LOS ANGELES — In her sixth season, Sparks guard Lexie Brown has become a game-changer.
“Obviously, a bona fide WNBA shooter, so she naturally spaces the floor,” said Sparks head coach Curt Miller, who has consistently spoken highly of Brown for years, after drafting her in the first round of the 2018 WNBA draft when he was the Connecticut Sun’s general manager and head coach.
Brown, 28, won the 2021 WNBA championship with the Chicago Sky as a backup guard, playing just 9.5 minutes per game. This season, Brown has emerged as a starter in Los Angeles, averaging 31.9 minutes per game.
The Sparks are 5-4 with Brown in the starting lineup and averaging 82.1 points per game.
However, the Sparks have lost their last three games without the 5-foot-9 guard, who has been out with a non-COVID illness, and are averaging only 69 points per game.
That’s a 13-point difference when Brown does not suit up. Coincidentally, Brown is averaging a career-high 13.3 points per game and is one of the team’s best scoring options. She is also one of the team’s premier outside threats, shooting 42% from 3-point range this season.
“We ran tons of actions,” Miller continued. “We had Nneka and Lexie in two-man game actions all the time in different ways. It gives us a weapon back. It gives someone who can go make a play but even just her presence on the floor loosens things up for everybody else.”
Brown might be back for Friday’s game against Dallas (6-6) at Crypto.com Arena, which will mark the return of Wings head coach Latricia Trammell, who was an assistant coach with the Sparks the past four seasons.
Nneka Ogwumike, the Sparks’ leading scorer at 19.6 points per game, said she feels Brown’s absence.
“What Lexie offers to our team makes the court feel bigger and so without her, it shrinks the court,” Ogwumike said. “It makes it difficult for us to move and play in space and then of course having a look at two-player action with a player like Lexie,…
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