatherspoon, who dedicated the season to her 19-year-old nephew, Anthony. He had died in a car accident in Texas three months earlier.

The Comets also were in mourning. Inspirational point guard Kim Perrot died of cancer on Aug. 19, less than a month before Houston won the title.

“I go back and I think about what this team went through and how they overcame it. I am amazed at that,” Comets coach Van Chancellor said. “You’ve got a person that you absolutely love as a human being and to see us go through that, it’s tough.

“Our players overcame it. I hope they can overcome it this year.”

Many of those emotions will return Monday when the Liberty return to the court where Weatherspoon launched the 50-foot desperation shot that bounced off the backboard and into the net for a 68-67 New York victory.

“Going back to Houston is always tough for me because he was always there,” Weatherspoon said of her nephew. “He was my backbone. He meant the world to me. He was my best friend.”

She’ll remember the feeling she had after hitting the winning shot.

“When I walked into the locker room my teammates said, ‘Spoon, did you see him sitting on the rim?’ I said ‘No, I didn’t, but I heard him talking to me.’ When it went in, to me it was my angel dropping the shot in for me.”

The league is using Weatherspoon’s shot in its TV ads promoting the new season.

“Seeing the shot run over and over, I have the same feeling that I had when it went in,” she said.

The Comets at first were upset to see themselves, the only champions in the history of the 3-year-old league, portrayed as props for the dramatic basket.

“I’m the poster girl for helplessness,” said Comets forward Tina Thompson, seen in the replay as Weatherspoon shoots. “It’s the most recognizable shot in WNBA history.”

Now the Comets are just trying to get ready for another season--and perhaps another championship.

But they do have problems. They once again are looking for a point guard, and they started the final week of preseason with key players still not in camp.

Janeth Arcain has been playing in South America. She is a candidate to replace departed Sonja Henning at point guard. Center Polina Tzekova and first round draft pick Elen Chakirova, also a center, weren’t with the team starting the final week of preparations.

But with three-time WNBA scoring champion Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes and Thompson to build around, the Comets are getting little sympathy.

“It gets tougher and tougher to win and more difficult every year because we know teams want to knock off the defending champions,” Swoopes said. “But we know what it takes to win. We can’t be concerned about what other teams are going to do. We’re going to do what we have to do as a team to win.”

Cooper isn’t ready to talk about another title.

“It never gets easier,” Cooper said. “We can’t get ahead of ourselves. We know what we have to do during preseason to get ready for what’s to come, the war that we have to fight.”