{"id":14854,"date":"2020-05-28T17:02:10","date_gmt":"2020-05-28T07:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basketball.draftcentral.com.au\/?p=14854"},"modified":"2020-05-30T18:36:44","modified_gmt":"2020-05-30T08:36:44","slug":"young-guns-in-the-wnbl-shyla-heal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/young-guns-in-the-wnbl-shyla-heal\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Guns in the WNBL: Shyla Heal"},"content":{"rendered":"

COMING off a stellar season with the Bendigo Spirit, Shyla Heal<\/strong> continues to drive home the message that \u201cage is just a number\u201d, with the 18-year-old developing into one of the Womens National Basketball League\u2019s (WNBL) top guards and currently sits as one of the league\u2019s biggest unsigned prospects.<\/p>\n

As Heal\u2019s contract with the Spirit would wind down following the conclusion of the 2019\/20 season, Bendigo have at this stage tendered an extension, but it would seem that the NSW-born star is keen to test the waters of free-agency and find a more consistent role in a starting point-guard position.<\/p>\n

In the past, Heal has openly stated her intentions to participate in next year\u2019s WNBA draft<\/a>, her development is key if she is to give herself the best chance of success but is still keen to make a championship push wherever she lands.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny team I play on I always want to win, I\u2019m a competitor. Any season I go into I want to win a championship, so that\u2019s definitely the main thing,\u201d Heal explained. \u201cBut development is really important to me considering I\u2019m still young and the draft is coming up. So, in summary, first, win a championship, second, get better every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following a fragmented and injury-prone second season with the Perth Lynx in 2018\/19, the move to Bendigo was a suitable one, as Heal would land herself in a team that would give her a good number of minutes, thus allowing her to develop at a tremendous rate and aid her side in numerous facets of their games.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe plays both ends of the floor really well,\u201d Spirit Head Coach Tracy York <\/em><\/strong>said. \u201cShe\u2019s a great defender and loves to defend end-line to end-line which is fantastic and not seen from a lot of guards these days, but she\u2019s great sticking to someone like glue,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Not only does Heal\u2019s defensive ability stand out to York, but her ability to put numbers on the scoreboard has proved beneficial on various occasions too, with York noting Heal\u2019s scoring prowess and ability to take on defenders.<\/p>\n

Heal\u2019s progression throughout the season would be evident in her 21 games from last season. She averaged 9.8 points, three rebounds and 1.2 assists per game through her first 10 contests of the season. But, from Bendigo\u2019s first matchup with the Townsville Fire all the way to the conclusion of the season, Heal\u2019s averages increased to 14.2 points, 5.2 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game, including a 30-point demolition job of her old side Perth late in the season.<\/p>\n

While Heal\u2019s statistics would rise over her campaign, her minutes did too. Participating in 22.7 minutes per game over the first half of the season, York would continue to increase Heal\u2019s workload, increasing her minutes per game to 27 by the end of Round 16.<\/p>\n

Heal\u2019s season stat line finished with 12.1 points per outing, along with 4.1 and 1.6 being the averages for her rebounding and assist categories, while shooting at a 43.8 per cent clip from the field.<\/p>\n

As numbers would go up, the main takeaway from last season for Heal was the experience she gained each time out and going up against a high level of competition on a more consistent basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust gaining more experience against veterans like Leilani Mitchell<\/strong><\/a> [for example], picking up things from her game and adding it to mine,\u201d Heal said . \u201cLittle things like that, I think were really big for me this season, especially playing behind Tessa Lavey<\/strong> and learning little things from her,\u201d Heal followed up with.<\/p>\n

However, Heal would finish the season feeling she had a lot more to offer, after the Sapphire-selectee would play a lot of the time at the shooting-guard position, as opposed to her regular point-guard spot. The Spirit finished the season equal last with the Townsville Fire, resulting in a five win and 16 loss campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis season kind of left me hungry,\u201d Heal said. \u201cI didn\u2019t really play the one [point-guard] spot much, which is my usual position. So, I didn\u2019t really get to show the league what I could actually do playing my proper position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heal developed a close relationship with Lavey both on and off the floor at Bendigo, with the two being flatmates. Lavey earned herself an Opals selection to this year’s Olympic Games, with Heal lapping up all the wisdom she can from the basketball veteran.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me it was obviously a great friendship,\u201d Lavey said. \u201cI like to think she can message me at any time and ask questions and I\u2019m always happy to help Shyla out because she\u2019s a really good person,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Taking on a mentoring role for Heal, Lavey was able to feed off the youngster\u2019s energy in-game, creating what was a two-way street for helping each other\u2019s games.<\/p>\n

\u201cStrictly on the court, Shyla is a competitor,\u201d included Lavey. \u201cWe fed off each other very well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShyla in some games struggled a lot just to get into the game and she was really worried about that, so the things I would say to her were \u2018focus on the next thing\u2019, or if she\u2019s not scoring I\u2019d say \u2018you can always be doing something else\u2019,\u201d the 27-year-old said, ultimately summarising what would blossom into a formidable partnership for the blue and yellow.<\/p>\n

What is Heal focusing on now? For now, the 18-year-old has set various goals for herself, bearing in mind the new restrictions COVID-19 have put in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the start of Corona I said I\u2019m going to focus on building heaps of muscle and getting stronger through stair running, weights in my garage and all that stuff,\u201d Heal said.<\/p>\n

This training regiment and structure would transfer to cardio with her father [Shane], on playing fields such as ovals, for around two to two and a half hours per session, roughly six times a week, as Heal prepares to market herself to possible teams during the offseason.<\/p>\n

But for now, in terms of decisions, all Heal can do is wait, as the rest of the league and WNBL fans await an announcement for when the Free Agency period will open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

COMING off a stellar season with the Bendigo Spirit, Shyla Heal continues to drive home the message that \u201cage is just a number\u201d, with the 18-year-old developing into one of the Womens National Basketball League\u2019s (WNBL) top guards and currently sits as one of the league\u2019s biggest unsigned prospects. As Heal\u2019s contract with the Spirit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":14821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2809,2871,11],"tags":[394,240,302,590,392,38,2067,2110,205,1997,1971,391,1972],"class_list":["post-14854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bendigo-spirit","category-news","category-wnbl","tag-adelaide-lightning","tag-bendigo-spirit","tag-leilani-mitchell","tag-melbourne-boomers","tag-perth-lynx","tag-shyla-heal","tag-southside-flyers","tag-sydney-uni-flames","tag-tessa-lavey","tag-townsville-fire","tag-tracy-york","tag-uc-capitals","tag-wnbl"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}