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One dream at a time for rookie
Renee Montgomery has plenty of life goals, but being the Lynx's starting point guard is priority No. 1 right now.
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At age 22, Renee Montgomery has a lot of dreams.
The Lynx rookie point guard wants to open a daycare center, be a model and be a broadcaster, maybe for ESPN.
"I want to do everything," Montgomery said, "and I am going to do all those things."
But not quite yet.
These days she already has a demanding job. She will be at work again at 7 tonight when the Lynx play Indiana, the WNBA's best team this season at the Target Center.
Lynx coach Jen Gillom inserted Montgomery into the starting lineup on July 19 at Seattle. That's far ahead of schedule. Montgomery, taken with the fourth overall pick in the draft, was supposed to back up veteran Kelly Miller. With Miller struggling, though ... it was time for DaOne.
DaOne20 is Montgomery's Twitter username. DaOne stands for the number commonly used to refer to the point guard position; 20 is her jersey number. Teammates also call her Baby Girl and Little Bit. "Because I'm small and young," the 5-7 Montgomery said.
No matter. Gillom is giving Montgomery minutes and her confidence seems to be growing.
"She doesn't play like a rookie. That is what I am so impressed with," Gillom said. "She can score. She can pass. She can do it all. That's the type of point guard you need, and she can get better and better."
In her first five starts, Montgomery was consistently average. She made two field goals in each game and had a high of nine points. Then Montgomery scored a season-high 24 points against Connecticut as the Lynx won 95-88. She followed that with 14 points in the Lynx's 89-87 loss to San Antonio and on Sunday.
"I play against Sue Bird, Becky Hammon, Lindsay Whalen and Lindsey Harding," Montgomery said. "There is just a lot of great point guards in our league. So every night you have to bring it [or] somebody is going to embarrass you."
That has rarely happened in Montgomery's career. She played on three high school state championship teams in West Virginia. Last season she guided Connecticut to a 38-0 record and the NCAA Division I title. Her UConn teams were 138-11; she never missed a practice or game.
"When we recruited [Renee]," Huskies coach Geno Auriemma said before the Final Four in April, "if she had turned out just to be a really good guard, we would have been happy with that. But, as it turned out, she wouldn't have been happy with it. Now she's determined to be the best and she's done it."
In college, Auriemma meant. As a professional basketball player, Montgomery knows she has to keep improving but is enjoying herself.
"I am living the life," she said. "I am getting paid for something I love, so it's great."
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