Sky guard Courtney Vandersloot’s triple-double Friday raises a couple of interesting questions that might be difficult to answer.
Her performance in the win over the Dallas Wings was the latest accomplishment in a career that has seen her emerge as one of the WNBA’s most consistent point guards and one of the few steady presences around the Sky.
Drafted third overall by the Sky in 2011, Vandersloot led the league in assists in 2015 and 2017, and last year she set a WNBA record by averaging 8.1 per game.
Which leads to the first question: Why is Vandersloot’s 2011 All-Star nod the only one of her career?
“I feel like there’s so many people that are deserving of an All-Star bid,” Vandersloot said. “Every year there’s somebody that gets left off that probably could have been on the team. There’s 144 players, and there’s only 22 All-Star spots. No matter what, every year there is somebody that just happens to get left off, and it’s me. I don’t know why.”
Before the Sky’s 101-87 victory Wednesday in Phoenix, Vandersloot was averaging 11.2 points and 8.1 assists per game. Yet, barring her selection as an injury replacement, the Sky’s only representative at the All-Star Game on Saturday in Minneapolis will be Allie Quigley.
But if that bothers Vandersloot, she isn’t saying.
“I don’t take offense to it or anything,” she said. “I don’t think that, ‘Oh, I should have been an All-Star over this person.’ Every single one of those All-Stars deserves to be an All-Star. That’s just the way I look at it.”
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Vandersloot’s game against the Wings also gave WNBA fans a look at a rare milestone, which brings up the second question: Why has a league that began play in 1997 seen so few triple-doubles in the regular season?
Vandersloot had 13 points, 15 assists and 10 rebounds, marking just the seventh regular-season triple-double in WNBA history and the first for the Sky. Counting Sheryl Swoopes’ triple-double in the 2005 playoffs, the league has had just eight all-time. For comparison, the 2017-18 NBA regular season had 108.
Asked why the triple-double is so uncommon in the WNBA, Vandersloot was stumped.
“I’ve been thinking about this after I realized there’s only seven in 22 years,” Vandersloot said. “I’m not sure.”
Possible reasons could be the 10-minute quarters and the abbreviated season (12 teams play a 34-game schedule). However, it still seems like there should be more than eight.
“I really don’t have an answer for you,” Vandersloot said, almost apologetically. “I don’t know.”
