2 Burst results for "Kayla Thornton"
The Her Hoop Stats Podcast
"kayla thornton" Discussed on The Her Hoop Stats Podcast
"It's in the margins. My first thought went to defense on the perimeter. When you've got Sabrina and Courtney van der sloot, they're not going to a lot of opponents are not going to look at that and be scared on that end of the court, right? And you've got behind them, though, you've got Briana Stewart, you've got JJ, so your next thought is, okay, if they get beat on the perimeter, I have two all W defenders that are capable of stepping up. But you can have some imbalance there if you're constantly pulling one or both of them away from the rim to help. If you're putting them at the switching actions, that's where I think, though, the addition of halo Thornton comes in where. But angelini, because B has been forgotten by so many people in this off season. And I think it's recency bias as some of it, right? Because she was injured for a lot of last year. And I don't think people always kind of watch her defensive game as much as they watch her offensive. And but her strength and her switchability, having her and Kayla as these wing defenders because they did lose Beck Allen in all of these moves this off season. It allows you to put them on to whomever you need to on a given. On a given night, if a rique is cooking, switch B over there, you can hide Sabrina. You can hide slew a little bit. Kelsey Mitchell's generating a lot of fevers offense, then you bring Kayla Thornton into the game. And I think that those options says something that sandy brondello showed that she was very willing to do last year was to kind of make some of those adjustments on the fly to she didn't do those like hockey substitutions where there was 5 in 5 out. So if you've got one of JJ or stewie, always at your back line and then you can mix and match a little bit based on what's happening in that game. They've got depth to do that and that depth is sometimes players that don't need the ball in their hands quite so much. Han was very efficient last year. KT is a very efficient player. Didi is going to be coming off of the bench and hopefully we're finally getting a healthy season out of her. But she's someone else who doesn't need the ball in her hands to make a difference. She's a very, very strong cutter. She makes a lot of smart decisions. And she's not, she's putting most of her energy onto the defensive end. So they've got some players and then we could talk about if marine Johannes gets here and then what that brings because then it's this beautiful free flowing offense. I think a lot of their weaknesses can be covered up because they've got this talent that can score with anybody. But I think that for me and I know there's going to be a little bit of bias here. That's kind of where that separation comes in for me because yes, the aces have made some moves, but the liberty and we don't know their final roster construction yet. There's still probably another move to be made. But right now, we're looking at the starting 5 with 5 all stars, and then behind them, you've got potentially honshu at the 5, Steph Olsen at the fore, Kayla Thornton at the three DD at the two epiphany prints at the one until marine comes over, and then you've got another roster spot where it's Jocelyn Willoughby. And seek a kone all coming into camp to maybe fight for one more spot. That's a roster that's 11 deep. And that's a roster that can that second team can hang with almost every team in this league. So it's not just a top heavy roster. That's scary. I mean, you kind of just hit on it already, but when Daniel brought up the aces bench last year, that's something I always think about is like everyone talks about like have we seen super teams they're not like we have seen super teams before. The aces were a super team, but the ace is starting lineup wasn't super teeth. Their bench was not at all. And I guess I'm interested in your thoughts, how much because we look at the aces last year, like all the starters, you know, when they were healthy, we're playing 30 three minutes a game or whatever it was, which they should have been because that's how they had to win games, but how much do you see sandy using the bench this year compared to maybe what the aces did last year or just any other team really? Any other super team that we've seen? I think if they hit the season with healthy bodies, which last year the liberty and a lot of teams, really. But the liberty, especially that first month of the season looking back, there was a point where they had to cancel a preseason game because they only had 5 players. It took them a while to gel and with a new coaching staff that made it kind of hard to find those rotations to work people in people coming over late and all of that this year, even if you have marine come over late, she's been there already, right? Even if you have a player that's in or out of the lineup, likely they've been there already, even the players that are coming into the system now have played with other people. And I think that's part of bringing in people that are all stars is that they've been on these Olympic teams together or playing overseas with one another. I don't know how deep you can go with this rotation because you can go ten deep. You really can. I just don't know if it's super smart. But if you want this lineup to be, if you want this lineup, this first 5 to be ready to go at playoff time. Any given night, this team will be favored, right? Outside of those four games against the aces. So a deeper rotation makes sense, especially we're seeing a 40 game season this year. So it's still compressed, but they're going to need to make sure that everybody is healthy, come fall when they really need everyone. Scary. I mean, I know Calvin and I know all about speak of cone. We've done a lot of money. Oh yeah. Molly for the win. She's fantastic. And she's also playing really well right now overseas. So I think she's averaging something like 17 and 14. It's something silly. I mean, I can't wait. I mean, I feel like you were probably at practice a lot. I feel like practice is going to be kind of must see here in New York. Before we jump into the super team across the country, I want to ask Calvin because I mean, I've been thinking about pulling the trigger here and there on some futures in the WNBA. I mean, from what you've seen, Cal where do you think there's value in who is being underlooked? As far as contenders go in the league, I mean, I know everyone's being underlooked, but who do you think we should be giving some glances at? You mean outside