Monday morning links: Becky Hammon tears ACL in 2013 debut, Seimone Augustus sprains her ankle, and WNBA roster size concerns

In an injury-riddled 2013 WNBA season, links about injury reports and roster size overshadow a weekend full of blowouts.

And so the 10 links of the day begin with Becky Hammon's season ending before it was ever able to really get started.

• The San Antonio Express-News reported the details of San Antonio Silver Stars guard Becky Hammon's left knee injury in the second quarter of her first game of the 2013 season, a 93-66 blowout loss in Los Angeles. As the team has already reported and Andrea Duke has posted at SB Nation's Pounding the Rock, Hammon suffered an ACL injury and is now out for the season. Read more >>>
• Doug Feinberg of the AP coincidentally opened his article on the issue of whether WNBA rosters should be expanded with a quote from Hammon, who had made one of the more pointed comments of any player to date: "That's the first thing that has to be changed," the veteran San Antonio Silver Stars guard said. "Twelve-year old AAU teams have more players than we do. It's absolutely ridiculous and they have to do something to fix it." (h/t ttdomi) Read more >>>
• Kent Youngblood of the Star Tribune described the significance of the Minnesota Lynx's 91-59 win over the Phoenix Mercury yesterday and also reported that, "Seimone Augustus, who sprained her left ankle in the second quarter and left Target Center on crutches." That means that the Lynx will likely be without Augustus when the Atlanta Dream come to town on Tuesday. Read more >>>
• Sherri Warren of Chicago Now writes that New York Liberty commentator Ros Gold-Onwude was gushing "...on and on and I would recommend Elena check out the 4th quarter broadcast on LiveAccess - she might just blush as much as I did just listening to it!" Delle Donne scored a game-high 20 points in New York's 93-64 win (click here to see our Liberty season storystream). Read more >>>
• Patricia Babcock Mcgraw of The Daily Herald reported in her preview of the Sky's meeting with the Liberty that Bill Laimbeer sounds content with coaching in the WNBA, but after years of hoping for a job in the NBA before returning, "If the right NBA job came up, it sounds like Laimbeer would be ready to compete for that, too." Read more >>>
• Gene Wang of the Washington Post described how Washington Mystics coach Mike Thibault's 212th win wasn't easy to close out as the Seattle Storm came back from 18 down in the first half to make it a 62-59 final outcome. We have plenty on the game in our Mystics season storystream, but Thibault's quote seems to summarize things well: "I'm glad this game is done." Read more >>>
• Annie Groer of the Washington Post wrote up an overview of ESPN's "Nine for IX" series, which continues tomorrow night with "Pat XO" - the story of Pat Summitt. Read more >>>
• Tom Ziller of SB Nation explored the matter of rebuilding in the NBA once again, picking up on a piece that Albert Lee mentioned last week. In today's article, Ziller looked at the contrast in rebuilding by stockpiling assets while staying competitive as the Houston Rockets have done vs. the scorched earth path of the Philadelphia 76ers. It's interesting to look at in light of the WNBA's roster debate: it's really difficult to stockpile assets when you only have 11 player rosters and little room for development. So what would this discussion look like in the WNBA context? Read more >>>
• Brian Ball of SB Nation's New Orleans Hornets site At the Hive explores the question of whether a decrease in a player's usage rate increases their offensive efficiency, a relationship that many assume to exist but Ball says few have actually demonstrated with research. Focusing on three specific usually high-usage NBA players coming to the Hornets, Ball concludes that there is in fact a relationship: "This analysis implies that usage rate has a small but statistically significant impact on offensive efficiency." That's consistent with what some of us may have observed among WNBA players as well and it's why it's particularly noteworthy when players increase their efficiency when their usage improves, although as Ball shows there could be other factors. Read more >>>
• Ben Golliver of SI's NBA blog The Point Forward collected the links for NBA star Kevin Durant and Minnesota Lynx guard Monica Wright getting engaged. Of course, we've already been discussing that. Read more >>>

As usual, there are more links out there to share so feel free to drop those in the comments or create a fan post if you have a longer comment to make.

Happy Monday.