It’s a fast transition for WNBA rookies. At some point, you’re enjoying within the NCAA event together with your faculty staff, and every week or two later, you’re drafted and formally knowledgeable basketball participant. Per week after that, you’re in coaching camp to your rookie WNBA season. In only a month’s time, you’ve completed faculty, began your profession, and your life has completed an entire 180-degree flip.
On account of that, it’s utterly affordable for a rookie to be taking all of it in at coaching camp. They’ve been thrown into a very new system with new coaches and new teammates, now a tiny fish in an enormous ocean. They’re additionally residing out their desires, lastly enjoying within the WNBA — all of them look somewhat wide-eyed and in awe for the primary weeks of the season.
WNBA coaching camp has simply began, however a number of rookies have already skilled Media Day and are adapting to their new roles. The Washington Mystics had three of the primary six draft picks, getting Sonia Citron, Kiki Iriafen, and Georgia Amoore within the course of. The Mystics are in the midst of a rebuild, and these rookies are hoping to be part of the subsequent era of this franchise.
“It’s been aggressive going in opposition to the bigs which have been within the league for a very long time and having to earn my maintain,” mentioned Iriafen at Mystics media day. “We’re studying rather a lot and our coaches do an awesome job of creating positive that we perceive all the pieces.”
Coaching camp is a brief period of time, and gamers have to show themselves. To strengthen to coaches that the abilities these WNBA groups scouted them for are nonetheless there, whereas additionally attempting to indicate off their versatility. For Iriafen, meaning displaying Washington that she will be able to shoot three-pointers.
“My coaches encourage me to shoot my three,” Iriafen mentioned about her coaching camp targets. “I’ve been taking pictures it rather a lot in apply and staying late to make my pictures. I do know that’s key on this league, if I’m enjoying the 4, possibly the three.”
There are, after all, challenges to the short turnaround between the school season and WNBA coaching camp. Studying new terminology, what your new coaches want from you, and even simply the distinction in routines that include becoming a member of a brand new staff. One other huge issue is that the WNBA is inherently a extra bodily league than the NCAA, and the tempo is rather a lot sooner than faculty basketball.
A reminder of how briskly issues change within the WNBA occurred the morning after these quotes had been gathered, when it was introduced that Amoore tore her ACL, altering each her and the Mystics’ story arcs practically instantly.
For Sonia Citron, there’s a steadiness between acclimating whereas determining what her coaches need from her. “I’m taking all the pieces in, being a sponge,” Citron mentioned. “Studying from the coaches, studying from the vets, studying from our teammates, and simply attempting to be rookie.”
Throughout the nation in Seattle, one other group of rookies is competing for spots on the Seattle Storm roster. In contrast to the Mystics, the Storm have the items to doubtlessly make a playoff run this season. There are not many spots for rookies to remain on the roster, so coaching camp is extra aggressive in a way. With that harsh actuality in thoughts, rookies Serena Sundell, Jordan Hobbs and Madison Conner are simply attempting to soak up as a lot as they’ll from their staff’s veterans.
“Even within the two brief days that coaching camp has been, I really feel like I’ve been capable of develop my sport already,” Jordan Hobbs mentioned. Hobbs performed at Michigan, unsure if she would even be drafted into the WNBA. She had a job lined up within the company sector and was prepared to maneuver on from basketball. But, after the yr she had a Michigan and the way in which the Wolverines’ season ended, she knew in her intestine she wasn’t completed with the game but. Whereas she was on the All-Star Mix on the Ladies’s Remaining 4, she referred to as that job and informed them she can be pursuing basketball after commencement as an alternative. Now, she’s in Seattle competing for a roster spot.
“It’s simply been an entire 180, however I’m tremendous grateful for it and simply blessed to be on this place right here,” Hobbs mentioned about her choice.
One recurring sentiment from rookies is how effectively their faculty applications ready them for this chance. All six of those gamers had been drafted out of elite faculty basketball applications like USC, Notre Dame, Michigan and extra, applications which have been producing WNBA gamers for many years. It’s now time for them to use all the abilities they discovered in faculty to their skilled basketball careers.
Because the WNBA grows, extra rookies are getting probabilities to make WNBA rosters. It’s changing into extra of a actuality to pursue basketball after faculty, and regardless of the short turnaround, these rookies wouldn’t wish to be wherever else.