Turn Around, Now Switch
The question hangs over Lisa Leslie and the Sparks.
Is she on top of her game or has 2005, indeed, begun a transition toward a supporting role?
There have been murmurs before.
In June of last year, when Leslie was averaging a career-low 14 points and six rebounds, the 6-foot-5 center was asked whether she thought she was still the league’s best player.
Leslie, a winner of two WNBA titles and three Olympic gold medals, responded simply: “Yes.”
Her second-half performance backed that up.
Then, after a midseason coaching change, she finished third in scoring (17.6), and first in rebounding (9.9) and blocked shots (2.88). She pushed the Sparks to the league’s best regular-season record, won her second most-valuable-player award and was named the defensive player of the year.
This season, Leslie’s ninth, her numbers are off last year’s highs, but her answer hasn’t changed.
“I know that I’m the same player that I was last year,” Leslie said. “I know how my [groin] injury has slowed me in certain areas, in what I can do.
“I have to believe that I’m the best. Not in a way of being cocky. I say it humbly in that I’m still working hard to be the best. When I look at a person like Magic [Johnson], I don’t know when his career went down, but he still was the best. Or Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar], who adjusted his game in his 30s and was still able to be dominant and helpful to his team. That’s my goal.
“I may not always be the greatest tool in the shed, but I’ll always be in the shed.”
No one is suggesting that at 33 her skills have declined. Instead, the Sparks point out she has played the season with a serious groin injury while adjusting to an unfamiliar system installed by yet another new coach.
She’s averaging 15 points a game, seventh-best in the league. She again leads the league in blocked shots (2.55), but her rebounds are down to 6.9, which also ranks seventh. She has four games of double figures in points and rebounds, trailing last year’s total of six.
“One thing when it comes to me: I’m used to setting goals and being successful, and being on top,” Leslie said. “With my job of playing basketball, it’s a struggle for me right now. There’s a frustration not being on top.”
Leslie’s groin injury, sustained on the first day of training camp, won’t fully heal without complete rest. She also suffered a strained left hamstring last Tuesday against Washington.
Several of her teammates are playing hurt too, but she can share the chores on offense with the WNBA’s top scorer, Chamique Holdsclaw, by her side. Include Tamika Whitmore, Mwadi Mabika, Nikki Teasley, Tamecka Dixon and Doneeka Hodges in the mix, and that’s a large group firing away at the basket.
Spark Coach Henry Bibby brought with him a system on offense and defense unlike any Leslie had played before. She has been asked to play more high post than low post to be the hub of the motion offense. And because Bibby wants any open player to shoot, she may not always be in rebound position.
On defense, Leslie has been used to trap guards or forwards in corners. In zone coverages she either picks up an opponent headed toward her designated area, or steps out to block shots when someone gets past another Spark defender. Again, she is not always in prime rebounding position.
“I think like everybody, Lisa’s been trying to adjust to the new systems. It’s taken a longer time than people thought it would,” Dixon said. “It took us [the first half] to get a real feel for what Coach Bibby wants. And I think in Lisa’s case, it’s taken that amount of time to analyze what she wants to find in the offense, how she’s going to get her points in his system, things like that. As a result her numbers are down. But those numbers with anyone else are still All-Star numbers.”
Bibby, who said he runs more set plays for Leslie than any other Spark, said it remains Leslie’s team “and everyone knows that.” He said he hasn’t sensed any problems with the adjustments he has asked her and the other Sparks to make.
“She is a very intelligent woman and such a student of the game of basketball,” Bibby said. “You often see great players who just play. She knows the purpose of the game, knows where people should be and, more important, where they shouldn’t be. She takes the game to another level.”
But she’s also paying attention to matters off the court. She has laid the groundwork for a broadcasting career, having worked as a radio analyst for college basketball games and, last off-season, as part of the ESPN studio crew covering the women’s NCAA tournament.
Her biggest change, though, is personal. Leslie plans to marry in November. Her fiance, Michael Lockwood, is a pilot for UPS. “A captain, not a co-pilot,” she said with obvious pride. Lockwood lives in Miami but will relocate to Los Angeles after the wedding.
It was a quick courtship. Last year, while sitting in an airport, Leslie was talking with a man who was also waiting for a flight. The man, a friend of Lockwood’s, kept telling Leslie she should give Lockwood a call.
“I told him I don’t call guys,” said Leslie, who broke up with her last boyfriend more than three years ago. But she did give him her number to give to Lockwood.
He called three times before Leslie called back. They talked regularly over the next three weeks before he asked to come out to Los Angeles for a date.
“Before we met, we established a real good foundation,” Leslie said. “Sometimes when you meet people initially, you get so involved in the outside, the attraction, it gets cloudy on the important things, including the exchange of information. With him living in Miami, and me in L.A., we first had the opportunity to exchange information.”
When they met, the attraction was instantaneous. “When I saw him I thought, ‘That’s my husband,’ ” Leslie said.
Lockwood is Leslie’s height. He played college basketball at the Air Force Academy and learned to fly in the military. He also has had success in real estate, Leslie said, and is involved in a nonprofit foundation to raise money to help young African Americans learn how to fly.
Leslie said before the season she will play as long as she’s on a team with a chance to win. Spark President Johnny Buss wants that to be in Los Angeles.
“As long as she wants to play, I want her,” Buss said. “I would think if she slows down she would want to retire before I’d have to think of a trade. I don’t see a situation where she’s just playing out her career. Is that three or five years? It’s up to her. But I want her as a Spark. And we’ve always told her that.”
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L.A.’s big spark
Career WNBA statistics for Lisa Leslie, all with the Sparks:
*--* Year G Min FG% 3P% FT% OReb Reb Ast Steal Block TO Pts 1997 28 32.2 431 261 598 2.3 9.5 2.6 1.39 2.11 3.89 15.9 1998 28 32.1 478 391 768 2.8 10.2 2.5 1.50 2.14 3.64 19.6 1999 32 29.1 468 423 731 2.3 7.8 1.8 1.13 1.53 2.94 15.6 2000 32 32.1 458 219 824 2.3 9.6 1.9 0.97 2.31 3.22 17.8 2001 31 33.3 473 367 736 2.8 9.6 2.4 1.10 2.29 3.16 19.5 2002 31 34.2 466 324 727 2.5 10.4 2.7 1.48 2.90 3.48 16.9 2003 23 34.4 442 324 617 3.3 10.0 2.0 1.35 2.74 2.83 18.4 2004 34 33.8 494 273 712 1.8 9.9 2.6 1.47 2.88 3.24 17.6 2005 20 33.1 426 227 527 1.7 6.9 3.1 2.10 2.55 3.10 15.0 Career 259 32.6 462 323 704 2.4 9.4 2.4 1.36 2.38 3.29 17.4 Playo 33 36.8 509 382 743 2.4 9.5 2.3 1.24 2.88 2.82 19.5 ffs
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