Adapting

Women's Basketball, Oct 2003 by Gantshar, Nichole

A new team, new fans and high expectations greeted Wendy Palmer this season. The former WNBA All-Star had equally lofty goals. She played more than 21 minutes a game to open the season with the Connecticut Sun. She scored 21 points in one game.

Usually one of the WNBA's top rebounders, Palmer led the team with 10 in the second game. Then on June 1, she crashed into Marie Ferdinand in San Antonio and suffered a severely sprained neck. Six weeks later, Palmer, 30, could still feel the repercussions and her stats documented the strain.

"It's been a very frustrating year," Palmer said. "I had plans but it's been frustrating. It's not the year I planned to have."

Every day, she worked with the trainer, but the neck wasn't her only problem.

"This year, it's been a couple of different things," she said.

There were good days. On July 10 in just 14 minutes, she tried to rally a struggling Sun and scored 17 points in an 83-75 loss to Minnesota. Then she barely registered minutes in the next few games. The injury wasn't predictable.

"One day it's fine and one day it can be bad," she said. "I'm trying to get on track, playing catch up."

To complicate matters, Palmer was trying to catch up in unfamiliar territory.

Her team's home is now at the Mohegan Sun Casino, the fourth home base of her WNBA career. Palmer started with Utah, notched some of her best statistics with Detroit and then landed with Orlando before it moved up north.

"I'm definitely sad about Orlando," she said. "The talent, the structure, the whole dynamic of the league has changed."

Amid all the alterations, Palmer spent her seventh season as a pro trying to get back to the player she remembered.

"I can get back to the reason of why I was playing this game," she said. "Things get complicated when you become professional. You see the ugly side. I just want to play and enjoy it."

- Nichole Gantshar