The WNBA Draft came and went on Monday night without any major fanfare or controversy.

Just kidding. This is the WNBA we’re talking about.

Somehow the most interesting draft in recent memory lived up to the billing with surprise picks in the lottery, a stunner of a trade involving LSU superstar Flau’jae Johnson and a general intrigue around who was selected where and why. Our own Rashard Hall will have his draft grades exclusively for the Ball-Knowers (so sign up here if you haven’t already!) and we’ll have a full recap coming tomorrow for Ball Up Top: A WBB Podcast.

In the meantime we have…

BREAKING NEWS!

A source tells me this afternoon that one of our favorite players at NCS, Harvard alum Harmoni Turner, is back stateside after signing a training camp contract with the Connecticut Sun. The former Crimson guard was selected in last years’ draft by the Las Vegas Aces but ended up in France playing for Landerneau in the top flight. Now, she gets a chance to not only return to a WNBA with much more opportunity with regard to roster spots but to also find the floor on a Connecticut team that is embracing a youth-led rebuild.

If you want to learn more about her, we brought her on to Luxury Tax last college season to talk about her scoring prowess, Ivy League bonafides and what her passions are off the floor. You can find that below!

Look, I know there’s history here. There’s the infamous Caitlin Clark wave-off that set the stage for not just an Iowa vs. South Carolina rivalry but a Raven vs. Caitlin rivalry as well. But at this point, at least to me, everyone is an adult now. Reporters and national media can do more than ask the Gamecock alum about that fateful night, which is now years in the rearview mirror. She and her former head coach, Dawn Staley, still tend to take the bait when the question is asked (much to my personal chagrin but I digress) but the strange thing is that people are still treating Raven as the same prospect she was in 2023 and 2024.

Simply put, from a basketball fit perspective, I like what Amber Cox did here. Ty Harris is the backup point guard that you’ve long needed to help ease the load of Caitlin Clark. But even Harris has had issues with staying healthy throughout her career which means you’re likely going to need a third point guard. Head Coach Stephanie White seems to believe that you can never have enough defensive firepower and went with arguably the best defensive guard left on the board. If you wanted purely a point guard at that spot, and it appeared Indiana did, it’s really between Johnson and Duke’s Taina Mair. While I absolutely love Mair as a prospect, Johnson, to me, is objectively better.

So while yes, there’s a lot of off-court stuff that could turn this sideways and Johnson looked less than enthused by the pick itself, the glass-half-full-pollyanna-optimist in me says that maybe this is the bridge that’s been needed here. I can’t imagine Aliyah Boston is going to leave her former Gamecock running mate on an island in the team facility.

Boy, people absolutely HATED this Washington draft and I just don’t get it. Lauren Betts available with the fourth overall pick? Are you kidding me? Of course you take that.

Is it a little strange that Shakira Austin was re-signed and the immediate reaction by Mystics front office leaders Michael Winger and Sydney Johnson was to talk about how it meant Betts would be coming off the bench? Yes. But if you think about Winger as a former Oklahoma City Thunder front office alum cut from Sam Presti’s cloth, then the idea of that being a smokescreen and Austin being a trade piece later this year feels like the clearest possibility.

There’s an argument that they needed shooters. That argument falls apart when you see who has been winning the last handful of WNBA titles. You quite simply have to load up as much as you can to stop either one-of-a-kind frontcourt talents (A’ja Wilson) or you have to overwhelm your opponents with depth down low (New York, Minnesota). It feels like a logjam in the nation’s capital right now. I just have a feeling that it’s going to work itself out before the trade deadline this season.

As for Chicago, I love who they brought in. Gabriela Jaquez, Latasha Lattimore and Tonie Morgan are all high upside, springy, athletic and dynamic players. I’d go as far to say that Lattimore is one of the best under-the-radar players in the draft. Jaquez proved her versatility this NCAA Tournament season with UCLA and slots in nicely as someone that can defend the 2 or 3 in the WNBA. Tyler Marsh has the chance to mold one, two or all three of them into legit rotational guards (or better) at this level. So while it may not win you immediate games, they went all in on complementary pieces to their stars. That’s good GM’ing, no matter how you slice it.

Bad GM’ing is what Ohemaa Nyanin did on Monday night, trading out of the Valkyries pick (which was Flau’jae Johnson) to slide back, get Marta Suarez and secure a future second rounder. There’s a few things here that I simply do not like.

Alexa Phillipou and Ramona Shelburne reported for ESPN that teams could not trade picks until after players were selected on Monday. Both teams had spoken about a deal but it wasn’t agreed upon until Golden State was on the clock. So they draft Johnson on behalf of Seattle and the Valkyries took Suarez.

What I don’t understand is why the league wouldn’t announce that in the moment. It’s almost common practice in the men’s leagues that trades agreed to before the actual selection are announced as the deal is happening. So what you’d likely hear from Cathy Engelbert would be…

“The Golden State Valkyries have traded their number eight pick to the Seattle Storm. With the eighth pick in the WNBA Draft, the Seattle Storm select Flau’jae Johnson, guard out of LSU.”

Fans and media would’ve assumed in the moment that a major trade — one where Golden State would’ve presumably given up something of great value to get Johnson — had just occurred, only to be floored later by what the actual terms were.

Instead, it looked like Golden State had immediate buyer’s remorse and scrambled to jettison their first round pick in exchange for a player that, while extremely talented in her own right, isn’t perceived to be better at the college or pro level.

What compounded the issue was Nyanin’s completely jibberish answer about why she dealt the pick away. Initially she said she was tired and wanted to ‘take a beat’ before talking about it, then reacted in a very cagey way when asked if it had anything to do with the salary cap, then put out a statement this morning trying to distance themselves from the perception that they simply didn’t want Johnson or anyone from her team around the franchise. The whole thing is just a mess from start to finish.

You can chalk that up to the growing pains of a growing league but there simply has to be more care put forward for these athletes. If you’re Ohemaa Nyanin and you want to be intentional about the human side, then you should get out in front of the press and lay out why the league let everyone down. Instead, Flau’jae Johnson just looks like a pawn in a front office move on what is supposed to be the best night of her young adult life. That’s just not fair to the kid.

While we’re on that subject…the WNBA needs to invite and bring more players out for the first round. It just isn’t a great look when the first round is over, the room clears out and there’s maybe 2-3 people left. Either televise the first round and then bag the rest or bring in a couple more players. Someone will inevitably be the last to walk up to the stage but it’s just a weird look when there’s as few as one and only as many as three that are left when the opening run is over.

Anyways…here’s what other draft content we’ve put out lately!

Tyler takes the ISO on the Flau’jae trade (note: this was recorded before the most recent ESPN report).

And our entire live watch along from Draft night…

Marisa Ingemi is one of the best beat reporters you’ll find in sports anywhere. Reporting from the Bay Area, she recently launched Valkyries Beat, which will be your number one local news source for all things Golden State.

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