Acting is Harding's dream after the Dream

The big moments don’t scare her, and she recognizes that little moments matter.

Lastly, she knows that results are determined by how you practice.

The coach offering the critique isn’t the Dream’s Marynell Meadors, who traded for Harding in the offseason in hopes that she can lead her team to its first championship. The Dream will open training camp Sunday.

The coach is Margie Haber, a world-renowned acting coach based in Los Angeles, who also teaches two times a year at a studio in Atlanta. Harding spent her summer attending acting classes in California preparing for her future. Her present role is as lead actress in the Dream’s big play.

“I’m hoping I’m that piece,” she said. “I feel like I can be.”

Much like an actor targeting a role, Harding targeted the Dream as the team she wanted to play for and pushed for a trade from Washington.

“The system and the play reminds me of Duke and my college days,” she said. “I felt like I could fit into that system and try to have a chance to play my best basketball.”

It was an easy decision for Meadors, the Dream’s general manager and coach. She said her team was played four-on-five on offense last season because of the lack of shooting, not just scoring, from her point guards.

It got so bad that she eventually shifted shooting guard Coco Miller to the point in the season’s most-important time, the playoffs, despite the fact she hadn’t played the position much during the season. The Dream played well, but were swept by Seattle in the best-of-five WNBA championship series. Meadors immediately went to work trying to fix her scoring void at the point.

Months later, she got her woman on draft day. Harding will make opponents respect her scoring – she’s averaged 11 points per game in her four-year professional career.

“People have to guard her,” Meadors said.

Harding has always been a scorer. She is one of a handful of players in ACC history to have 1,000 points, 500 assists, 500 rebounds and 250 steals.

She has always wanted to be a performer, as well. She grew up loving movies — “Sound of Music” is her favorite — and began taking acting classes at Duke. She said she took to it and minored in theater studies while majoring in sociology.

She has never tried out for a major part. Because of basketball, she has never had time for other pursuits.

That’s why she carried out her plan to enroll in the offseason in different acting studios run by the Lee Strasberg school and by Haber.

Though Haber isn’t an athlete, she is a sports fan. She said Harding’s ability to focus while trodding the boards is what she thinks makes her so good while running the floor. Harding agrees ... to a point. They both require concentration, but one involves closing yourself off while the other involves opening yourself up.

“You can have problems and things going on in your life, but you have to let it go and focus on what you are doing,” she said. “In acting, it’s more of revealing your feelings and letting it go.”

Haber, who coached Colin Egglesfield, one of the stars in “Something Borrowed,” said Harding brought a relaxed intensity to her studio. She said she can see Harding acting in dramas, being a cop with a good heart. Befitting her favorite movie, Harding said she would love to be in a musical, though she laughs when she says there’s a difference between singing and being able to sing. She puts herself in the first category.

On the court, she says she looks up to Hornets guard Chris Paul. Off the court, she says she doesn’t know enough about acting to compare herself to anyone, though she does admire Meryl Streep, Jodie Foster and Halle Berry, another of Haber’s former students.

“What impresses me about Lindsey is she’s natural,” said Haber, who has also coached Vince Vaughn. “She’s connected. She’s not afraid to connect and let the other person in. She’s simple. She doesn’t try to push when she acts. I was impressed with how she was able to grow during the past few months that we worked together into someone who I think will be a working actor.”