Sparks' Candace Parker keeps the balls in the air

She is on the clock and needs to move.

"What's the quickest way to get to UCLA from here?" Candace Parker asked a van full of fellow volunteers. "I don't want to get stuck in traffic."

The WNBA superstar and reigning most valuable player has to watch the clock these days as she does the impossible: balance her career with being a new mom.

At this moment, in June, she has finished redecorating apartments in Inglewood for domestic violence victims. Before that, she scrambled home to feed her baby, Lailaa. Before that, she practiced with the Sparks for the first time this season -- and none too soon in her view, having missed the first eight games in the 34-game season.

Her day was not over, though. She still had to pick up her godbrother Kenny, who was in town to visit her and her husband, Boston Celtics forward Shelden Williams.

Parker, 23, calls this juggling act a "process."

"It's difficult in any situation, when something new happens, to balance it," Parker said. "Sometimes when you're juggling something, you lose sight of other things."

She hasn't lost sight of the one thing that eluded her and the Sparks last season: a title.

With three games left in the regular season, she enters tonight's contest against the San Antonio Silver Stars averaging 12.7 points, a WNBA-best 9.2 rebounds and a league-leading 1.96 blocks per game.

Being MVP and rookie of the year, having the league's top-selling jersey and signing lucrative endorsements indicate a popularity WNBA Commissioner Donna Orender says "continues to grow."

Parker knows all eyes are on her. But she is not alone in this balancing act. There are 13 mothers playing in the WNBA, a list that includes four other Sparks, Lisa Leslie and Tina Thompson among them.

Williams, who is a hands-on dad, said it has worked out fine.

"I haven't seen her overwhelmed," he said. "It's hard for her, but she hasn't pulled her hair out."

She has had plenty of people to keep her calm. Last winter, when an anxious Parker told her brother, Marcus, she was pregnant, he laughed and told her, "You try to write an amazing comeback story every year."

She knew he was right. In high school, she came back from a torn ligament in her left knee to lead Naperville (Ill.) Central High to its second state title in a row. As a junior at Tennessee, Parker won her second national title while wearing a sling to support her dislocated left shoulder.