INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Indiana fever guard Kelsey Mitchell spent the All-Star excitement last week.
First, she had to play some key games.
On Friday, she finally had the chance to show how she felt about playing on Saturday at home. Mitchell's eyes widened, and the trademark grinned and opened her face, the sentence began to fly out of her mouth.
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“I feel so grateful,” she said. “I'm so glad my family and friends were able to come. It's very close for us because I'm from Cincinnati, so many of us can connect through basketball and reconnect. It's been fun, it's a great experience, I'm grateful, I'm here.”
Mitchell's third All-Star Tour, which was on the street at home and was part of the second consecutive year with two teammates Caitlin Clark and center Aliyah Boston. However, this is all routine.
Indianapolis is the 13th city to host an All-Star Weekend, which was mainly in the New York-to-Washington Corridor, and recently moved to the West during its first decade of survival. Last year’s game was in Phoenix, with Las Vegas hosting three of its first five games and likely to be played next summer.
If things were the same on Saturday and Thursday and Friday, maybe Indianapolis would find itself in a normal rotation. Friday night's celebration attracted about 15,000 fans into the arena.
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“The last time I had a three-point shootout in Las Vegas, it wasn’t sold out,” three-point champion Sabrina Ionescu. “Last time (Stephen Curry) beat me while we were in Indy. So it's great to have a good show here.”
Most of the players in the town, such as Atlanta guard Allisha Gray, are both the nickname of Indiana University, and the popular movie champion, and enjoy them in state games with so much basketball history.
However, not everyone has the same hometown experience in the Family All-Star game.
“It's absolutely fun to play in front of home fans, even though it brings everything,” said four-time All-Star Kelsey Plum, who played with Las Vegas for six seasons before joining Los Angeles this year. “At the time, I was in Las Vegas (there) we had a lot of tourists in town, so it wasn't a very tall home. It felt like everyone was cheering for their people.”
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This is unlikely to happen on Saturday night.
Clark and Boston are the last two WNBA rookies of the year, with more star power, while Mitchell is respected for his scoring ability, optimistic personality and resilience. The eight-year veteran finally got a first-ever playoff basketball tasting last year, which explains why Clark expects Saturday to be an exciting game for Mitchell.
But this is not only a hometown with the power of painting.
Former fever guard Erica Wheeler, now a teammate of Seattle's 34-year-old Skylar Diggins, applauded loudly as she reintroduced in Friday's Skills Challenge.
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Diggins, a seven-time All-Star, was Indiana’s 2009 Miss Basketball Award winner, then led her hometown of Notre Dame to four consecutive games with the Irish, one of whom hosted Saturday’s game in the same field.
“It's always love when I come here,” Diggins said. “The fans are great. This is a great host country. It makes sense here and I'm glad because like I said, I've seen a lot of family and friends and I've seen people in town that I've never seen in years. ”
The Indianapolis experience has allowed others to recruit hosts for their city.
“It'll be nice, but I think we'll be represented tonight by a lot of Atlanta Dream fans, so I can't wait,” Gray said. “The league needs to put its All-Star (game) in Atlanta as soon as possible.”
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Mitchell may also approve of the idea, as it will allow her to eat at Wheeler's Restaurant in Atlanta.
For now, though, Mitchell intends to taste this rare moment with her family, friends, teammates, and even competitors.
“For us, it’s an opportunity to connect on different levels, and I think basketball is a way to do that,” Mitchell said. “And I think it’s fun for the city, I think it’s fun for our families. Given what’s going on, it’s fun for the world.”
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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball