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Mechelle VoepelESPN.com
CHICAGO — Courtney Vandersloot remembers wondering during her second WNBA season if there would be a third. Then 23 and coming off a solid-enough rookie year after being drafted No. 3 overall in 2011, her numbers improved in 2012 — but her confidence didn’t.
“I really struggled that year mentally with even believing I was good enough to be in this league and if I was going to last,” Vandersloot said. “I thought maybe the first year was beginner’s luck. Like, ‘You don’t have the excuse of being a rookie anymore, and they’re going to expose you.'”
It didn’t happen. Instead, she has become one of the WNBA’s premier point guards and has led the league in assists for five consecutive seasons. And Vandersloot has directed the Chicago Sky within one victory of winning the franchise’s first WNBA title entering Sunday’s Game 4 (3 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN App) of the 2021 WNBA Finals.
The Phoenix Mercury’s Diana Taurasi was asked where Vandersloot ranks in her ability to run a team.
“She’s as good as anyone, right?” Taurasi said.
Vandersloot has a WNBA postseason-record 87 assists this year. On Friday, she notched her 10th playoff game with at least 10 assists, passing the Seattle Storm’s Sue Bird for the league record. Vandersloot, who holds the WNBA record for most assists in a game with 18, is averaging 13.3 points and 9.7 assists in this postseason.
Only Bird, Ticha Penicheiro and Lindsay Whalen have more assists in WNBA history than Vandersloot’s 2,178.
She has done it as a 5-foot-8 grinder who says she always tries to be a step ahead on offense and defense because, “I have to be. I’m not going to be able to out-race anybody or out-physical anybody. I have to think my way through things.”
Though her Mercury trail the Sky 2-1 in the Finals, Taurasi…
Source : espn
