Free agent Tamika Whitmore might be one step closer to changing her address from New York to Los Angeles.

	Tamika Whitmore has played all five of her previous WNBA seasons in New York.

As of Friday night, the Sparks had made a qualifying offer of $80,000 for two years for Whitmore, a 6-foot-2 forward who has spent all five of her WNBA seasons in New York.

It's unlikely the Liberty can match the offer, which means Whitmore, who started 29 of 33 games last season for New York, averaging 8.2 points, 3.7 rebounds and 25 minutes while shooting 45.5 percent from the field, might be the newest Spark some time in the next few days.

Milton-Jones had already earned a spot on the 12-player U.S. Women's Senior National Team roster that would play in the Olympics on Aug. 13-29, but the knee injury cast some doubt on whether the 29-year-old would actually get to compete. Even a six-month window to try to get her knee back to 100 percent was no guarantee.

Turns out, Milton-Jones only needed two months. Though she hasn't participated in on-court drills, Milton-Jones has been officially cleared to play with the Sparks and the U.S. national team.

While the brief time away is amazing -- most players can't come back from a torn ACL for at least six months -- Milton-Jones also has done it without the aid of reconstructive surgery. Though two MRIs -- one by USA Basketball shortly after the initial injury and a second test five weeks later by the L.A. Sparks -- indicated a complete tear of the ACL in her right knee, Milton-Jones' latest MRI shows scar tissue but no tear.

So what's the secret? Sources close to Milton-Jones say she opted to forego surgery and instead headed to see a specialist in Austria who focuses on "knee tissue manipulation," which is believed to stimulate re-growth of the tissue in a non-invasive procedure.

Regardless of how Milton-Jones was able to return, this is a huge bonus for WNBA fans and America. Milton-Jones, who has improved her game every year since graduating from Florida in 1997, is a tremendous rebounder and great physical defender. She's also very savvy and is known to get in other players' heads, which is one reason she's nicknamed D-Nasty.

With the Sparks, Milton-Jones also is the perfect complement to Lisa Leslie. Milton-Jones will stay in the paint and fight it out at the 5, which allows Leslie to play free athletically, roam the floor and go out and play the 4 at times.

Last season, Milton-Jones helped the Sparks to a 24-10 record as L.A. advanced through the playoffs to the finals. She finished ranked 14th among league leaders in scoring (13.4 ppg.), 12th in rebounds (7.1 rpg.) seventh in blocks (1.32 bpg.) and eighth in steals (1.58 spg.).

Milton-Jones was a WNBA All-Star in 2000, the same year she was part of the gold-medal winning U.S. women's basketball team at the Sydney Olympics. She was the fourth overall pick in the 1999 draft, and enters this season with 1,804 career points and 970 rebounds.

	Holdsclaw

Washington acquired 6-foot-3 Chasity Melvin in January's dispersal draft and then selected 6-3 Kaayla Chones from NC State in the April 17 WNBA draft. Those two big bodies means Chamique Holdsclaw -- forced to play power forward the past two seasons because the Mystics lacked a true center -- will finally be able to return to playing small forward.

First-year coach Michael Adams is eager to make the switch.

"(Holdsclaw) is quick enough to beat any power forward in this league, and then she's strong enough to overpower any small forward in this league that tries to guard her," Adams said in the Washington Times last week. "I think If we put her at small forward, we're running plays where she posts up more and not necessarily out on the perimeter."

He's right. Holdsclaw is at her best at small forward, where she creates huge mismatch problems. Nobody works the baseline like she does.