BOB'S CORNER: Ezi key to any Storm reign
TweetBOB'S CORNER: THE Seattle Storm of the WNBA had an off year in 2023, finishing near the bottom of the ladder at 11-29 but Aussie Ezi Magbegor had a good year personally, named an All-Star and to the All-Defensive team, reports BOB CRAVEN, our man in the US.
The Storm, in an attempt to jump start 2024, made some transformational moves, signing a pair of perennial All-Stars in PG Skylar Diggins-Smith and forward Nneka Ogwumike.
The duo, combined with guard Jewell Loyd (last year's league leading scorer with a record 939 points) and Magbegor, provide an array of intriguing options.
But the Storm must make the puzzle pieces fit. Diggins-Smith, Ogwumike and Loyd are established vets, but the younger Magbegor might be the wild card for the Storm - an ascending talent with an as yet undefined ceiling whose development might determine the Storm's ceiling this season.
Will they become a title contender, or just a potentially clumsy assemblage of stars?
After a stumbling start (1-3 with a pair of double-digit defeats), the Storm have now won their past four games in a row, and at 5-3 are in the top half of the standings.
Magbegor is showing that last season's All-Star status was no fluke. She leads the league in blocked shots and is among the leaders in rebounds.
After eight games, she is averaging about 32 minutes per game, and 13.6 points (as the Storm's fourth option, no less), 8.6 rebounds, and 1.9 assists per outing.
She is shooting almost 47% from the field (40% on threes) and 88.6% from the charity stripe. In her past four games, she has stepped up her game even more, logging 58 points, 35 rebounds, seven assists and 15 blocks.
It's looking like a very interesting season this year, both for the Storm and for its rising star post player.
THE NBA is finally down to the championship series, as the Boston Celtics will take on the Dallas Mavericks for all the marbles.
The Celtics won 64 games during the regular season, the most in the NBA since the 2012-2013 season when LeBron James led the Miami Heat to the Finals.
The Celtics then cruised through the three post-season rounds to get the Finals, losing only two games. They had the league's best offence and the league's second-best defence on the year, a dangerous combo for any opponent.
The Finals don't start until June 6 and the rest will help both teams, particularly the Celtics.
Kristaps Porzingis, their 221cm big man who has been sidelined with a calf strain since the first round of the playoffs should return, giving the Celtics an added dimension of rim protection and 3-point shooting.
The Mavs on the other hand, were a fifth seed and had to eliminate three of the West's top four seeds to get to this point.
They did so, thanks to their two-headed superstar monster, Luka Doncic-Kyrie Irving, plus their depth and defence.
They were also the biggest winners of the trade deadline. In February, they added center Daniel Gafford and forward P.J. Washington who meshed perfectly with the two stars, and helped Dallas become Western Conference giant killers.
In the deciding Game 7 of the conference semifinals against the Minnesota T-Wolves in Minneapolis, the Mavs and their two stars destroyed Minnesota by more than 20 points.
Both Doncic and Irving scored 36 in the decider, with Doncic getting 20 of those in the first quarter alone. He started the game by hitting his first four shots and hit four long 3-point rainbows of almost 10 metres by quarter's end.
Dallas was up by 29 at the half and took the lead to 36 at one point in the in the third quarter before coasting home.