{"id":868405,"date":"2026-06-15T07:27:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T07:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/868405\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T07:27:41","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T07:27:41","slug":"sparks-news-cameron-brink-drops-blunt-assessment-of-early-wnba-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/868405\/","title":{"rendered":"Sparks news: Cameron Brink drops blunt assessment of early WNBA career"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the Los Angeles Sparks<\/a> looking to put together some consistency and try and climb the standings in the Western Conference, a big part of their success this WNBA season will hinge on the play of Cameron Brink<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The third-year center is coming off her first healthy offseason since being in the league after suffering a devastating ACL injury only about a month into her rookie year. She\u2019s settled into her role as the team\u2019s defensive anchor while coming off the bench, and she does believe that going through the injury helped her become the player she is today.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel very comfortable \u2026 the staff makes me feel very confident. KP [Kelsey Plum] is always in my ear, just super supportive. My rookie year, I think I came in and I just wasn\u2019t ready for this league,\u201d Brink said following the Sparks\u2019 88-83 win against the Seattle Storm on Wednesday. \u201cAnd I believe everything happens for a reason. Getting hurt, I did learn a lot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m obviously very far from perfect but I think I\u2019m just taking every day as an opportunity to get better. Hopefully that just continues to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The No. 2 overall pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft, Cameron Brink has established herself as the Sparks\u2019 best defensive player<\/a>, ranking in the top-five in the league in blocked shots at 1.5 per game.<\/p>\n

During the Sparks\u2019 111-102 overtime win against the Phoenix Mercury on Saturday, head coach Lynne Roberts opted to play Brink in the extra period over veteran forward Dearica Hamby. It\u2019s not just Brink\u2019s shot-blocking ability that makes her so valuable to the team, it\u2019s her ability to simply change opposing team\u2019s offensive attacks due to her presence at the rim.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted some length defensively. She\u2019s got such good instincts and even if she\u2019s not blocking shots, she\u2019s impacting them,\u201d Roberts said following the win against the Mercury. \u201cI thought she did a great job tonight of staying out of foul trouble. She stayed vertical, and if she\u2019s being disciplined like that, then we want her in there all the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just really defensively, and then her shooting ability, that stretches the floor, so that was what went into that decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brink came up with a huge four-point play late in the overtime period when she knocked down a corner 3-point<\/a> shot and was fouled by Mercury guard Lexi Held. The former Stanford star would sink the free-throw to give the Sparks a 105-98 lead with a little over three minutes to go.<\/p>\n

She also came up with two huge offensive rebounds that helped seal the win. Overall, she finished with nine points, nine rebounds, two assists and two blocked shots in 22 minutes. On the season, Brink is averaging a career-high 9.2 points, 4.6 rebounds, 1.2 assists and 1.5 blocked shots while shooting 52 percent from the field, 35.5 percent from the 3-point line and 81.1 percent shooting from the free-throw line.<\/p>\n

As the season progresses, Roberts knows that Brink is going to be crucial for any success the Sparks hope to have.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want her to compete and not worry about the noise, not worry about any sort of narrative because most of them are false,\u201d Roberts said prior to the team\u2019s game against the Mercury. \u201cSo just compete. And she\u2019s very coachable. She wants to learn and get better, so very pleased with where she\u2019s at.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the Los Angeles Sparks looking to put together some consistency and try and climb the standings in the Western Conference, a big part of their success this WNBA season will hinge on the play of Cameron Brink. The third-year center is coming off her first healthy offseason since being in the league after suffering a devastating ACL injury only about a month into her rookie year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the Los Angeles Sparks looking to put together some consistency and try and climb the standings in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":868406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[49],"tags":[10587,1488,8808,62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":["post-868405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-cameron-brink","tag-los-angeles-sparks","tag-reporting","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wnba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116752944136261093","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}