Each Thursday this season, Sports Illustrated’s Ben Pickman is diving deep into the WNBA story lines you need to know.
Sparks guard Brittney Sykes is goal-oriented, to say the least.
So before games this season, assistant coach Latricia Trammell gives her a list of realistic defensive challenges to accomplish, ranging from how many steals she needs to record to how many rebounds she’s tasked with hauling in. It helps to explain why during contests Sykes will often look over at Trammell and say, “That’s one, that’s two,” or why when Sykes returns to the bench she’ll ask Trammell about what she still has to accomplish to meet those marks.