New Season, New Owner, New Hope 

"It represents my personal motto, "Take no prisoners,'" says Smith-Taylor, who has added the "Taylor" since getting married last fall. "I was also thinking, "Leave nothing on the court' and "Nothing less than the best.'"

Those mottos easily apply to the Sting in general, especially veterans like Smith-Taylor. They remember all too well the Sting's swoon at the end of last season, which resulted in losing five of their last nine regular-season games and falling in the first round of the playoffs to the Washington Mystics. Winning the 2003 season opener against the same club, May 23 at the Charlotte Coliseum, would signal a fresh start.

"This is the team (Washington) that ended it last season and the team that will start our new beginning," Smith-Taylor says.

New beginning indeed. Returning its entire starting line-up and having strengthened its bench, the Sting should be a contender in the Eastern Conference, where they finished second to New York last year. If their young center Tammy Sutton-Brown continues to progress and receives more back-up support, and Sting veterans play well, the team should make the playoffs and perhaps win the conference outright.

But it won't be easy. All WNBA teams are stronger this season since picking up players from the dissolved Miami and Portland teams. To shore up the center position, the Sting acquired (former Sting player) Pollyanna Johns Kimbrough from Miami.

Having all their starters back is a big advantage for the Sting. But Sutton-Brown and small forward Allison Feaster have missed most of training camp while finishing play in Europe. They were due back in Charlotte several days before the Sting's opener May 23. How quickly they jell with their fellow starters will likely determine how well the Sting start the season.

There are also other important chapters to be written in the Sting's new beginning, such as a new head coach and new owner. Trudi Lacey moved up from assistant coach when Anne Donovan left to become head coach of the Seattle Storm, and the Sting is now owned by Bob Johnson, who acquired the team when he won the rights to Charlotte's new NBA team.

How the new coach and new owner will play out is naturally up in the air. Lacey, a star player at NC State in the late 70s and early 80s, was a winning coach at Frances Marion (53-12, two seasons) and a losing coach at the University of South Florida (86-131, eight seasons). Since that time, she's worked as a coach and selection committee member with USA Basketball, which picks Olympic and other international teams. She also has had two years of experience under Donovan, was part of the staff when the Sting made one of the greatest comebacks in pro sports history in 2001, and is liked and respected by the players.

New owner Bob Johnson has been verbally supportive of the Sting, calling them his "first born" and assuring fans he'll raise the marketing level of the team -- which suffered under George Shinn and Ray Wooldridge, particularly in 2000 and 2001 as they fixed their eyes on moving the Hornets. Johnson, who mentioned his appreciation of the Sting high in his remarks the day he won rights to the men's team, could emerge as the patron saint the team has never had.

But it remains to be seen. At a pre-season party for season ticketholders, when asked about the Sting's media coverage, he wasn't aware that the Charlotte Observer had reduced its coverage of the team over the last two years. He also didn't find a way to keep talented head coach Anne Donovan, who had led the team from a dismal 8-24 season in 2000 under coach T.R. Dunn to the WNBA championship series in 2001.

Donovan slipped through the cracks between the time the WNBA owned the Sting (after the Hornets left) and Johnson was named the new owner. Although technically Johnson was barred by league rules from contacting existing Sting employees before he became the new owner, had he been interested in ensuring Donovan was a centerpiece of his new Sting franchise, it could have happened. Instead, neither he nor the league intervened and Donovan accepted a three-year guaranteed contract with Seattle.

Johnson also brings to Charlotte a reputation as a bottom-line businessman, based on how he operates the Black Entertainment Network, which he founded and still runs for owner Viacom. To meet financial goals in recent years, he gutted BET's news operation. Johnson will also have to dump plenty of dinero into marketing the men's team. It's no slam dunk; it's a three-pointer at minimum.

Apathy or outright anger still runs high over the arena deal and the Hornets' messy departure. That, coupled with declining NBA attendance in general, the economic downturn, and much higher ticket and suite prices, means Johnson is going to have to dig into his billionaire pockets to win back fans.

What will be left over for the Sting, who still need a long-term investment to make the team fly? The team lost a reported $2 million last year and was next-to-last in attendance in the league (6,667 average per game). What happened with the Miami Heat and its former women's team, the Miami Sol, could play out here. The Heat have struggled so much to attract fans in sunny South Florida that the owners were willing to let go of the Sol, which drew a respectable 8,828 fans per game last season (seventh in the 14-team league). The women's team was reportedly losing about the same as the Sting did last year -- $2 million -- but the Heat owners wanted to conserve their money for the men's team.

