Charles Breaks Record With More Sure To Fall

by Jeff Jacobs

Her appetite for greatness grows with each passing year. Tina Charles is watching tapes of Tim Duncan now. She is watching tapes of Hakeem Olajuwon. Anything, everything to get better.

If that sounds a little too old school, well, it is.

"I say tapes, too, and my players look at me like I'm crazy," coach Mike Thibault said after Charles scored 22 more points and pulled in 11 more rebounds Sunday to make WNBA history in the Sun's 92-73 win over the Atlanta Dream at Mohegan Sun Arena. "They are DVDs that she watches."

Charles is a double-double machine, and that machine whirs on without the flash, dash, bells and whistles of some of the other greatest basketball players in the world. That's why Thibault compares her to Duncan. There is serenity in her play. She competes in the eye of the hurricane.

Not only did Charles tie Taj McWilliams-Franklin's franchise record of 50 double-doubles in just 75 games on Sunday — it took Taj 241 — Charles broke the WNBA record as fastest to 50 in 16 fewer games than Natalie Williams.

"I couldn't have predicted she would break that kind of record so fast," Thibault said.

"She just killed it," Asjha Jones said.

Assistant coach Scott Hawk gets the DVDs of Spurs and old Rockets games from NBA Entertainment or NBA TV. He breaks them down to individual sequences so Charles can examine the intricate ballet of interior play.

"I love the way those two guys play in the post," Charles said.

That love is indicative of how insatiable she has become in the pursuit of greatness. Thibault, in fact, is trying to set up a couple of days for Charles to meet with Olajuwon after the end of the season.

"She studies NBA post players, even old school player,s and she tries to steal a little bit from everybody's game," Thibault said. "She's still a work in progress. I don't know who she is yet, but Duncan is probably the closest right now."

We all knew Tina Charles was going to be great after the Sun swung a deal with Minnesota and drafted her No. 1 out of UConn in the 2010 WNBA draft. We just didn't know how great and how fast it would be.

She led the WNBA in rebounds as a rookie and duplicated that feat last season. She led the WNBA in double-doubles as a rookie and duplicated that last season, too. During an impressive 6-1 Sun start, she's averaging 20.9 points and 11.3 rebounds. On Sunday, she also set the franchise record with 19 consecutive games scoring in double figures. Tina is a force.

"She can become one of the best of all time if it continues this way," Thibault said.

Lisa Leslie is first all-time with 157 WNBA double-doubles. Yolanda Griffith is second with 81. In only her third season, Charles is on her way to destroying the record. You want a goal, Tina? Wilt Chamberlain once had 227 double-doubles in a row.

She started working on hook shots with both hands in college. Every day she works on her interior moves, spinning left, spinning right. Every day she works on her drive through the lane from 15 feet, on her jump shot from 15 to 18 feet. She has to be one of the 10 best players in the world right now and arguably the best center.

"She is one of the best players," Thibault said.

And we didn't know when she was 21 that we'd automatically be saying that at 23.

"I would agree," Thibault said. "I'm so proud of her for how she has grown up. I'm most proud of that. She's willing to talk about anything."

I once found her to be a reluctant talker.


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