Q&A with ... Candace Parker

Candace Parker earned WNBA MVP and Rookie of the Year in her first season in the WNBA. Getty Images

WNBA MVP and Olympic gold medalist Candace Parker came by Tuesday to hang out in the Sports Illustrated offices ... staffers gathered around to ask her about life, Sheldon and why she's better at Dominos than Carmelo Anthony. Below is an abbreviated version of the conversation.

SI: How's [Coach Summitt's] shoulder doing?
Candace Parker: Good. No more fights with raccoons.

SI: How did that go over when she told you guys about that?
CP: She told us at the end of the SEC tournament. We noticed when she was coaching, she was like, you gotta play defense, and only lifted up one shoulder, but she told us how it happened, she wrestled a raccoon and stuff.

SI: You gotta kind of admire her for it ...
CP: Yeah, we got her a Davey Crockett hat.

SI: Do you talk to Coach Summitt a lot now?
CP: Coach Summitt recently got into the texting game, she'll text me all the time, she'll text me throughout the season, you know just checking up on me. Obviously I hit her up a couple times just about the season and how the freshmen are doing and is there anything I could do, but I think Tennessee is going to be good this year.

SI: But she texts like an old person right?
CP: Yeah she finishes every word. She doesn't understand the abbreviations. I don't like text full sentences at all, I stay 'der' instead of there. That's fun.

SI: So what was the most memorable part of the Olympics?
CP: China was a great experience. Just with it being my first Olympics and honestly with talking to everyone that had been [before], they put on the best Olympics by far. They put it on great, and just meeting all of the other athletes in the ceremonies, it was just a lot of fun. I didn't really get a chance to go out and see -- I mean I went to the Great Wall, I went to Tiananmen Square but other than that I really didn't get a chance to go out and experience China.

SI: What's it like playing with Lisa Leslie?
CP: It was a lot of fun, obviously growing up and watching her, she is the WNBA. Just being a part of that and watching her and her helping me and mentoring me throughout the year, I learned a lot. We had a blast, it was a great year, I just wish it ended a little bit differently.

SI: What about Coach Cooper?
CP: Coop's cool. I like him a lot. He's a player's coach, he really is. You can tell he's from Pat Riley's system because you can be at practice for 3.5 hours, two hour game day shootarounds, but he's really focused. The guy doesn't sleep -- he sleeps about two hours a night and watches game film six hours, so he's really dedicated and committed to the Sparks.

SI: What's the difference between Pat Summit's coaching and Coach Cooper's playing style?
CP: Coach Cooper does a lot of his coaching in practice. During games he just kind of sits there and lets us mess up or lets us do great. He kind of lets us work through our problems. Coach Summit's a little more animated and although she does a lot of teaching in practice, she does a lot in the games as well.

The similarities between that they both are player's coaches that when he calls a time out, if you see something, you can go up to either one of them. With Coach Summit I'd be like there's mismatch with Alexis Hornbuckle, you should post her up. With Coop, it's the same thing. You know I enjoy playing for both of them and they both are very different and in a lot of ways they both are similar and I think that's what makes them so successful.

SI: What are you most looking forward to about next season?
CP: I'm most looking forward to just, I feel like we fell short this year. That's my motivation in this offseason just to win the championship, to feel like you were 1.3 seconds away from going to the finals, I definitely feel like we could have given Detroit a better series, you feel like you've fallen short. To not have lost and to not have that feeling -- at Tennessee we won two years in a row and in high school winning two state championships, it's kind of weird feeling that. That's my motivation.

SI: We asked you about Lisa, but I hear you're a big fan of Tina Thompson?
CP: I love Tina. I remember watching her on the Comets and watching them win four straight championships, and it was the first time that the WNBA existed and it was something from the time I was 11 years old, I was playing in the WNBA. It was no longer having to go overseas, or what do you do after college. So just watching her and the commercials that the WNBA had for her, and then I just idolized her. When I was a senior in high school I got a chance to go to the NCAA and I saw her and froze.

My mom, of course moms, drags me up to Tina Thompson and goes my daughter loves you and of course had this whole spiel so I got a picture with her and I had the picture on my wall through college, so I actually got a chance to really know her in basketball when I went to Australia to play with the senior national team for the first time she really took me under her wing and showed me -- anything Tina tells me to do I'll do it. She's like my big sister, she's helped me with everything from going through the agent process to I'm a professional now, so everything, she's just helped me with. Her and I had a blast with the Olympics, it's a great friendship that I think by far surpassed basketball

SI: What's the most intense game you've ever played in?
CP: Honestly, my family battles probably are the toughest I've ever played in. MY brother Anthony and I -- he plays for the Toronto Raptors -- we're not really brothers and sisters because he's so much older than me, so we never would go at it like we were going to fight, but my brother Marcus, he played basketball through high school and decided to go another route when he got to college but he was really good.

Him and I are eight years apart, he would hit me when I was younger. We would go at it in the driveway. My mom would come and take the ball, my dad took the net off of the hoop so everytime the ball would go through we'd have to run and get the ball. It was bad ... Marcus would just give it to me. It was intense, there were no fouls -- now we have a game a year.

SI: Who wins?
CP: I do.

SI: Who's the one person you want on your team next year?
CP: If we could draft anyone ... I would love to play with Kristi Toliver. She's a great point guard, winning a championship her first year at Maryland, I think she'd really help our team.

SI: Did you ever think at the end of the season you would end up as MVP?
CP: The first time Coop ever brought that up was in a meeting and he brought me in and said, 'I expect you to lead this team to a WNBA championship, rookie of the year, and the MVP. And I was like um ... I was expecting this to be a light meeting. I mean those were his expectations and he killed me almost every day in practice, just different games that he would play, putting me on different teams with everybody. You know, I didn't start to believe it until later in the season but it really wasn't about that. I feel like when you win a championship, you can't dispute that. When you win rookie of the year or MVP, people can go back and dispute it. So my main goal and my main focus is to win the championship.

SI: What's your favorite memory of the WNBA so far?
CP: Probably going back to Chicago and selling out and seeing the impact that Chicago basketball has had on me. Just being there and growing up and playing AAU, just the impact that it's had on my career and I hope I've made an impact too.

SI: Met Jordan?
CP: I have. Actually my favorite Bull was Ron Harper, I went past Jordan straight to Harper and my mom was like, 'what's wrong with you?'

SI: Who's your favorite NBA player?
CP: I really like Chris Bosh's game, I think he's one of the most underrated players. I also like Kevin Garnett, who doesn't like KG? I used to like Allen Iverson, that was back when I was younger. I went to the Olympics and gained respect for Dwayne Wade -- the way he plays is insane.

SI: How much did you hang out with those guys at the Olympics?
CP: We hung out a lot. We didn't stay in the village, we stayed in the hotel so there wasn't a lot to do for the 23 days we were there, we played cards and video games ...

SI: That must have been crazy competitive ...
CP: Dominos was like serious. We played Dominos. Ask Chris about this, Dominos was serious.

SI: Who's the Dominos champ?
CP: That's a really good question .. when we played in a group when we gave people points it would be Carmelo [Anthony], but if we played one on one ... me.