Wednesday morning WNBA links: A 'vintage Lindsay Whalen' performance, improving players, rookies, and 'Ref Cam'

In the process of looking through statistics for a (forthcoming) post on 2013 WNBA Sixth Woman of the Year candidates, I noticed that the list was pretty much becoming a rehash of the Most Improved Player watch list that I posted last week.

So today's links include articles relevant to some of that MIP watch list, game-related stories, two of the more useful summaries from the landslide of Ref Cam articles since Saturday, and some other random reads that I found interesting from the past few days. But I'm still limiting myself to just 10 links, which means this isn't an exhaustive list of all that's out there.

• Bruce Brothers of the Pioneer Press reports that Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve called point guard Lindsay Whalen's 23-point, 7-rebound, and 6 assist performance against the San Antonio Silver Stars last night "Vintage Lindsay Whalen". Yet that 6 assists and 1 turnover for an outstanding pure point rating of 10 is just routine for what she's done thus far in 2013 as a distributor: entering last night's game, she had an even better pure point rating of 11.24. Read more >>>
• Phil Ervin of FSN North reports on the major strides forward that Lynx post Amber Harris has made this season and notes that Reeve expects her to have nights like she did last night, even after her impressive career-high 18 points against the Phoenix Mercury last week. But the fact remains that she has easily been one of the league's most improved players thus far in 2013. Read more >>>
• John Altavilla of The Hartford Courant previews the Connecticut Sun's game against the Indiana Fever tonight by looking at the recent signings of Iziane Castro Marques and Sydney Carter. Coach Anne Donovan explained that the reason for releasing Lacy in favor of Castro Marques was a matter of adding some size to their backcourt. Read more >>>
• Deitra P. Johnson of the Atlanta Daily World briefly runs through the ups and downs of Ivory Latta's career that led up to her finally finding a spot in Washington where she won Eastern Conference Player of the Week for her impressive play last week. She notes that WNBA GMs named her the most underrated player in the league prior to the season. Read more >>>
• Layne Weiss of Digital Journal summarized the Ref Cam experience from Saturday's game in Indianapolis, noting that Lamont Simpson had some trouble adjusting to the device in the first half. Weiss also reports that ESPN and the WNBA will jointly decide whether it will be used again. Read more >>>
• Scott Agness of the Vigilant Sports says that the WNBA's debut of the ref cam was successful and noted that Conseco Fieldhouse was smart to occasionally show the ref cam view on their large video board. He concluded by begging the NBA to stick one on Joey Crawford. Read more >>>
• Chuck Carree of the StarNews reported on the progress of Chicago Sky wing Tamera Young after undergoing minor shoulder surgery last fall and not playing overseas this offseason. She instead rehabilitated and prepared for life after playing in a coaching fellowship program at Georgia Tech. Carree notes that the time off has contributed to her improved play this season. Read more >>>
• Jayda Evans of the Seattle Times caught up with former Seattle Storm player and brand new Tulsa Shock assistant Stacey Lovelace, who stepped in this month to replace Kathy McConnell-Miller. A lot of great tidbits in there, but the most interesting points were her comments about Skylar Diggins having the biggest leap from college to pros of any of the "Three to See". Read more >>>
• Tom Ziller of SB Nation wrote about how LeBron James' best NBA comparison is Larry Bird as opposed to Magic Johnson or Oscar Robertson. The description of Bird's game reminded me of something I've been thinking about watching Elena Delle Donne: the comparisons to Dirk Nowitzki does her ball handling and playmaking ability a disservice and the preseason comparison I made to Kevin Durant vastly underrated her ability to score on the blocks. Might Bird be the best comparison available for Delle Donne, male or female? Read more >>>
• Mechelle Voepel of ESPN tweeted out an AP article that describes an intensifying conflict between LGBT communities and the combined force of political and religious elites, which now includes legislation that imposes a mix of heavy fines and prison time for various forms public expression of homosexuality. As Voepel notes, this could obviously relevant for WNBA players playing in or considering playing in Russia. Read more >>>

To close today's links, I have to borrow from a profound opening line from Mad Lion: Too many links and not enough time. Ok, that was cheesy (though the beat is scorching hot!) but there were a number of other articles out there from the last few days (which is a good thing!) and in limiting myself to 10 - it's really a matter of scrolling length and the amount people tend to digest before ignoring the entire thing - I left out a few that I even saved for this post.

If there's an article you think I missed, feel free to add it in the comments below or write a fan post/shot if you have extended thoughts on it. I'm going to start using our Facebook page as an "overflow" spot for links I chose not to include here and you should "like" us there if you like that setup.

Anyway, happy Wednesday.