WNBA Title Has Olympic Ring to It

HOUSTON — With the league’s best player, the coach of the year and a roster that includes four Olympians--and maybe one future Olympian, USC rookie Tina Thompson--the Houston Comets are poised to win the WNBA’s first championship today.

Trouble is, the Comets are up against a rejuvenated New York Liberty team that arrived here on the strength of a semifinal performance at Phoenix that reminded its coach of the 15-4 Liberty team of July.

And Houston may be a player short. Forward Wanda Guyton, after colliding with Thompson in the Comets’ 70-54 semifinal victory over Charlotte, suffered a concussion when her head hit the floor. Her availability will be a game-time decision, the team said.

New York, which threatened to bury the rest of the league at season’s start before going into a slide in the homestretch, seemed to retrieve it all at Phoenix.

Coach Nancy Darsch got excellent games from inside players Rebecca Lobo and Kym Hampton, but the Liberty was aided considerably by poor Mercury shooting.

League MVP Cynthia Cooper might be making her final WNBA appearance tonight. She makes the maximum WNBA salary, $50,000, and will want to make at least Lobo-Lisa Leslie-Sheryl Swoopes money, $250,000, with NBA personal services contracts, next year.

Houston Coach Van Chancellor has blended four Olympians--Cooper, Swoopes, Tammy Jackson and Janeth Arcain--with the 6-foot-3 Thompson, a candidate for the 2000 U.S. team.

New York defeated Houston three times early in the season, but the Comets pounded New York in Madison Square Garden, 70-55, on Aug. 17, during a stretch when New York lost seven of eight.

Spark center Haixia Zheng won the WNBA’s Sportsmanship Award, which earns her $5,000 and another $5,000 for the youth recreation organization of her choice.