Thursday WNBA links: Elena Delle Donne has Chicago media paying attention, Sophia Young's Twitter controversy

James already recapped the Washington Mystics' overtime win in Atlanta last night and Ray had Bill Laimbeer's reaction to the New York Liberty's debacle against the Minnesota Lynx on Tuesday night, so these links are going to be a bit all over the place.

But we'll begin with actual basketball and move to off the court happenings, including a short story about my mom and Cal basketball.

• The Seattle Times describes what's at stake in the Seattle Storm's game against the Connecticut Sun, even if it might not be the prettiest basketball. Seattle is just a half game behind the third-place Phoenix Mercury in the Western Conference and their magic number to clinch a playoff berth is 2. Read more >>>

• John Altavilla of the Hartford Courant reports that, "...Donovan said she would be watching the players closely, taking mental notes, as the team headed into the final phase of the most disappointing season in its 11-year history." Read more >>>

• David Haugh of the Chicago Tribune summarizes Elena Delle Donne's outstanding rookie season, including her reaction to people saying the Chicago Sky should select Skylar Diggins on draft day and her decision to help the league grow by not playing in Europe this offseason. Read more >>>

• Zorn titled his piece "Excuse me while I kiss the sky". I appreciated the reference. In searching a YouTube clip, I found this clip which is also related to basketball.
  Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune tells Chicagoans that it's time to jump on the Chicago Sky bandwagon, though he registers a complaint about their broadcast agreement: "If only their games weren't on a digital broadcast sub-channel that my satellite dish and maybe your cable system doesn't get..." Read more >>>

• Sherri Warren of Sheri on Sports writes that Chicago media is paying a lot more attention to the Chicago Sky: the story about Elena Delle Donne was featured on the front page in addition to a story on the sports page. She writes, "This is amazing and you combine it with the front page story in the sports section from last Friday on the Sky's All-Star Center Sylvia Fowles, it is practically history-making news for women professional athletes to get such extensive and very much warranted coverage in the Chicago press." Read more >>>

• CAA Baseline Buzz has a story that I missed previously about former CAA stars Elena Delle Donne and Tamera Young joining forces to help the Sky reach first place this season. Young reinforces the point Delle Donne made in her interview (posted in yesterday's links, from which the quotes in the article were pulled): having drawn all the attention from CAA opponents in college, she was prepared for the WNBA in a way that a talented player from a larger school might not be. Read more >>>

• Boti Nagy of The Advertiser reports that Australian Opals coach Brendan Joyce is thinking that Liz Cambage's ankle injury might lead to her coming home. The quote, which appears near the end of the article: "Lizzie has damaged her ankle again so she might be coming home." The article itself is interesting as well though: it's about the idea of building a stronger relationship between the Opals and WNBA basketball. Read more >>>

• RJ Aguiar of Towleroad has a pretty evenhanded account of the demonstration outside of the San Antonio City Hall yesterday that injured San Antonio Silver Stars forward Sophia Young attended yesterday, including links to local news coverage describing why the black and Latino protesters are opposed to an addition to the city's existing nondiscrimination ordinance (click here from a video of the event from KENS 5). Andy Towle makes a good point in his associated post about Young's tweets: "Given what she tweeted, however, she seemed to think that the anti-discrimination bill, to be voted on by the San Antonio City Council in early September, would also somehow legalize same-sex marriage." (Hint: it won't). Read more >>>

• In related news, former San Antonio Silvers point guard Tully Bevilaqua has thoughts about a former teammate:

Just lost all respect for a former teammate!!

— Tully L Bevilaqua (@Bevilaqua41) August 29, 2013

• Finishing on a light note, California Golden Bears women's basketball coaches Lindsay Gottlieb and Charmin Smith spoke at the University of California Office of the President yesterday as part of the "Women We Admire Speaker Series". My mom went, took photos, and mentioned that I'm her son. Pleasantries were apparently exchanged, including kind words about Swish Appeal (which includes you, readers...so be considerate when discussing Cal, ok?). I'm assuming the photo below was orchestrated by mom. Read more >>>

The comments are for your reactions so have at it. Obviously there were other basketball-related events that occurred yesterday, so feel free to drop links in the comments or create a fanshot. If you have a longer commentary to share on something, write a fanpost.