Minnesota Lynx general manager and head coach Cheryl Reeve shares her reaction to Maya Moore's announcement to skip the upcoming WNBA season with Jana Shortal.
Reeve: "It's more than basketball – we have always said that about this group and we have understood that Maya had a tug to do other things."
"Maya in this case just feels like she's tried a lot of things along the way to manage her interests. She has a very strong interest in ministry and being a pro basketball player doesn't allow her to fully walk the life she wants to walk."
"She has tried taking an overseas season off. She's tried. People say (she wants) rest it's not rest she wants to commit more fully to other things in her life and basketball is in the way of that right now. She wants to explore the idea of not having basketball, overseas and the WNBA and just take a year and see if she can't find a way to pursue what she wants to do in that area and then see if there is a way to bring it all back together."
But what about losing Moore as a player?
Reeve: "It's not difficult to support your players in what they want. Is it difficult to manage the basketball part of it, it's going to be more difficult for sure but I'm not conflicted, it would be selfish of me to only focus on basketball."
On what Maya's teammates think of her decision.
Reeve: "All of them want to see Maya happy. They all want to see each other happy. I know it's different than men's sports. I don't know if it's because we are women or if its just a special group of players that are cool people. It really is about more than basketball.