Betty Lennox proves a great fit for L.A. Sparks

Most of her teammates had left the practice facility an hour before, but the Sparks' Betty Lennox kept swishing jumpers.

"Practice is over, Betty," Coach Michael Cooper said. "You can go home."

This is nothing new. Lennox shoots for at least another 45 minutes after practice. Off-days mean two-hour workouts. And the 32-year-old veteran guard and one-time All-Star knows why.

"It could be a good thing and it could be a bad thing," Lennox said, "but I'm a workaholic."

Tonight, the Sparks (8-12) play host to the Sacramento Monarchs in what will be her second game since missing three because of inflammation in her left knee.

Lennox averages 13.4 points per game, which ranks her among the WNBA's top 20 in scoring.

Yet she briefly walks away when questions turn to her five former teams, including the Minnesota Lynx, who drafted her sixth overall in 2000, and the Seattle Storm, whom she helped win a title in 2004 while earning honors as most valuable player in the WNBA finals.

It is that intensity, that edginess that has caused some coaches to suggest Lennox can disrupt team chemistry, but there is no consensus.

The Sparks love her, from the front office ("It's been a joy to work with her," General Manager Penny Toler said) to the coaches ("Betty is all we had pictured her to be," Cooper said), to her teammates ("Betty fits right in," forward Tina Thompson said).

Lennox, who wanted the Sparks to draft her, likened her April signing to a multiyear deal as "hitting the jackpot."

"I could hear in her voice she was happy," Ruby Lennox, one of Betty's eight siblings, said of a recent phone conversation. "It was a sound of being really at peace."

Lennox's career carries some regret.

Her seven tattoos, which feature barbed wire and the Tazmanian Devil, symbolize a reputation she has struggled to erase: an out-of-control persona that first exploded at Louisiana Tech, where she wrote on Coach Leon Barmore's chalkboard demanding not to play in the second half of a regular-season game.

She was the WNBA's rookie of the year, but then-Lynx Coach Brian Agler said he wanted a "true point guard" and midway through the 2002 season she was traded to the Miami Sol.

When her next team, the Cleveland Rockers, dissolved, she rejuvenated her career in Seattle. Yet last year, she was left unprotected in the expansion draft and found herself with the Atlanta Dream.