The WNBA received loads of consideration this yr principally due to rookie sensations Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, but when followers stick round to observe subsequent yr, there’s prone to be much more expertise hitting the courtroom.
The Seattle Storm‘s Nika Muhl may very well be a type of skills.
Drafted No. 14 general out of UConn, the 6-foot guard hasn’t seen a lot motion in her rookie year. In 16 video games, she’s averaged 3.8 minutes, 0.1 factors and 0.6 rebounds. Muhl scored her first profession bucket in Seattle’s regular-season finale Thursday in opposition to the Phoenix Mercury.
That may look like the signal of an early bust to some however to Muhl and Seattle, it is all going in line with plan.
“All people seems to be at not taking part in as one thing so horrible and so dangerous, however behind the scenes, I am working my butt off,” Muhl told CT Insider’s Maggie Vanoni. “I am not lacking something. I am simply having fun with the method. And that is my journey, and that is the way it’s purported to be.”
To be drafted with the second choose within the second spherical, Seattle should have a task for Muhl. She averaged 5.8 factors, 5.2 assists and three.4 rebounds in her time under UConn head coach Geno Auriemma.
Granted, she’s using a bench behind well-deserving starters like Jewell Loyd, Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins-Smith. However come subsequent season, her teammates suppose she seems to be primed to contribute at a a lot larger degree.
“Her work ethic has all the time been there,” Loyd informed Vanoni. “She’s one of many hardest employees on this workforce, and other people could not see it, and clearly they need her to be on the courtroom, however all of the stuff that she’s doing now’s to making ready her to return again subsequent season and be nice.”
Veteran guards Sami Whitcomb and Victoria Vivians are both on expiring deals this season and if they don’t return, it may present the chance Muhl has been ready for.
All of the exhausting work and studying would possibly result in extra significant minutes and, due to this fact, extra alternatives to provide on the courtroom.
Seattle is the fifth seed on this yr’s WNBA playoffs, dealing with off in opposition to the reigning champion Las Vegas Aces within the first spherical.
Muhl will probably keep on the bench for many of that sequence, however she may all the time discover herself tapped within the case of an unlucky damage or the necessity for a change of tempo participant.