Cappie Pondexter Leading Chicago Sky into WNBA Playoffs

We had so much fun this year. She shot 19-for-19 from the free throw line in the game to set a WNBA record for most free throws made without a miss. Her veteran leadership has been invaluable to the young Sky team, and she has taken away some of the defensive pressure off their rising superstar in Delle Donne.

Chicago Sky’s Elena Delle Donne, center left, reaches above… Delle Donne also was third in both rebounds (8.4) and blocks (2.06).

“That was pretty scary previous year”, Delle Donne told The News Journal on Wednesday, “just seeing if I’d be healthy enough to be on the court”.

She finished the regular season averaging a league-best 23.4 points, and also has the WNBA’s top free-throw accuracy at 95 percent (207 of 218).

National Basketball Association superstar LeBron James tweeted at Delle Donne after it was announced she won.

Seeded No. 2 in the Eastern Conference, the Sky (21-13) opens a best-of-three playoff series Thursday at 8 p.m. (ESPN2) against visiting Indiana (20-14). (That includes Cynthia Cooper’s first MVP in 1997, when Houston was in the East. The Comets moved to the West in 1998, when Cooper won it a second time.) The other two East winners were Indiana’s Tamika Catchings in 2011, and Tina Charles, then of Connecticut, in 2012. Players were awarded 10 points for each first-place vote, seven for second, five for third, three for fourth, and one for fifth.

A former rookie of the year, Delle Donne is having her best season since entering the WNBA in 2013 out of the University of Delaware. “That’s huge for me and losing Sylvia made me want to step it up defensively on the boards because we didn’t have someone there who was just an eraser”.

In addition to being named the WNBA Eastern Conference Player of the Month presented by Samsung for June, Delle Donne earned the conference’s Player of the Week honor a league-best five times.

As excited as Delle Donne was to win the award, she has loftier thoughts.

The 6-5 Delle Donne, who WNBA watchers compare to Kevin Durant or Dirk Nowitzki, was once thought of as the Bill Walton or Lew Alcindor of UConn women’s basketball-the next great, untouchable star to suit up for the sport’s biggest dynasty.