Barbie and Killa Cam.
Imagine that.
It seemed like a dream straight out of the pink proud Cam’ron’s sports podcast with Mase.
Sure, the Sparks were never going to get in on the Caitlin Clark sweepstakes, even by swinging a trade. But they got the next big thing (literally), with the second pick in the 2024 WNBA draft. Selecting big, poster-child of the W’s next generation, Cameron Diaz lookalike, Cameron Brink.
Armed also with the fourth pick in this draft gone, the Sparks looked like they were about to turn the LSU’s purple and gold of Angel Reese into LA colours. But Barbie ended up falling to the Sky with the seventh pick. Some were disappointed, like when the Barbie mega movie failed to hit at the Oscars.
It is what it is.
Angel and Chicago are raining hell down from the heavens to anyone who passed on, or doubted them. Now, we don’t want to start a rivalry fiercer than the one with Caitlin, but the Sparks had rhyme to their reason of selecting someone else. And besides, they already had a big.
Going forth with Rickea Jackson just made so much more sense.
Especially after last week.
Nneka Ogwumike is already down in Sparks history, like Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker, as one of the best to ever do it. Not just for the franchise, or the league, but the purple and gold Los Angeles times of hardwood history as a whole.
Now she has left for Stormier skies, that future belongs to Brink…and Jackson.
Rebuilding around All-star Dearica Hamby, who is having an MVP year, and also replacing Cameron in the Paris Olympic 3×3 games, the Sparks have so much fuse. Curt Miller’s team just need time.
There’s Canadian, Kia Nurse. China’s Li Yueru. Sophomore star Zia Cooke. Team talents like Rae Burrell, Layshia Clarendon, Azurá Stevens and Steph Talbot that can step it up at any given minute. The rise and big play of microwave player Aari McDonald. And the star potential of Lexie Brown when she returns from her battle with Crohn’s disease (wishing her well).
The roster is Pringles stacked, with all the flavours, like Crystal Dangerfield and some recent hardship help. Pick your poison before you pop. The Sparks have it all…and they can’t stop. They’re just deciding if their identity runs with Hamby, Cam, or both.
Or maybe even one more, as Rickea Jackson is also H.E.R like the common link of hip-hop. Ready to write her story.
The Tennessee and Mississippi State star knows how to ball and bucket. As clutch as they come. When injury halted the Brinks truck recently, the “other” rook stepped up. The former Michigan Gatorade Player of the Year is not just drinking it from the sidelines.
She’s averaging a nice line of 11.2 points, 3.8 rebounds and 1.2 assists a game for the regular season, that’s only going to mount up like regulators.
Before the Olympic break, that will take the best sports men and women of the world to Paris, France, the Sparks clipped Dallas’ wings. Rookie Rickea recorded a new career-high with 23 points off a nice 8-for-14 from the field. All as she nursed four fouls. Still shooting like shooters do, when she could have just as easily deferred to the likes of Kia and Dearica on the perimeter.
Which is of course something Jackson does, as she unselfishly gets everyone involved in the action. Yet Rickea, even at the first-year level, is not afraid to take the ball and the game into her own hands when called for.
That’s the kind of attitude that makes you a winner in the game.
The struggling Sparks may not make the playoffs this year, but they’re not rebuilding with Duplo blocks either.
This may be Hollywood, but Los Angeles aren’t playing with plastic dolls. And that’s no Angel diss, it’s Barbie’s world now, too. Yet, the City of Angels has not one, but two new picks, they can set for years to come.
And it’s all thanks to Ms. Jackson.
Sorry, haters. Rickea is for real.
