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LAS VEGAS — Tina Charles didn’t hesitate. Asked if a WNBA championship feels like a “must-have” or a really nice addition to an already Hall of Fame-worthy career, the Seattle Storm center’s answer was immediate.
“I think it would be icing on the cake,” she said.
Charles was sitting in a mostly quiet Michelob Ultra Arena the day before Game 1 of the WNBA semifinals against the Las Vegas Aces. Charles turns 34 in December, but she looks ageless on the court. She was a key part of two undefeated national championship teams at UConn in 2009 and 2010, is a three-time Olympic gold medalist and the 2012 WNBA MVP. Just last season, while with the Washington Mystics, she led the WNBA in scoring at 23.4 PPG.
Of course she wants to win a WNBA title. But it’s not going to make or break the way she feels about herself or her career. She said it’s not why she left the Phoenix Mercury in June and then signed with Seattle. And that’s the part of her story she believes the media, ESPN included, got wrong.
“To me, success was about making the decision to come here,” Charles said. “It said a lot about me as a woman, more even than me as a player, in terms of what I am going to stand for. If a championship doesn’t happen, it doesn’t take away anything from the player I became, or what I’ve learned, or the experiences.”
Charles came up huge in the series opener Sunday, getting a franchise playoff-record 18 rebounds, along with 13 points, as the No. 4 seed Storm beat the top-seeded Aces 76-73. Her contract divorce from Phoenix, the team she joined as a free agent in February, is two months in the rearview mirror, and she doesn’t really want to re-hash it now. Her mind is focused on the Storm.
What she will say about leaving Phoenix is that it wasn’t about needing to get…
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Source : espn
