Leslie driven to improve her game

NEW YORK -- Lisa Leslie's wedding registry should have come with a warning -- "From Russia with a vengeance."

Just when it seemed the 34-year-old WNBA All-Star was slowing down, marriage seems to have energized her game.

Leslie, an original member of the WNBA, averaged career lows last year in scoring (15.2) and rebounding (7.3). After she married commercial pilot Michael Lockwood in November, Leslie decided to hone her skills overseas for the first time in her WNBA career, playing for Spartak in an elite league in Moscow from January until May.

The trek is paying big dividends for Leslie and her Los Angeles Sparks. Entering tonight's WNBA All-Star Game at New York's Madison Square Garden, (7 ET, ESPN; tip-off: 7:30), Leslie is averaging a career-best 20.1 points with 9.4 rebounds. The Sparks are a WNBA-best 16-5, including a win June 25 against San Antonio in which Leslie had a career-high 41 points.

"Sometimes when you get married, it settles you, and you can focus in on the things you need to focus on," says Houston Comets guard Dawn Staley, Leslie's Olympic teammate at the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Games. "Michael allows her to just play and not worry about anything else."

Leslie says a nagging groin injury bothered her last season, although she refuses to use it as an excuse for her subpar stats. She says the disappointing season made her want to improve. But it was some brutal honesty from an uncle, Craig Simpson, that put it all in prospective.

"He said, 'If your season next year is the same as it was this year, you need to retire,'" Leslie says. "I told him I was going to do everything I can to see if I can be any better than I am ... and if I can't, then I'm going to retire."

Getting better was a tall order for the 6-5 Leslie. She is a three-time Olympic gold medalist, league MVP, Finals MVP and All-Star Game MVP -- which she won in 2004 after not being voted in as a starter. But Leslie says in Russia she was able to focus on her field goal percentage, offensive rebounding and free throw shooting.

Staley says Leslie was also motivated by what Leslie sees as a lack of respect. "What is behind Lisa playing this way is all this talk about these young players and somebody else being the best player in the world," Staley says.

The Sparks showed their appreciation for Leslie, naming the Staples Center court "Lisa Leslie Court" on Friday, which was her birthday.

But aside from when Leslie plays for the USA, WNBA fans don't seem to embrace her. This is the third time she hasn't been voted an All-Star Game starter.

"It's a love-hate relationship for a lot of people," says DeLisha Milton-Jones, Washington Mystics forward and former Leslie teammate in Los Angeles. "They love her because she is so good, but they hate her because she is so good."

Ann Meyers, ESPN analyst and color commentator for Sparks games, has watched Leslie play since she was in high school. She says fans mistake Leslie's physical play as being dirty.

"She plays aggressive. She throws her elbows around, but a lot of people do that," Meyers says. "But for some reason she is unfairly cast as a goon."

Leslie says she doesn't feel she gets the respect she deserves but says it's not what motivates her.

"I don't know what I have to do to get respect," she says. "But each player around the league knows.

"They come up to me and say how messed up it is and ask me if I'm upset about it. I tell them, 'No, I'm good. This is my third year coming off the bench. I'm used to it.'"

A 'teammate' at home

Leslie, who played in Italy in 1994 after she graduated from Southern California, says not having a support group overseas was the reason she had opted not to do it again until her time in Russia.

"I always said that I didn't want to go back overseas unless I was married," Leslie says, "because it is really difficult being overseas for that much time, away from your family, away from your loved ones. Once I got married, my husband was like, 'Whatever you want to do ... pursue your dreams. If you don't want to play, you can come home and be a housewife.'"

Leslie chose to continue playing. Lockwood, a 6-6, 240-pound former basketball player at the Air Force Academy, says he just tries to help anyway he can.

"It's nice for her to have a live-in rebounder," Lockwood says jokingly, admitting he didn't follow the WNBA until he met Leslie last year through a mutual friend. "The only thing I do is try to keep things as peaceful as possible. You have to keep the drama in your life to a minimum."

Lockwood had never seen Leslie play. "So when we first started talking on the phone, I didn't know much about her or the league," he says. "I felt kind of bad about it, so I had to Google her."

Lockwood now is immersed in the league and Leslie's career. He goes to the gym with his wife every morning during the offseason and was with Leslie two of the four months she played in Russia.

During that time, Leslie says the one thing he helped her with was her turnaround jumper. "I noticed I was putting the ball on the floor too much instead of turning around and shooting," she says. "He would always say, 'Use your body, get your shoulder into me.'"

Leslie says it also helped having Tamika Catchings of the Indiana Fever as a teammate in Russia. Leslie says Catchings, one of the most relentless players in the league, pushed her.

"We would do extra workouts," Leslie says. "She plays at a speed I needed to practice at. We got more out of a game of 21 than we did out of an entire practice."

Catchings says she is not surprised how strong Leslie has played to start the season.

"I can't say that there were any signs of how well she would do from overseas to here, but we did put in some long hours in the gym," Catchings says. "So I know the hours that we put in definitely paid off."

Prepared to carry through

Leslie says much of her success this season came because L.A. opened without the Sparks' other marquee player, forward Chamique Holdsclaw, who missed the first six games for personal reasons.

"There were certain times when we needed a bucket, were passing the ball around and nobody wanted to take the shot," Leslie says. "It's not a discredit to my teammates because everybody knew what their role was. But the ball came to me more because Mique wasn't on the court."

Leslie says having Holdsclaw in the lineup, getting guard Mwadi Mabika in the flow and point guard Temeka Johnson becoming more comfortable are what it will take for L.A. to win another title.

But Milton-Jones, Leslie's teammate on the Sparks' championship teams in 2001 and 2002, says L.A.'s success so far -- and whatever the team might do in the playoffs -- is a credit to Leslie.

"She has put that team on her back," Milton-Jones says. "Look at the players they have now, not to disrespect them in any way, but you wouldn't think 'championship team.' But that's a testament to Lisa. She is always prepared, always."

Leslie, who will play with USA Basketball in the World Championships after the season ends in August, says she can't guarantee she will play in the 2008 Olympics.

"My ultimate goal is to play until (the Bejing Games) and win another gold medal," Leslie says. "But two years is a lot of time. I feel really good where I am and where my game is. But I'm taking it one year at a time to figure out exactly what my motivation is.

"If I'm motivated to do it, then I'm going to do it 110%. I don't know how to halfway do it. You can best believe if I'm on the team and we're in Beijing, we're there for gold."

Staley says Leslie is on a mission, in the WNBA and internationally.

"She has been on top of her game for a long time," Staley says. "She's leaving the doubters with no question."

*Talk Live with WNBA All-Star Lisa Leslie at 10:15 a.m. ET at talk.usatoday.com

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