The Bill Simmons Podcast<\/a>, the WNBA legend praised Miles as a \u201cspecial talent\u201d and compared elements of her game to NBA superstar Kyrie Irving.<\/p>\n\u201cI think she was a little under-the-radar because she did leave Notre Dame, and she went to TCU, which is a bit of a smaller school,\u201d Taurasi said. \u201cBut this kid is doing stuff \u2026 She has Kyrie-like handles. She can shoot the basketball. She can get in the lane.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taurasi\u2019s comparison isn\u2019t exactly subtle. Miles has shown the kind of ball-handling ability and creativity around the basket that made Irving one of the NBA\u2019s most difficult players to defend.<\/p>\n
More importantly, Taurasi believes Miles landed in the perfect situation to develop into a perennial star. Minnesota entered the season with championship expectations, giving Miles the opportunity to learn within an already-loaded roster rather than being asked to carry a struggling franchise from Day 1. Napheesa Collier\u2019s injury also forced Miles into a larger role early, allowing the rookie to prove she could handle the pressure.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s in the perfect scenario for her to really be in the driver\u2019s seat in this league for the next 10-12 years,\u201d Taurasi said.<\/p>\n
That sounds like a pretty strong endorsement from one of the greatest players in WNBA history.<\/p>\n
Miles has backed up the hype, averaging 19.7 points, 6 assists, 4.6 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game during her rookie campaign. The Lynx are 31-9 and sit atop the WNBA standings with four regular-season games remaining.<\/p>\n
Minnesota is currently the favorite to win the WNBA championship, and if this happens, Miles will be a big part of their historic run.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Source: The WNBA has no shortage of young stars, but Diana Taurasi believes Minnesota Lynx rookie Olivia Miles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":836300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[354157,14824,764,99,434],"class_list":["post-836299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-oliviamiles","tag-diana-taurasi","tag-kyrie-irving","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/836300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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Source: <\/p>\n