14 April 2014
Thoughts on the Draft
The WNBA draft was today. When Stefanie Dolson didn't get picked by the first five teams, I had a slim hope that the Storm would be able to draft her. But then the Washington Mystics grabbed her at #6, right before our pick.
With the 7th pick, the Storm took UConn guard Bria Hartley. My first thought was... don't we need a post? But then I thought... yay! A UConn player!
I turned on my computer at that point and discovered that the Storm had traded Hartley and last year's first round pick Tianna Hawkins to Washington in return for Crystal Langhorne.
My thoughts are.... confused.
On the one hand, we definitely need a post, and Langhorne is a very good player.
But on the other hand, she's 27. Not super old, but not young, either. We gave up two young players for one not-so-young player. At some point, don't we need to start preparing for the future? And we don't want to tank this year, because next year's draft is dreadful. (Outside of Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, of course.)
And Langhorne, while a great player, isn't very tall. 6'2", I believe. We will be a VERY short team next year.
In the later rounds, the Storm went all Pac-12 and picked up Michelle Plouffe from Utah and Mikaela Ruef from Stanford. I can't imagine Ruef making the team, but Plouffe is intriguing. She's got a little more height (6'4"), and I remember her causing endless trouble for Washington over the last two years.
By the way, the Langhorne trade was not the biggest trade news of the day. Connecticut (which had the #1 pick), traded Tina Charles to New York in exchange for their #4 pick and center Kelsey Bone. Rumor is that Tina Charles wanted out, and told the Sun she would sit this year if they didn't trade her. She was MVP in 2012, so that's a pretty big loss for them. But they picked up Chiney Ogwumike and Alyssa Thomas, so I'm sure they'll be fine.
Connecticut and Washington are young teams. I can seem them battling for the eastern conference in a couple years.
With the 7th pick, the Storm took UConn guard Bria Hartley. My first thought was... don't we need a post? But then I thought... yay! A UConn player!
I turned on my computer at that point and discovered that the Storm had traded Hartley and last year's first round pick Tianna Hawkins to Washington in return for Crystal Langhorne.
My thoughts are.... confused.
On the one hand, we definitely need a post, and Langhorne is a very good player.
But on the other hand, she's 27. Not super old, but not young, either. We gave up two young players for one not-so-young player. At some point, don't we need to start preparing for the future? And we don't want to tank this year, because next year's draft is dreadful. (Outside of Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, of course.)
And Langhorne, while a great player, isn't very tall. 6'2", I believe. We will be a VERY short team next year.
In the later rounds, the Storm went all Pac-12 and picked up Michelle Plouffe from Utah and Mikaela Ruef from Stanford. I can't imagine Ruef making the team, but Plouffe is intriguing. She's got a little more height (6'4"), and I remember her causing endless trouble for Washington over the last two years.
By the way, the Langhorne trade was not the biggest trade news of the day. Connecticut (which had the #1 pick), traded Tina Charles to New York in exchange for their #4 pick and center Kelsey Bone. Rumor is that Tina Charles wanted out, and told the Sun she would sit this year if they didn't trade her. She was MVP in 2012, so that's a pretty big loss for them. But they picked up Chiney Ogwumike and Alyssa Thomas, so I'm sure they'll be fine.
Connecticut and Washington are young teams. I can seem them battling for the eastern conference in a couple years.
Labels: Seattle Storm, UConn basketball, WNBA
# posted by mamurd @ 10:08 PM 
