June 17, 2009
A month ago, Christina Wirth was simply getting used to the change of living in Indianapolis. After making the final roster of the Indiana Fever, no easy task, she’s making a bigger adjustment to playing professional basketball.
Wirth earned her way on after being the 19th overall pick in the draft, surviving several cuts.
“It was exciting, it was a relief, it was a lot of things,” Wirth said.
But even the final roster wasn’t actually, well, finalized.
“Even after they made the final roster, it probably lasted a week and they made more cuts,” Wirth said. “It reminded me that there’s really nothing that’s guaranteed at all so you’ve got to fight for your spot every day.”
It’s been a fight in more ways than one since she transitioned into the WNBA. It’s a different city, different team and a different system for Wirth. The camaraderie aspect of basketball has also been difficult to match from her Vanderbilt days, given the well-known closeness that existed among her and her Commodore teammates.
“That was tough during training camp, because I don’t know a soul in Indianapolis, no family or anything,” Wirth said. “(It was hard) coming here, after being on a team for four years with girls I thought of as my sisters, and then just being here and I don’t know anyone.
“But once the roster was set, it obviously encourages people to start to build some relationships, because you’ll probably be with these people for a few months at least. The more that you travel and do stuff off the court together, that just really helps in the bonding experience.”
Wirth scored the first regular season points of her professional career in her latest game. Fittingly, it was a 3-pointer, her specialty while with the Commodores, in a 73-61 victory over the Los Angeles Sparks that improved the Fever’s record to 2-2.
She’s mainly played at small and power forward, and that means defending pros far larger than their collegiate counterparts.
“Huge girls and I’m very undersized,” Wirth said. “That’s a big adjustment, how physical it is, the speed of the game. It’s kind of like the high school and college transition, but all over again and a whole new level.”
Wirth has seen limited minutes off the bench but played in every game as she slowly gets the hang of Indiana’s offensive system.
“I’m basically trying to learn all 5 positions, which I think takes a little bit of time obviously,” Wirth said. “So I think that if I get a little more comfortable with the spots that I’m playing, and obviously every day in practice when I’m playing against these amazing players, that’s just going to make me better.”
At 6-feet-1 inches tall, Wirth has the perfect body type to play almost every spot on the floor under head coach Lin Dunn. She’s used to that, having played everywhere on the court but point guard under Melanie Balcomb at Vanderbilt.
“I just trust my coaches to put me in positions where they think I can help the team the most,” Wirth said. “That’s what’s great about my size I guess, that I have a versatility to post up a smaller player, take a bigger player outside and go by them. They can use a player like me to throw different looks at the opponent.”
In the meantime, she has to cope with being the low woman on the totem pole. That’s part of the fun though.
“In a lot of ways, I kind of feel like a freshman again. My teammates make sure to remind me that I’m a rookie sometimes,” Wirth said. “It’s different, going from being a senior and leading your team to back to square one almost. That’s part of it and it’s a big learning process.”