{"id":33307,"date":"2025-07-30T03:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T03:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/33307\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T03:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T03:02:08","slug":"cameron-brink-returns-to-wnba-action-13-months-after-tearing-her-acl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/33307\/","title":{"rendered":"Cameron Brink returns to WNBA action 13 months after tearing her ACL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LOS ANGELES \u2014\u00a0Cameron Brink\u00a0came off the bench for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/basketball\/wnba\/teams\/los-angeles-sparks\/\" class=\"sn-team-post-link\" target=\"_self\" data-team=\"los-angeles-sparks\" data-league=\"wnba\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Los Angeles Sparks<\/a> on Tuesday night in her first WNBA game in 13 months after a left ACL injury.<\/p>\n<p>She entered with 2:39 remaining in the first quarter and the Sparks trailing the Las Vegas Aces 26-9. Fans cheered as Brink was announced.<\/p>\n<p>She quickly got to work, grabbing an offensive rebound and feeding Rickea Jackson for a jumper. Brink then hit a 3-pointer with NBA stars Russell Westbrook and DeMar DeRozan looking on.<\/p>\n<p>The Sparks brought a five-game winning streak into the game.<\/p>\n<p>Brink got hurt in a game at Connecticut last June. Before that, the No. 2 pick in the 2024 WNBA draft was averaging 7.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.3 blocks.<\/p>\n<p>Brink&#8217;s expectations for herself?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust lead with joy,\u201d she said after doing a series of pregame drills. \u201cI\u2019m just happy to be back. It\u2019s been a long road, so I\u2019m just going to try to have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brink said she missed \u201ceverything\u201d during the long rehab process.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really learned how to be a good teammate and I learned all the little nuances of the game that I usually wouldn\u2019t expect to get into,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Jackson welcomed Brink&#8217;s return.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe&#8217;s intimidating,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cNobody wants to challenge her, no one wants to go up against her even on the offensive end.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sparks coach Lynne Roberts said Brink would be on a minutes restriction.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a hard injury to come back from, mentally and physically, and she\u2019s done it with a smile on her face,\u201d the first-year WNBA coach said before the game. \u201cThe expectation for her is to get out there and enjoy the moment. She doesn\u2019t have to score 20. It would be great if she did, but I want her to just be in the moment, be present and grateful that she\u2019s back out there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A smiling Brink joined the pregame huddle after the starters were announced.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know there\u2019s some anxiousness and some nerves from her,\u201d Roberts said before the game. \u201cIt\u2019s good for her to be doing this at home in front of this crowd that all love her and so do we.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014\u00a0Cameron Brink\u00a0came off the bench for the Los Angeles Sparks on Tuesday night in her first&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-33307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}