The South East Queensland Stars have signed American import Jordan Hooper to replace the departed DeNesha Stallworth who will now play for the struggling Canberra Capitals.
Stallworth and the Stars mutually agreed to end the former Kentucky player’s time with the new WNBL club last week, opening the door for the Shane Heal coached side to sign Hooper, who was drafted in the second round of the 2014 WNBA draft by the Tulsa Shock after an outstanding college career at Nebraska where she was the 2014 Big Ten Player of the Year.
Heal said he feels Hooper will add steel to the interior defence of his side, who have been dominated by some of the WNBL’s talented bigs in recent games.
“She's a different sort of player and we needed something different, I think the biggest thing with DeNesha was we were like a bit of donut, three opposing centres had 33,30 and 28 points, so I felt like it was going to be difficult to win a championship with her,” he said.
“We want to build a team around desire and toughness and we think Jordan’s character and goals to succeed at a WNBA level will compliment our young team extremely well,” he said.
Heal was confident Hooper’s skill set would suit the Stars style of play.
“She's not a centre, we've gone and found a power forward,so we are still going to be small but she is a WNBA player, she more of a Kelsey Griffin type player, she's mobile, she can play inside and out and she plays with a lot of aggression, she's had two years in the WNBA, she set all kinds of records at college for double doubles....she's a top quality player,” he said.
Hooper has two years experience in the WNBA, with the Tulsa Shock and has also played professionally for Turkish side Besiktas. She has also represented the USA at the World University games where they won the gold medal.
Though Stallworth made a solid start with the Stars, her performances slowly declined, especially defensively, and Heal said both he and the American import felt she had lost her way in terms of what was required of her and so the decision was made by both parties to end her tenure in Queensland.
“The thing was she knew she wasn't fitting in and the longer it went on I felt like her performances continued to deteriorate, she wasn't doing the things that we needed her to do, so she wasn't playing the same sort of court time and we are going to reward the girls who are doing the things that we want, you look at Nadeen Payne who started off playing smaller minutes and how can I not play her when she's doing all those things, so she ended up starting instead of DeNesha,” he said.
“DeNesha didn't want to come off the bench and didn't want to be kept accountable so it was a mutual agreement because I certainly wasn't going to be changing the way we keep our culture, so we were much better off bringing somebody in who was going to fit what we are trying to do, and has got the right attitude to what we're trying to do.”
Stallworth will now ply her trade with the struggling Capitals who are yet to win a game from 10 starts this season and Heal said the club hopes to see her succeed in the nations Capital.
“We wish DeNesha all the best in Canberra, she will be a great addition to their team,” Heal said.
Hooper has been signed for the remainder of the WNBL season and arrives in Queensland this week and will be available to play once all visa arrangements are finalised which is expected to be next week in time for the Stars’ away game against Perth on December 11.
The Logan based club have also recently announced they have re-signed Payne for the 2016/2017 season. The Stars play Bendigo on Sunday at the Logan Metro Sports Centre.