On the court, the Sting's new beginning demands returning to old team values: defense and rebounding. Those qualities have been largely responsible for the team reaching the playoffs five out of six WNBA seasons but eluded them late last season, when they lost two straight to Washington in a best-of-three series. "We were not as focused going into the playoffs as we were the previous year," Lacey recalls. "Also, the climate had changed for us a bit. We were hunted instead of the hunter."

With all their starters back, the Sting is among the "hunted" again in the Eastern Conference, where they posted an 18-14 record in 2002. In addition to regaining their defensive and rebounding form, the Sting also have to find someone who can relieve center Sutton-Brown without the team losing ground. Last season Summer Erb, the Sting's top draft pick in 2000, was inconsistent and, as of May 14, had not signed a contract with the Sting.

"We need more balance down low," says point guard Dawn Staley. "With Tammy, she's only played a couple of years and is still a young center. We've got to give her some help."

Says shooting guard Andrea Stinson, "The main thing is to get her support so that if she extends herself early in the game, she still has something at the end. She needs a good back-up to be able to pace herself."

In separate interviews, the starting lineup's three most veteran players -- Staley, Stinson and Smith-Taylor -- singled out support for Sutton-Brown as the key to the Sting going deeper in the playoffs than last year. The Sting had three players competing for the backup spot as of May 14 -- rookie Teana McKiver out of Tulane, second-year pro Tamara Stocks from Florida and Kimbrough, acquired in the dispersal draft. None is towering -- all are six-feet-three -- but McKiver showed potential in the first two exhibitions.

Free agent Vanessa Nygaard, a five- year pro out of Stanford, saw some pre-season time at center but would likely play power forward behind Smith-Taylor if she makes the team. She and Shalonda Enis -- who played in only four games last season after giving birth to her second son on May 1, 2002 -- are battling for back-up at power forward.

Jocelyn Penn, the team's first-round 2003 draft pick from the University of South Carolina, is working at power forward but is short for the position at six feet. She could wind up at small forward if she boosts her ball-handling and three-point shooting.

Overall, the Sting plan to run more this year and depend less on set plays in their motion offense.

"Last year we didn't push the ball up every opportunity like we will this year," Lacey says. "Players will also have a little more freedom offensively. We want them to read the defense and react in the best interest of the team. They will have to be able to "think' the game."

Chief "thinker" will be point guard Staley, a master at steadying the offense and finding the open player. Her back-court sidekick, Stinson, has played in every Sting game since the team's inception in 1997 (only one other WNBA player, New York's Teresa Weatherspoon, has done the same) and has led the team in scoring every season.

But neither Staley nor "Stint" looked impressive in the team's first two exhibition games. "Stint" shot poorly, Staley's turnovers were higher than normal, and neither showed defensive quickness seen in the past. Whether they were just getting themselves cranked up or whether age and physical limitations are catching up with them is the big question. Stinson turns 36 in November, and Staley, whose knees are her biggest liability, turned 33 on May 4.

The Sting believe Stinson has plenty left to give. She signed the first day of training camp and received the maximum the league allows for a veteran player, $85,000. General Manager Bernie Bickerstaff said, "We wanted to take care of the nucleus of people who have brought us to where we are."

As of May 14, Tonya Edwards had missed training camp and not accepted an offer with the Sting or another club. The same was true for Erb, who returned from playing in the Canary Islands around May 11. As of midnight May 13, Edwards and Erb were placed on the suspended list and became restricted free agents, which means they could sign with another team if the Sting were unwilling to match the offer.Feaster and Sutton-Brown were especially missed in the preseason. At small forward, Feaster provides a consistent three-point scoring threat, leading the league last season with 79 and making .418 percent of the ones she shot, sixth best in the league. Sutton-Brown, now in her third pro season out of Rutgers, is the Sting's best inside player. She made the 2002 WNBA All-Star Team last season and ranked fourth in the league in field goal percentage (.531).

Kelly Miller, Stinson's back-up at shooting guard, had a strong preseason in the first two games. She scored well, committed few errors and last season made a league-best .471 of her three-point shots. At point guard, Sheila Lambert, who sat most of her rookie season last year with a broken leg, is greased lightning on the court but is still learning the nuances of the pro game.

As for Smith-Taylor, her frustration with her own performance at the end of 2002 prompted the new jersey number |and a determination to boost her scoring and rebounding.

"I want this year to be different," she says. "There is so much more I can give. It's a new start for me, new ownership and new coaching staff."

There's at least the hope of a new start for the Sting, a team that's done well in the past but still needs to boost fan support to ensure its long-term future in Charlotte. Whether the players, new ownership, and new coaching staff seize the moment is something time will tell.