Sparks bench players stay ready for postseason push

Inconsistent playing time hasn’t affected the Sparks’ bench production.

The Los Angeles Sparks have arguably the best big three in the WNBA: the trio of Chelsea Gray, Candace Parker, and Nneka Ogwumike poses matchup problems on the perimeter and in the paint for even the most capable defenses.

But the difference between the 2019 Sparks and previous iterations of this team is Los Angeles’ depth. Last season, the Sparks only carried 11 players throughout the season and only played 8 on a regular basis. This year, Derek Fisher prefers to use a 10-player rotation when possible. That was a challenge earlier in the season when the Sparks dealt with injuries, but now the team is fully healthy and has the opposite problem. On any given day, rotation-caliber players don’t see the floor.

The key for any team is to ensure that players stay ready to play even when their minutes are inconsistent. It has been a luxury for Fisher and the Los Angeles coaching staff to look down the bench and know that they have a bevy of options for any situation.

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Take, for example, Kalani Brown. The rookie center was a mainstay in the Sparks lineup for the first half of the season, playing in 20 of the first 21 games. Brown wasn’t a garbage-time inclusion, either; the first-round pick played in at least nine minutes in all of her appearance, averaging 5.3 points and 3.9 rebounds per game.

Then, Maria Vadeeva recovered from a knee injury suffered during EuroBasket, Candace Parker came back from an ankle injury, and Chiney Ogwumike returned from a brief absence due to dental surgery. That meant Brown didn’t play for five straight games.

But in the sixth game, Vadeeva suffered a knock to the head and had to go through concussion protocol, giving Brown an opening. Hilariously, Brown thought a fan in the crowd was calling her name, not Fisher.

The first-round pick showed out against her college rival Teaira McCowan, scoring 10 points and helping the Sparks to a dominant 33-point victory. Brown got some more garbage-time minutes before earning some time in the next contest against Indiana, and when Nneka Ogwumike had to sit with an illness in Las Vegas, Brown was ready to take on Liz Cambage.

“It’s challenging, mentally, more than anything. You know, you’re just like, ‘Am I going in today, am I going in today,” Brown said after playing Indiana. “I was like, if I give up a little, my number might be called and then I won’t be ready. I was just like, no. But today, you gave me an opportunity and I just played my game.”

Brown’s rookie teammate Marina Mabrey has gone through her own crisis of confidence in the latter portion of the season. Early injuries to Alana Beard and Alexis Jones, as well as Riquna Williams’ suspension gave the second-round pick out of Notre Dame an opportunity to contribute right away. Mabrey was pretty effective too, particularly on the defensive end as she struggles to find her shot as a professional.

But the team’s return to health relegated Mabrey to the end of the bench, right next to Brown, and it has been an adjustment.

“I have no idea what my role is on any night, but you need to be ready for whatever that role is for that game,” Mabrey said. “Everybody has a different journey, obviously, and sometimes you feel like you know what your role and other times you don’t. Just understand that you deserve to be here. And whatever it is that they’re calling you for you need to go out there and do it to earn credibility.”

After six games of not playing or only appearing in garbage time, Mabrey finally got a reminder of why the Sparks still rely on her. At home, against an Atlanta team with no postseason hopes, Los Angeles was lacking energy and needed a jolt in the middle of the third quarter, so the team called on Mabrey.

She didn’t score, but she was active in passing lanes, grabbed rebounds, and the Sparks immediately went on an 11-0 run, turning a 2-point lead into 13. She ended up playing the rest of the game.

When asked what he was hoping to see from Mabrey during that stretch, Fisher said, “Exactly what she gave us, right? Marina literally is like a quarterback in football that literally forgot that she threw an interception the last time she threw a pass. She can shoot an airball and go back down to court and do something really good and just move on. That’s how she approaches it. And what we’ve always, you know, really loved about her from the beginning is that competitive spirit that she has that like, if somebody pushes her, she’s gonna push them back. If they smack her, she’s gonna smack them back.

“So we were really happy that Marina was able to just come in the game and just bring an energy that we couldn’t get elsewhere…. One thing we know about Marina, is she’s gonna come in the game and she’s gonna fly around and do something. Sometimes it’s not good. Sometimes it is good. But we don’t have to worry about the energy from her. She’s going to try her hardest.”

Mabrey has credited third-year guard Sydney Wiese for helping her stay positive throughout the year. Wiese had never been a regular part of the rotation in her first two seasons before finally breaking out in year three, and her experience helps Mabrey and Brown keep perspective.

Furthermore, even though Wiese is ahead of the two rookies on the depth chart, she has had her own ups and downs in 2019. She was the lone Spark not to play in the competitive portion of the season opener and went through her own bench spell while her team was in the midst of a four-game losing streak in June.

But Wiese rebounded to become both a productive starter and reserve and is now the first perimeter player off the bench. The coaching staff trusts her as a shooting guard and a ball handler, and she’s averaging 20.5 minutes while shooting 37.8% on 3-pointers. An afterthought in the Agler years, Wiese is now one of the team’s preferred options.

As the Sparks head into the postseason, they are expecting their stars to carry the load on offense and defense. However, it’s nice to know that they can count on players who see the floor sporadically, like Brown, Mabrey, and even Alexis Jones, to produce when their number is called. A fortunate side effect to so much roster instability at the start of the season is that every player on Los Angeles has the experience and the confidence to perform when needed.

“At the end of the day, we’re all professionals,” Wiese said after a 102-68 win over Seattle when all 12 players played, and 11 scored. “So you have to handle it, whenever your name gets called, you never know when you’re gonna get the opportunity. And so it’s on us to make sure that we take advantage of that opportunity. Some nights go better than others, obviously. But I think like, tonight, you see how everyone can contribute. And everyone handled their professional responsibilities in a really big way.”

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