of the aces and liberty? Yeah. And if it's nobody then, all right, I'll save some money. Well, like the correct answer is nobody, but that's boring. So I'll give you an answer just for our listeners. I think the mystics, if you had to choose someone, the mystics are probably the only team that I could see hanging with the liberty in the aces for anything more than a random hot shooting night, you know, a three game series or 5 game series. They're not going to win one, but I could see the mystics picking up a game against either of those teams in a 5 game series. And the thing about the mystics is they're going to be so good. They might be better defensively than either of those two teams with at least with their best defensive unit on the court. I don't know if there'll be as deep defensively, but what they've added like they brought in Brittany Sykes. They already had the best defense in the league last year. If you catch a team on a cold shooting night and you're locking them down with Shakira Austin on the back line, anytime you do get beat off the dribble, which is never going to happen
The Her Hoop Stats Podcast
"kayla thornton" Discussed on The Her Hoop Stats Podcast
"Back with another episode of dice it up or her hoop stats podcast. Ice is not with me today. She's off in Australia. It's game day for her, so good luck. We're recording this on February 13th. Day before Valentine's Day, so I brought in my love, Calvin wetzel, to co host with me. My guy from spread the floor. And we have an awesome set of guests a couple of guys from Brooklyn who started a podcast, could be talking about anybody if you're listening right now, but miles are like Owen Pence from wind cider to guys who Calvin and I probably talked to you mostly every day about women's college basketball and WNBA, both on the liberty bee constantly. I know Owen kind of floats everywhere as well. But guys, thanks for coming on and congrats on starting your own podcast. That's called the pull up correct. Yeah, pull up with miles and Owen. We are part of the wind insider podcast network. Owen and I, first of all, thanks for having us. Great to see your face because normally I'm just texting you all day. But yeah, Owen and I started this podcast. We've been at Windsor for a couple of years now. Him a year longer than me, I think. And this has been kind of a while coming. We've been talking about it, floating it for a while, but it feels great to have it out there, our first official episode dropped last week with Caleb Thornton, one of the newest players on the liberty. And yeah, we're going to get into all of their moves. But it's been a really cool and fulfilling experience. We've got some big stuff planned. You know, it's all right. Like, I don't know. It's just whatever, I guess. No, it's great. Thank you for having us on super fun talking hoops. Love it. Love that. Yeah, listen to Caleb Thornton episode, loved it. We'll throw a link to that description. This episode, and it's funny. It's like, oh, one of the newest members of the liberty, you forget how many new people are on this team. Kind of the topic of conversation with all WNBA circles. They're probably took over Twitter for a couple of days, along with the aces, but let's jump in there. I mean, we're going to be seeing one of the greatest teams. Maybe assembled ever. Firsthand, so we are going to be at Barclays firsthand. Well, three of us at least because we are New Yorkers. Give us a recap real quickly about what the liberty have done for those who are listening and don't know about this new look super team that Jonathan Cole was put together. Yeah. They have had maybe the best off season of any team in WNBA history. And I think that because of the fact that it's a hard salary cap sport, you could even make the argument based on the constraints that the WNBA has. This could be the most impressive off season that we've seen. And I know that sounds like hyperbole. But when you look at it, it's a team that's going from the fringe of postseason contention to co favorite with defending champs. And coming into the off season, I don't think the liberty were one piece away. There were all the rumors about they would add breanna Stewart. But Brianna Stewart, I think just adding her would have elevated them from a 7 or an 8 seed to a top four. But then they added not just terror former MVP, but they also brought in John Paul Jones, the 2021 MVP. They brought in Courtney van der sloot, who is always at the top of the assist per game numbers. They brought in Kayla Thornton, who we've talked about, who's going to be a really big piece. And the pieces that they sent out were big parts of the team, but this is still just I'm watching you smile, Dana, because these are just, we're going to see 5 all stars taking the court on a daily night. And on paper, obviously we don't know how it's all going to work out. But it just looks fantastic from where they are to where they're going to be come opening night. Let's see, I remember a year ago after a game, having a beer, epic man's with miles and Owen talking about, you know, like, what is the real potential of this team? And you'll floated the idea of stewie coming here for this 2023 season. And it always seemed like a pipe dream, but you know, like you said, you make that move, that's great, but to get all the pieces they did, you know, obviously involved Courtney taking less money, bringing a steward taking less money, this roster stacked. I don't want to say top to bottom because every team has weaknesses. We've seen that with the Vegas aces last year. They probably had that bench issue, but as you see the liberty now and it's hard to say because they haven't played as a complete roster together. We're not even close to camp yet, but what do you see might be some weaknesses from this New York liberty team? I'm going to take this one. I'll keep on answering all the liberty questions. I'm happy to. I'd love for you to take this one because this is like when you're taking the test in high school and you have to argue with the answer. I mean, I mean, everyone's talking about them being like the absolute lock of a favorite. I mean, shout out to everybody on this podcast right now. I think we all have some big liberty tickets at plus 7 50 or higher. I think they're now down to plus one 60, one 35 to win it all. It's crazy. So, I mean, with that, you expect a team to be like almost perfect if you're almost even favorite to win the entire league. Yeah, I think that's the thing. When you look at it, everything sounds like it should make sense because they have talent at every position.