Dream point guard takes step toward stardom

Clarendon winds up establishing herself as elite performer.

During the WNBA offseason, Atlanta Dream point guard Layshia Clarendon was reading a Sports Illustrated article about the U.S. women’s basketball team that won the gold medal at the 2016 Olympics. She came across a passage about the star point guards on that team Sue Bird and Lindsay —

Whalen that surprised her. — “About halfway through, the article said there’s no elite guards coming after Sue Bird and Whalen,” she said. It actually referred to there being few in the pipeline, but Clarendon took it personally.

“What do you mean?” she said. “I’m the next Sue, I’m coming up! Do people not see that?”

The reality is, few people saw that before this season, which has been a triumphant one for Clarendon, 26. She has spent parts of three seasons floating in and out of the rotation for the Indiana Fever before a trade sent her to the Dream in 2016. She has not been invited to a USA Basketball camp.

While Clarendon had established herself as a starter for the Dream last season, this year she has led the WNBA in assists and

assist percentage and earned a berth in the All-Star Game, where she put up 14 points and 10 assists in nearly 18 minutes.

In her first game after the All-Star break, Clarendon nearly became the sixth WNBA player to record a triple-double in a regular-season game, with 15 points, nine assists and 10 rebounds against the Phoenix Mercury. (Clarendon was ini

tially credited with 11 assists, but two were taken away the next day.)

When evaluating the next great American point guard, the question now is: Why not Clarendon?

It has been a remarkable leap forward for someone who had not played the primary point guard position in the pros until recently. At California, which reached the Final Four her senior season in 2013, Clarendon shared dis

tribution duties with Brittany Boyd, now of the Liberty.

“One of the reasons we were so good that year was that we essentially had two point guards on the floor at all times,” Bears coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. “Layshia was technically our two guard, but had the green light to handle the ball and push in transition whenever she wanted. I think it made her a better player because she had to think like a point guard, but also play with the mentality of a go-to scorer.” Still, that mixed role made

the transition to the professional ranks difficult. Stuck behind point guard Briann January in Indiana, Clarendon found herself battling for time off the ball in an offense that was slower-paced than she was used to in college.

Clarendon is built more like a point guard than the lankier twos that populate the league, and she has struggled to add muscle to her frame. The Fever seemed to view her as a rotation player at most, and sent her to Atlanta for a second-round pick.

Her new coach, Michael Cooper, thought Clarendon could be something more. He started her in 32 of 34 games last season, when she split time as primary ballhandler with Carla Cortijo and Angel McCoughtry, the Dream star who took up a significant portion of the team’s offensive sets in a point forward role.

“I think her point guard ability and her basketball IQ put her on another level, because she’s a big guard, a physical guard,” Cooper said. “And the uniqueness we have with her is, she’s able to take that shot up above the free throw line and make it. But now she’s proven she’s a very good assist person for us.”

Now, with McCoughtry taking the season off, Clarendon’s assist percentage is 39 percent. That ranked best in the league entering the second half of the year, just ahead of, yes, Bird.

“When I go against Sue, I’m trying to crush her now,” Clarendon said of her childhood idol. “Because my first years in Indiana, it was tough, being a bench player, not knowing what your role is. But now, I know what my role is in this league.”