ATLANTA — Emma Meesseman completed her 10th game with the Liberty on Saturday, but the outcome of her first three weeks has not been what she — or anyone else within the organization — wanted.
The Libs have gone 5-5 since Meesseman signed on Aug. 1.
Meesseman has reached double-digit scoring in all but one game and averaged 13.5 points, 5.8 rebounds and 3.9 assists.
Despite her individual success, Meesseman is keeping her attention focused on the team level and isn’t satisfied with the team outcomes.
“I’m just looking at the result and looking at the result, it’s always a tough game,” Messeman told The Post. “I feel like we’re making it very hard on ourselves sometimes. So I don’t think we should be too happy with just having a win. … I’m not going to give grades because it doesn’t matter because I think we can do better.”
Meesseman decided this summer to return to the WNBA after a nearly three-year hiatus not only because of the league’s boom in popularity, but because she wanted to help the Liberty defend their 2024 title.
Joining a team midseason is hard for any player, including a veteran of Meesseman’s status.
But the Liberty’s injuries have exacerbated the challenges of her integration.
Meesseman had played alongside or against most of the Liberty roster prior to her signing.
She also has familiarity with Sandy Brondello and assistant coaches Olaf Lange and Andrew Wade.
But Meesseman is still learning the tendencies of those teammates who were unfamiliar to her.
“I know how I can play or something, so in the beginning I could do all that and now we’re just still trying to [learn] each other because we keep losing pieces,” Meesseman said. “But that’s how it is. There’s no excuses at this point, but I don’t know. There’s no answer.”
Even with Meesseman, the Liberty continue to deal with the same issues as before.
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The only consistent trends lately have been bad ones.
They continue to struggle with rebounding and stopping opponents from crashing the offensive glass.
The Liberty are surrendering too many possessions with their poor execution on the boards.
Careless turnovers and losing the battle of the boards are hurting the Liberty’s chances of repeating.
“I do know that you have to be good in those in order to win,” Meesseman said. “But I’m also confident that we should be able to overcome it. But it’s not enough to talk about it, I think, at this point. Because we know. But I don’t know what the solution is at this point.”
