Effectively earlier than followers stream into Crypto.com Enviornment for the Sparks’ rematch in opposition to the Phoenix Mercury, Sarah Ashlee Barker is on the courtroom two and a half hours early. The primary out of the tunnel, as she’s been all season, she fires off bounce photographs with a stone-faced expression.
Thrown unexpectedly right into a beginning function as a rookie, Barker’s rise within the WNBA has outpaced even her personal expectations. Amid a season riddled with accidents, the Sparks have leaned on their first-round choose.
On this present day, Barker was making an attempt to regulate to a brand new function coming off the bench after forcing some performs that hindered the staff’s success.
Life for a rookie within the WNBA calls for adaptability.
An unusual sight throughout the league, the Sparks stored all three of their latest draft picks on the roster. They’re former faculty standouts who earned convention honors, with one profitable a nationwide championship. However they face far larger physicality, velocity and total grit within the WNBA.
Sparks guard Sarah Ashlee Barker, proper, drives to the basket in opposition to Golden State Valkyries guard Julie Vanloo on Might 6.
(Jeff Chiu / Related Press)
For Barker, the bounce to the WNBA has been grueling. In a short while, she’s confronted a few of the league’s high gamers — Chelsea Grey, Nneka Ogwumike, Rhyne Howard. At occasions, she’s held her personal. However there are additionally moments when she’s regarded each bit like a rookie.
When Sparks coach Lynne Roberts first instructed Barker she’d be beginning, the message was quick and direct: “Hey kiddo, you’re going to be starting. I believe in you. I have confidence in you. I trust you.”
“Those matchups are tough,” Roberts acknowledged. “That’s throwing a rookie in the deep end, but I do think she was ready for it.”
Barker was quickly shifted to the bench to “take some pressure off,” but it surely didn’t final lengthy. The injury-plagued Sparks wanted her to start out once more.
Again within the beginning lineup, she delivered her finest stat line of the season: 12 factors and 7 rebounds in 34 minutes throughout a loss to the Seattle Storm on Tuesday.
She continues to bounce out and in of the beginning lineup, relying on the staff’s wants. Barker credit veterans on the staff, particularly from Kelsey Plum, for serving to her adapt.
“She’s been a leader to me pretty much since I got to L.A.,” Barker mentioned. “She has so much experience, so I listen to everything she says.”
When Barker arrived in L.A., she joined Plum’s intense exercises — a problem that left her breathless however decided, Roberts mentioned. At apply, Plum takes a hands-on strategy, guiding Barker by means of defensive shifts and assignments.
Off the courtroom, Plum’s is simply as concerned. In a now-viral clip, Plum revealed Barker had performed by means of coaching camp carrying an “old” pair of Sabrina Ionescu’s signature sneakers — “a disaster,” Plum joked. That led Plum to contact Ionescu, who despatched Barker six new pairs.
“She’s always telling me just to have fun too with the game,” Barker mentioned. “But being able to have that presence and being able to teach me in any way, it does mean a lot.”
A lower-profile journey 
Sania Feagin, proper, poses for a photograph with WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert after being chosen twenty first total by the Sparks within the WNBA draft in April.
(Pamela Smith / Related Press)
Sparks second-round choose Sania Feagin has seen little sport motion. For Feagin, this isn’t uncharted territory.
Regardless of being the nation’s No. 1 highschool ahead and a five-star recruit, she needed to wait her flip as a freshman at South Carolina behind a few of the nation’s high expertise, together with Aliyah Boston, Laeticia Amihere and Victaria Saxton.
Going through a logjam of expertise, very like her present scenario with the Sparks, Feagin didn’t begin till her junior yr and didn’t turn out to be an everyday within the Gamecocks’ rotation till her senior season. Simply as she did in faculty, Feagin is utilizing time on the sideline to watch, study and put together — understanding that when her title is named, she doesn’t need to squander the minutes she will get.
“I knew it was going to be different,” Feagin mentioned of her rookie yr. “But since I am in the same boat, I can’t do nothing but to learn to trust the process.”
Feagin has solely spoken as soon as with Roberts about incomes extra minutes. Roberts inspired her to continue to learn and guaranteed her that issues would finally fall into place. She has repeatedly mentioned Feagin is working her means into the rotation and believes she’ll be a starter within the league at some point.
For now, Roberts is aware of Feagin is itching to play, which makes protecting her engaged and motivated throughout this ready interval a fragile balancing act.
“You don’t want them to be OK with not playing,” Roberts mentioned. “They have to understand that they don’t control when I put them in, but when you do get put in, you control how ready you are. … Those are the conversations we’ve had with her. And of course, she wants to play. … She’s staying ready.”
Simply earlier than coaching camp cuts, common supervisor Raegan Pebley and Roberts instructed Feagin she had made the staff — and made certain she understood how uncommon that was for a second-round choose.
Attempting to remain on roster 
Sparks guard Liatu King shoots over Minnesota’s Maria Kliundikova throughout a sport on June 14.
