Sparks find success with Chelsea Gray leading veteran-loaded team

Sparks guard Chelsea Gray brings the ball up the court against the Phoenix Mercury on July 25 in Bradenton, Fla. Chelsea Gray shadowed the veteran players when she joined the Sparks in 2016. “You don’t win a championship without a good point guard, a solid point guard,” Gray said. “It doesn’t mean they have to have all the stats, but if you have a solid point guard that does their job, it’s consistent with a championship.” To Diana Taurasi, the Phoenix Mercury star, her Team USA teammate is “one of the best point guards in the world.” Gray, 27, entered this season after earning first-team All-WNBA honors last year with averages of 14.5 points and career highs in assists and rebounds. “It’s my responsibility to bring other people along and lead them in a way that when their time is called they’re able to do the same thing,” Gray said. “In a lot of ways, it was hard to talk about a championship, because there are so many other things that are so much bigger than us happening in this world,” Ogwumike said, “but for us to be able to channel our emotions and our integrity and our passions in a way to walk, talk and act like champions, I feel as though that’s the mind-set that Chelsea brings to the team.”