Q & A : Jennifer Azzi

From Day 1, 1997, the WNBA's Utah Starzz have had a crying need for a point guard.

They've had very popular, very enthusiastic players at the point, but they didn't get the ball to Elena Baranova, Wendy Palmer, Margo Dydek or Natalie Williams. They've had good defenders at the point, but they didn't translate into offense. They've had very young players at the point, and that's worked toward the future.

But a team that has averaged 18.2 turnovers a game in its 105-game existence (through June 26) obviously needs the organization of an experienced point guard.

The Starzz addressed that need with an April 24 trade with the Detroit Shock to obtain Jennifer Azzi, a 31-year-old former ABL all-star, Olympic gold medalist, three-time member of the U.S. World Championships teams that won gold in 1990 and 1998 and a pioneer of Stanford University basketball who won both the Wade Trophy and Naismith Player of the Year awards, symbolic of the best the NCAA had to offer in 1990.

But Azzi fell on a layup and broke the third metacarpal of her shooting hand at Portland during the second Starzz exhibition game, the same place where she'd torn up a shoulder three years earlier. The spiral fracture later displaced, and she had surgery May 25 in California.

Azzi is expected to make her Starzz regular-season debut in the next week or so, possibly Friday night against Detroit, the team that traded her to Utah after Azzi had briefly retired from professional ball in February.

Following are excerpts of a question-and-answer session between Azzi and Deseret News sports writer Linda Hamilton.

Deseret News: Can your skills put the Starzz on track?

Jennifer Azzi: It's a little bit of a big deal coming here. I'm sort of what they wanted as far as an experienced guard. But I don't think I'm the answer for our team. I think it's going to take all of us together to kind of turn it around and start winning games. You know, I don't think that we're a .500 team. I think we're a lot better than that, and we have a lot of talent. Sometimes when you have a lot of talent, we're almost not sure who has the responsibility.

Deseret News: What do you think you can bring that's been lacking?