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Message: [QUOTE="CamrnCrz1974, post: 3257382, member: 1052"] Breanna Stewart also had the luxury of playing all three seasons with both the best PG in the history of the WNBA (Sue Bird), as well as a former #1 draft pick/ROY/All-WNBA player (Jewell Loyd), not to mention one season with the WNBA's MIP award winner (Natasha Howard). And that is not counting Alysha Clark and Crystal Langhorne, two veterans who averaged between 18 ppg and 21 ppg combined for two of Stewart's three years. Arike Ogunbowale is playing [I]without[/I] a true point guard, as Skylar Diggins-Smith (pregnancy) and Moriah Jefferson (injury). She has Glory Johnson who was an All Star, but that was in 2013-14...and Johnson has had her own injuries and has missed games this year. There are Allisha Gray and Kayla Thornton, who are definitely solid (combined, they average 21 ppg). Whereas they would be the equivalent of Clark and Langhorne on Seattle and Ogunbowale filling the Stewart role (to continue the Seattle comparison), there is no one at the Bird/Loyd level on Dallas' roster. Another sign of this is that Ogunbowale is 4th in the WNBA in free throw attempts, at 4.8 per game (she shoots 79.7 percent from the line). Only DeWanna Bonner, A'ja Wilson, and Liz Cambage get to the line more often. And she is 3rd in the WNBA in made free throws per contest (3.8 per game). Look at the New York Liberty. Outside of Tina Charles and Kia Nurse, who else is there (especially now that Asia Durr -- who was having a nice rookie season, averaging 9.7 ppg -- is done for the year and will miss over 33 percent of the 2019 season. Charles is averaging 17.6 FG [I]attempts[/I] per game, but is only shooting 38.6 percent from the floor.. Why does Charles shoot so much? Because she has to. As an aside, if you look at the ten games Ogunbowale played in August, you will see she was [U]much[/U] more efficient with her shooting. Yes, she took 18 attempts, but she also shot 44.4 percent overall and 44.9 percent from three. And she got to the foul line a [U]lot[/U] more, averaging 7.9 attempts per game (and making 78.5 percent of them). Side note...since 2002, only one player in the entire league had a season of averaging at least 7.9 free throw attempts for a full season (2011 - Angel McCoughtry). [ATTACH type="full" alt="46000"]46000[/ATTACH] Simply put, Ogunbowale has had to shoot more because there is no one else who can be a #1 option (or a #2 option, for that matter), to say nothing about not having a true point guard to facilitate. And to use Stewart as a comparison by raw numbers does not take into account the talent/quality of their respective teammates. [/QUOTE]

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