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Alana Beard's locker looked like a miniature hospital ward after Washington Mystics games last season. Electrodes were attached to her left shoulder, connected to an imposing-looking stim machine that sat on the floor.
"I don't know how I managed to get through an entire year," she said.
She not only played, she excelled again, finishing fourth in the WNBA in points (18.8) and steals (1.94) per game. She was selected for the league's All-Star game for the third time and kept the Mystics in playoff contention until the final day of the regular season despite an 0-8 start.
But her valiant effort came with a price. Literally.
After playing in pain the entire season, Beard had surgery in September to repair a torn labrum. In most any other professional league, that would be the obvious choice: Go under the knife once the season is done, then use the offseason to heal.
But Beard and many other WNBA players make their real money in the offseason, playing overseas. The smart move financially would have been to have the surgery at the start of the WNBA season so that she could do her usual trips abroad, with the additional bonus of being healthy in plenty of time to make her case to be chosen for the U.S. Olympic team this summer.
"A lot of people were in my ear: 'AB, you have to think about your future, you have a bright future ahead of you,"' Beard said. "And I said, 'Yeah, but I also have a team that's working their butts off to play this game and to win, and I couldn't give up on that.
"I gave up a chance to make 10 times as much as I make in the WNBA to stay here. Those were the decisions that I went to sleep with thinking about every night."
Beard said the 10 times figure was a "a bit of an exaggeration," but not much. Overseas, American players are treated like valuable investments by sponsors intent on winning championships and generating publicity. Team jerseys have prominent advertisers' logos, which also appear on the sides of the cars the Americans are given to drive.
Even with her shoulder not completely healed, Beard was in such demand that she was signed by a Polish team in March just for the playoffs. She joined a team - Lotos Gdynia - that also included Americans Dominique Canty and Chamique Holdsclaw. They led Lotos to the finals but lost the championship series in Game 7.
"I still don't have full range in my shoulder," Beard said. "That's going to take about 18 months. There's still certain things I can't do without pain, but it'll come with time. There will be a day when it's all better."
Now back in Washington, Beard is preparing for the Mystics' season. Still a bit jet-lagged and not really in full basketball shape, Beard finds her plight a challenge to her usually upbeat nature. She'll miss the first two games, including the opener Saturday at Indiana.
"If anything, I'm getting tested now," Beard said. "Coming back and being where you once were. After surgery was the beginning of my test. I'm not naturally a frustrated person, but I do have high expectations of myself and when I don't meet those expectations, I can become pretty frustrated."
Beard calls making the Olympic team her "No. 1 goal," but her injury has her on the bubble for a trip to Beijing. She originally injured the shoulder while playing with the U.S. national team a year ago.
At least she has the full vote of confidence from the Mystics, who gave her a four-year contract in February.
"You have your good and you have your bad days," Beard said. "But you know eventually it's going to get better with time."
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