Sitting in the parking lot of Austell’s Riverside EPICenter, where his team practices, Dream coach Michael Cooper said there are two reasons why the WNBA squad is 5-1 and atop the Eastern Conference after finishing fifth and missing the playoffs last year.
The first is an upgrade at center and at point guard, which will be detailed in a story that will post on ajc.com on Thursday and is scheduled to appear in Friday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The second reason given by Cooper was chemistry. Leading scorer Angel McCoughtry referred to it as positivity after Sunday's win over Chicago.
“Players want to be here, they like it here, they understand each other a lot more,” Cooper said.
He didn’t say that those players who were no longer with the team were unhappy while in Atlanta, but that is the implication.
Players who have been with the team that were traded or not re-signed include centers Erika de Souza and Aneika Henry, as well as guard Shoni Schimmel.
Of the three, Schimmel implied she may have been unhappy, saying just before she was traded to New York that spending six months away from her family to be in Atlanta was too long.
De Souza was traded to Chicago last year because her effectiveness had decreased markedly during the 2015 season. She is starting for the Sky and averaging 6.7 points and 5.8 rebounds per game this season.
Henry signed with Connecticut and is averaging 0.8 points and 1.6 rebounds in five minutes per game this season.
Cooper went on to elaborate on his thoughts about chemistry saying that because the core group of players had been together for years change was needed to shake up the team.
“… It’s like a family and you all grow up, you know what everybody’s going to do every morning,” he said. “We needed some new blood to go with our veterans. Needed new kids around them to give them some extra energy so that things didn’t become monotonous.”
Back in the Riverside EPICenter, two of the Dream’s new players, center Elizabeth Williams and point guard Layshia Clarendon, said they’ve noticed how much the players enjoy being with each other.
“It’s a nice mixture of young and old with vets like Sancho (Lyttle), Angel and Tiff (Hayes) that have been around, and bringing in new players,” Williams said. “It makes for a nice little combination.”
It’s hard to quantify chemistry on a team, but Clarendon pointed out the team’s performances in its two overtime games.
Overtime can be a good illustration of how well a team plays together but time is short, pressure is high and players must execute in order to succeed.
The Dream are 2-0 in overtime this season, outscoring San Antonio and New York 20-4 in the extra periods.
“We’ve built trust with each other already and those are the moments where we have to trust each other,” Clarendon said.
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