Natasha Howard

Yeah.

You know, and I, Again, this is not a good, great comparison, but I did think watching the links this year and seeing the way they use Natasha Howard as a little bit more of an athletic and maybe undersized, but really physically aggressive, big.

I think Taylor can do some of that.

I'm only going to say some of that.

She is not going to be the same level of defender that Natasha Howard is like.

Natasha Howard is all WNBA caliber of defender.

At her best, Taylor, I think, is probably a little bit less quick than Howard is.

But my bold prediction for the season, at least as far as Taylor Thomas is concerned, she's going to be the leading rebounder on the team.

Then with five minutes and 33 seconds left, In the second quarter, Cheryl Reeve, the head coach for the Minnesota Lynx, makes her move.

Nafisa Collier, Natasha Howard, Courtney Williams, Kayla McBride all go to the bench, and they never come back.

Not in the third, not in the fourth.

After the game, Reeve explained it.

So that's part of the thing here.

But they lose Natasha Howard, who goes on to have an all-star season in Minnesota.

They replace her with Monique Billings and Myesha Hines-Allen, neither of whom really matched the production of Natasha Howard.

There's the lack of two-way players on their bench, I think was an issue, right? You can bring in the offense of Sophie Cunningham, but then you lose the defense of Lexi Hall, right? Like how do they find the balance on that roster to compliment their big three? How do you even make sure that you maintain that big three when Kelsey is a free agent who you can no longer core? It's a very difficult situation that a new GM is walking into.

But I guess this is an understanding that like they didn't trust Amber Cox to be able to navigate these situations and they wanted somebody else in that role.

It's a, it's a lower percentage shots, always like a risk in a sense.

And I remember years where it's like, if we came out and myself or Jewel or Stewie, Alicia Clark, Natasha Howard, all of a sudden we were shooting a bunch of threes.

The game just felt harder, make or miss.

So, but when you can all of a sudden get a layup, oh, it's like, I don't even need the points.

To put that in perspective, Only five qualified players in the entire league had a 56% shooting percentage during the entire 2026 regular season.

It was just Melissa Smith, Natasha Mack, Natasha Howard, Olivia Nelson-Nedota, and Jessica Shepard.

That was it.

They were the only players who had over a 56% shooting percentage, and that's what Angel's been doing.

Galatasaray, injuries are kind of the big topic with them right now.

Their defeats against Kyo came without several important players, including Natasha Howard, Dorca, Salun, that was also away in NBA duties.

So they are an elite team that have tons of important absences there.

How much should we actually read into Galatasaray first game and what you expect from them on this second round?

Yes

... for a while it was, you know, Olivia and Natasha Howard, and Caitlin McBride had a really big July, and then obviously Fe comes back.

And, um, you know, I don't know if that synergy ever, like, found its prime form going into the playoffs, but like they were a team that didn't necessarily rely on like three superstars to, um, you know...

On a good night, uh, you know, I think there in New York they kinda showed what might happen.

Um, you know, if you are able to shut down Olivia and shut down Natasha Howard and, and kind of, um, you know, wrestle away with the, wrestle away the, the spine of, of the Lynx offense for so much of the season.

Um, but, uh, yeah, no, I just...

So I think it'll be interesting kind of what we see teams do, um, as they kind of face the Lynx and otherwise-

... who can find them and, and coach them to that level.