(Matt Krohn / Getty Pictures)
The chances of touchdown a roster spot are stacked closely in opposition to a third-round choose. Certainly one of simply three at present on a WNBA lively roster, ahead Liatu King’s rookie season has been nothing wanting a whirlwind.
The previous Pitt and Notre Dame star was chosen by Sparks with their closing draft choose and spent the following month battling for a roster spot throughout coaching camp. When closing cuts have been revealed, King discovered herself on the surface trying in — waived and boarding a flight again to South Bend, Ind.
For a lot of, getting reduce is a troublesome capsule to swallow. However King selected to not dwell on the frustration. As an alternative, she returned to Notre Dame and received again within the fitness center with coach Carlos Knox.
Pebley and Roberts gave King particular areas to work on — suggestions she took significantly. And Pebley instructed her to remain by the cellphone.
“She said this league is so crazy, anything can happen,” King mentioned of Pebley. “She was true to that. People get hurt. People have to go places. The unknown is always happening.”
King’s cellphone rang per week and a half later. The Sparks have been already down a key contributor after Rae Burrell injured her knee within the season opener. Then Rickea Jackson suffered a concussion within the subsequent sport and entered protocol, leaving the staff in pressing want of reinforcements.
The primary name went to King, who signed a rest-of-season hardship waiver contract. The turnaround from waived to function participant got here even sooner than from draftee to chop.
“It’s been surreal, to be honest, and I didn’t know it would happen that quickly,” King mentioned of her Sparks debut, when she performed 13 minutes. “I Ubered to Chicago [from South Bend, Ind.]. Then I flew from Chicago to LAX, and then the same day, we [flew] … to Phoenix to play the Mercury the next day. I was literally in three different time zones.”
Unfazed, King mentioned Roberts instructed her she’d be taking part in on the three-spot rather than Jackson and Burrell. Her fast insertion into the rotation, she says, “is just a testament to always being ready, always keeping close connections.”
An unclear future
Roster strikes within the WNBA include a heavy dose of uncertainty — and for rookies, that volatility is even sharper. With the WNBA All-Star break lower than a month away, almost half of this yr’s rookie class (42%) have already been launched from groups throughout the league. Of these, some have been initially reduce and re-signed, like King, or have been picked up by different groups.
Now, King is among the 22 rookies nonetheless lively on a WNBA roster and at present within the rotation. However her future stays in limbo. With solely 12 coveted roster spots and several other sidelined gamers anticipated to return, the Sparks’ entrance workplace will quickly must determine which hardship signees will probably be dismissed.
Julie Allemand is predicted again from EuroBasket in late June. It’s unclear when Odyssey Sims, out for private causes, will return. Cameron Brink, who suffered a torn ACL final season, had focused a return across the all-star break. The most important issue affecting King’s spot is Burrell’s potential return. She was injured Might 17 and anticipated to overlook six to eight weeks, making her comeback attainable between late June and mid-July.
King has performed sufficient to earn reward from teammates and coaches, with Roberts saying “she has earned my trust, because I know when she goes out there, she will give me everything she has.”
The following few months will function a long-term tryout for King to show her value, not simply to the Sparks, however to groups across the league.
Like King, teammate Emma Cannon confronted comparable challenges almost a decade earlier. Undrafted out of Florida Southern, she spent six years bouncing round abroad — in Australia, Germany and Russia — earlier than lastly making her WNBA debut at 28 with the Phoenix Mercury.
“It’s super hard, especially when at that time, it was only 144 spots and you’re trying to get one,” Cannon mentioned, noting the league’s notoriously restricted roster spots.
With King particularly, Cannon sees a mirrored image of her personal journey, having been waived and signed to hardship contracts a number of occasions all through her profession. When King was let go, Cannon was one of many first to achieve out.
“I’ve been in Liatu’s shoes before,” Cannon mentioned. “I wanted her to know that just because one door closed, doesn’t mean that another one won’t open. I told her to make sure that she stays confident in what her abilities are, that she continues to work hard. … Look, we called her right back.”
Cannon pertains to every of the rookies, having walked their paths at totally different factors in her profession. She began on the backside, coming off the bench with restricted minutes, averaging simply 13 per sport as a rookie.
“Just that first year, it was super nerve-wracking, I’m not gonna lie,” Cannon mentioned. “You finally get to where you wanted, and it’s here — and you just want to make sure you do everything in your power to stay.”
Cannon acknowledges the each day grind and small victories which might be protecting the trio on the roster. She sees Barker embracing an sudden beginning function, Feagin staying prepared and benefiting from restricted minutes and King clawing her means again from being waived to logging significant time.
Solely three rookies — Paige Bueckers, Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen — have extra begins than Barker this season.
Barker admits the begin to her professional basketball profession has “definitely been a lot,” however says she’s discovered methods to stayed grounded.
“I’ve learned to be where your feet are, be exactly where you are in the moment,” Barker mentioned. “That’s the mindset I need to be in, because if you make it just about basketball 24/7, it will kind of overtake you.”
