Amanda Brown sounds excited about her tryout with the Sparks, who picked her thirty-eighth in this year's draft. Brown, a Canadian, wants to be a child psychiatrist when her hoops career is done.

Also in Sparks camp: a gaggle of veterans, among them Kaayla Chones, Gwen Jackson, Sheila Lambert, Tamara Moore (who started almost every Sparks game last year), and the once-heralded Brandy Reed, whose previous WNBA chances ended in 2002 after multiple arrests.

Sparks assistant Michael Abraham knows all about getting beyond an unsavory past: maybe he can re-start Reed's career.