Aces rookie star Wilson learns tough lesson in home loss
The reaction was late on the floor and swift on the bench, Bill Laimbeer springing from his seat in anger as his star player sleepwalked through another defensive possession.
It’s important, they say, to heed the lessons of failure.
A’ja Wilson won’t soon forget this glaring example.
The winning streak that reached four games for the Aces was snapped in sound fashion Sunday, when Las Vegas and its rookie standout weren’t near mentally tough enough in falling to Los Angeles 99-78 before an announced gathering of 4,810 at Mandalay Bay Events Center.
It happens to the best, which Wilson has proven herself thus far over an inaugural WNBA season, one of those days when for whatever reason, you disengage and become a hindrance at both ends.
When you’re better off on the bench, where Wilson spent much of the second half of a 15-point, eight-rebound effort that saw her make just 6-of-20 shots.
“We had people coming in and playing great minutes,” she said. “I didn’t want to go in and make it worse.”
She missed a few shots early and was never really focused on much of anything thereafter, or perhaps you missed those Sparks blowing past Wilson off the dribble for uncontested layups.
Her coach sure didn’t.
“Learning experience?” Laimbeer said. “For A’ja, hopefully. I made it pretty clear to her and the team that she can’t put her head down like that. For our undisputed leader, that can’t happen. How she deals with it, we’re going to find out. But we all saw it.
“A’ja has to learn and understand how important she is to our franchise and team and be held accountable. It can’t happen in professional basketball. I told her that I would tell the (media) the same thing. Too bad. This is a tremendously accelerated learning curve for her and I’m expecting her to learn in a year what others learn in three to four years. Too bad.”
It’s not bound to occur. It just does.
But great players also handle and respond to adversity. They don’t allow it to affect them negatively. So it goes that the most important game in Wilson’s continued maturation — this, a player who has averaged 20.1 points, 8.8 rebounds and 1.8 blocks — will come at Phoenix on Thursday.
The Aces were able to compete for three quarters Sunday not playing the best basketball, certainly not at the defensive end, and all it took was an 11-3 run by the Sparks to begin the fourth and, well, goodbye win streak.
Wilson during that spurt was called for a clear-path foul, scored inside, was whistled for a charge and didn’t see the floor again.
She was here, and yet she wasn’t.
Parker dominates
Her tutorial was, for the most part, dispensed by Sparks star Candace Parker, still at 32 one of the world’s best players who toyed and chuckled her way to 34 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists.
Parker is still so, so good.
“I’ll take full blame,” Wilson said. “I can’t afford to do that. I get inside my own head. I have to let it go, as hard as that might be. But I would rather have a coach (like Laimbeer) not sugarcoat things than continuing to pat me on the back.”
Um, yeah. I’m pretty sure she was void of much praise from him Sunday.
Players get better under Laimbeer. Those teams he coaches traditionally improve over the course of a season more times than not. It’s happening here in Las Vegas.
He coaches them hard because that’s how he played, because that’s what he knows, because he has the championship pedigree on which to prove it.
Because when you put your head down and sulk and allow a player to drive past you off the dribble for an uncontested layup not for lack of technique on your part, but instead effort, look out.
Here comes Hurricane Bill.
“There are very, very few rookies who can just go out and dominate games,” Laimbeer said. “There is always a learning curve for many of them, and they’re normally on bad teams. I’m asking for the moon from (Wilson) and I’m going to demand the moon from her.
“But while I may be saying disparaging remarks about her right now, she’s one hell of a player. She’s damned near the best in this league. It’s just that I want more, and I won’t let this happen at any game, any minute of any time.
“Make no mistake, I love A’ja Wilson. We need her.”
Just far more engaged than she was Sunday.
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Contact columnist Ed Graney at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on Twitter.
