For Lynx’s Dorka Juhász, last season’s rookie experience fueled this year’s dependability

In a league with only 144 total roster spots, the potential that a WNBA draft pick never sees the floor is a reality, not a rarity. But last season, as the Lynx finished in the middle of the league standings (19-21), rookies Dorka Juhász and Diamond Miller were “thrown into the water,” Juhász said.

Behind Rookie of the Year Aliyah Boston, the pair led the league’s rookies in minutes. Juhász, the 6-5 Hungarian forward out of the University of Connecticut, started over two-thirds of the Lynx’s games.

“Last year was special,” Juhász said. “We knew, as rookies, we were lucky to get that opportunity.”

This season, Juhász’s role with the Lynx has changed. But so has she, adjusting to a sixth-man role on a deep Lynx bench that has helped Minnesota (16-6) hang near the top of the WNBA standings this season.

Through June, Juhász had started only one game. That was until Lynx centerpiece Napheesa Collier’s plantar fasciitis flared up, sidelining her following back-to-back losses.

And Juhász was back in the starting lineup.

“Making up for Phee is impossible. We can’t be like, ‘Hey, I’m trying to take over and be Phee,’ because Phee is one of one,” Juhász said. “I think it’s the same mindset, no matter whether you’re starting or coming off the bench: being a difference-maker.”

With the Lynx missing Collier as the team’s leading rebounder, Juhász grabbed 11 boards in the team’s 74-67 win Saturday over the Washington Mystics. On the road Tuesday in a 82-67 victory over the Los Angeles Sparks, Juhász scored 15 points in 32 minutes, season-high numbers in both statistics. In her first start of the season, against Dallas in June, Juhász didn’t miss a shot, going 5-for-5 for 11 points.

“She was finding her legs. The more she plays, getting back in that starting role, kind of gave her the confidence,” Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said.

Juhász didn’t make her season debut until May 25, missing the Lynx’s preseason because she was occupied helping basketball club Beretta Famila Schio win the regular-season Italian Cup. A Hungarian national team player like her mom, Juhász was well-known within the European basketball circuit, and she knew she wanted to play overseas after her rookie season with the Lynx.

While in Schio, Juhász worked with a trainer and focused on her shooting form, honing how she caught the ball and how it left her hands. Her field goal, three-point and free-throw shooting percentages are all up this season. In EuroLeague games, she battled in the paint in a more physical style of basketball, often matching up against other WNBA players, focusing on playing more aggressive offense. She spent early February in Hungary, helping her national team against Spain, Japan and Canada in the Paris Olympics’ qualifying tournament.

And in rare off days, she explored northern Italy.

“That [training] brings the confidence, so that was definitely my number one target,” Juhász said. “But also just playing in a team where I was the team leader, so I had a lot of responsibility there. They were looking for me to score, they were looking for me to defend, so just taking on that was very good for me.”

The transition from Italy to the Lynx was a whirlwind for Juhász. After a playoff loss on May 21, she was on a flight to Minnesota the next day and made her Lynx season debut in an 84-67 win over the Liberty two days later. There was no preseason time for meeting new players and meshing into the chemistry the Lynx team has relied on this season.

“When I first came back and played right away, I was kind of tired,” Juhász said. “It was so quick pace. I forgot how quick it is in the WNBA, just literally running back and forth,” compared to in Europe, where they are “definitely using the whole shot clock.”

But Juhász got up to speed quickly, literally and figuratively. The tallest player on the Lynx, Juhász has offered a post defense partner to Alanna Smith and is often the first player off the Lynx bench — with the goal of “bringing energy” to the floor, Juhász said. This season, she is averaging 5.7 points and 3.9 rebounds per game.

“When a player says, ‘I’ll do whatever the team needs,’ I don’t know what percentage of them actually mean it,” Reeve said. “They all want to start, right, that’s kind of the thing. Dorka will give you the same thing every time she plays, the same good things.”