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Message: [QUOTE="eebmg, post: 3688170, member: 7548"] Interesting article about how Sue Bird uses her experience against rookies. The timing with Sue facing Crystal seems to be to relevant to be coincidental but the article does not mention Crystal or any particular player by name [URL unfurl="true"]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/25/sports/basketball/wnba-sue-bird-seattle-storm.html[/URL] “Every now and then you notice a rookie going extra hard against you,” Bird said. “If someone’s going extra hard — like, I just watched film on you and I never saw you do that — then you kind of realize like, OK, they’re trying to maybe make a name for themselves.” In other words, just like Bird did all those years ago. That predictable enthusiasm is part of what can make rookies easier to read — and easier to score on. Bird insisted that she doesn’t turn to trash talk (“I only engage when I’m first talked at,” she said), but she said she had plenty of other ways to exploit her competitive edge. “There are just things that a rookie isn’t going to know — things none of us knew coming into the league,” Bird said. “So there are just small ways in which you can take advantage of that lack of knowledge, whether it’s terminology they don’t know, or different defensive schemes they don’t know, or how to guard certain actions that they just don’t know yet.” “I’m not even talking about if a rookie’s guarding me,” she continued, adding that she knows “exactly what play to call” when she sees rookies up against teammates like Jewell Loyd and Breanna Stewart. “For me, it’s more, ‘How can I manipulate this person?’” she said. That lack of knowledge, though, cuts both ways, according to Bird. Minimal scouting reports on new players mean that at least for their first month or two, W.N.B.A. rookies have some degree of mysteriousness on their side — a rarity in an intimate league like the W. “Because we’re a small league, everybody knows everybody’s everything,” Bird said. “If we know a player can’t go left, everybody is screaming, ‘Force her left!’ When there’s blood in the water, we all attack it.” [/QUOTE]

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