While not the best I shot during the Friday night parade and rally to celebrate the Seattle Storm’s WNBA championship, this photo is nonetheless my favorite.
A great photo should speak for itself; this one doesn’t. The photo can’t speak up and say that the redhead in the center was the 2010 league MVP and the MVP of the finals and very arguably better than any woman who plays basketball anywhere on the planet. The photo can’t say that she is shy or that the answers she gives in post-game interviews tend to be so sly and concise as to constitute acts of sabotage against the rituals of televised sports entertainment or that despite that sabotage she is often the player who ends up with cameras aimed her way and microphones in her face.
So the photo is mute on the matter of why there is something rare and relaxed and right and real about getting to see Lauren Jackson as just another face in the crowd, looking up at the arena screen to watch live video from the cameras gathered around a less-heralded teammate.
Some of the too-many photos I shot are here and (hopefully) embedded below.
Click here and scroll down for my handful of other posts about the Storm. The earliest one — posted on 8/30/09 — came after a game in which Sue Bird knocked down a three-pointer with 19.3 seconds left and sent the Jackson-less Storm to the first of the two overtimes they would need to overcome the Atlanta Dream. In that post, I suggested ever so gently that more people should come out and watch the Storm play. Judging by the screaming thousands at Friday’s rally, fewer people need persuading these days. That’s terrific.
