Overseas Film Study: Robyn Parks
Checking in on how last year's rookie turned rotational mainstay continues to evolve with Schio in Italy.
After being made a reserved player with a qualifying offer last month, the Sky’s Robyn Parks delivered a career night for Schio in Sunday’s Coppa Italia final—picking up MVP honors and scoring 25 points. Playing with a top team like Schio overseas, Parks has continued the evolution that started in Chicago last season—from a talented main option into a versatile cog of a championship team. One skill that’s shined with Schio: Parks’ ability to uniquely manipulate screens to create scoring opportunities.
To understand what makes Parks so effective at using screens to generate offense with Schio, there’s a lot of layers that must be unpacked. First, Parks possesses an uber-quick release in all situations. Because of the volume of catch and shoot chances she got in Chicago last season, we’ve seen how efficient Parks is with her shot off the catch. However, that skill doesn’t always translate so smoothly to self-created shots off the dribble for others like it does for Parks. In the play below, you can see just how quickly she’s able to get the ball up off the dribble—giving her a chance for a pretty open look despite a strong late closeout by the Valencia defender. The context of this play allows her to walk into the shot somewhat—always a great recipe for a quick release—but (as we’ll see later) she has the ability to get the ball out quickly even after a true dribble pull-up.
In the next clip, we jump backwards in the same game for an example of how Parks’ patience with the ball and two-handedness makes her so challenging to defend. By simply staying put when the screen comes, Parks gets to observe as the defense puts all its card on the table. When the big (former WNBA center Marie Gülich) bites, Parks gets the ball into her left hand and starts to drive in the general direction of the corner. Gülich knows that if Parks loops and attacks baseline there’s only one winner in that footrace. Consequently, she commits fully to the left-hand and the crossover by Parks eliminates her from the play—opening a pathway to the basket. Parks, smartly, recalls the initial defender and gets the ball back to the safety of her left hand before finishing at the rim despite a great shot contest.
The third clip—from a league game against Brixia—again showcases the impact of hesitation. In this case, I actually think the defender reacts pretty well to the crossover and has the chance to defend Parks going left or right. However, the fatal error is that she’s anticipating a drive and, thus, backpedalling. Once again, Parks’ patience when using the screen has forced the defense to commit and the result is that she can now make a much more well-informed decision and get to a spot she’s extremely comfortable scoring from. The technical proficiency of Parks as a shooter is also on show here. Her tape suggests she’s plenty capable of hitting shots even when her feet aren’t set, but a pull-up like this shows how smoothly she can align her body to get the perfect release—even while moving left as a right-handed player.
Lastly, we see the full package of skills come together in one play. First, Parks’ ability to handle with her left allows her to fully drive the player marking her (Katy Armanu) into the screen—with Parks’ right side actually going through the screener as well. As Parks comes off the screen, the big (Courtney Range) is left conflicted as a result of Parks’ patience and seeming lack of commitment to a drive or pull-up. Range’s reaction—or lack thereof—leaves her stuck in no man’s land, and that’s just as good of a green light for Parks to pull the trigger as the backpedal was in the previous instance. Meanwhile, Armanu has actually done well to fight through the screen, but the angling of Parks’ body and the left-handed dribble means there’s little she can do to impact the shot.
Another key piece of Parks’ game overseas is the consistency of locations she’s taking shots from. The free throw circle—for instance—is an area where she’s clearly very comfortable scoring the ball (see 3 of the 4 clips above), and her intentionality in moving on and off the ball with the end goal of arriving in those hot spots elevates her mid-range game. In fact, despite the mid-range being regularly referred to as a dying art, you’ll often find that those who have a couple of spots they can score from again and again are still more than effective mid-range (and overall offensive) players. For Schio, Parks’ consistency getting to and scoring from these favored areas is instrumental to the overall structure of the offense under head coach George Dikeoulakos. Dikeoulakos has frequently used Parks’ ability to score from specific areas—especially with a quick pull-up off of a screen—as part of designed after time-out plays. This is an area where—in Spoon’s offense—I think we could see Parks flourish.
In contrast to overseas where Parks seems to get one-or-two shots per game minimum from the free-throw circle, she took just one shot there during the whole of last season—with a few others from nearby. Even if Spoon installs just one play a game that gets Parks a look from that area, the percentage she’s hitting overseas means it’s likely to produce a positive outcome more often than not. And while these types of nuances feel insignificant in the broader context of a game where teams exchange hundreds of possessions, it’s important for Chicago’s new coaching staff to understand how all of their players’ unique skillsets can be maximized to give the Sky as many avenues as possible to score.
And for that same reason, the rest of the creative skills Parks brings to the table at the offensive end will also be key for Chicago because players who can effectively generate their own offense are hard to come by—even in a league so flush with talent. If (or, likely, when) Dana Evans moves from the bench to the starting line-up, the Sky’s second unit—which already lacked creativity at times last season—will need others to step forward and take on the responsibility of creating offense even when the plays Spoon draws up aren’t leading to scores. With her skillset and unique ability to force a defense into showing its hand, Parks can easily be a far more influential and diverse offensive player in 2024 than she was as a catch and shoot force a season ago.