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WNBA Draft: What players Connecticut Sun are targeting – Hartford Courant
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When Connecticut Sun executives and coaches gather in a “war room” at Mohegan Sun Arena for the WNBA Draft on Monday night, a new face will be making the decisions.
General manager Darius Taylor, hired in late November shortly after the announcement of new head coach Stephanie White, enters his first draft with the franchise. Curt Miller, who served as both head coach and general manager for the Sun for the last seven seasons, departed for the Los Angeles Sparks in October.
Connecticut has made major roster changes since then, most notably the departures of stars Jonquel Jones and Jasmine Thomas via trades. Some significant new additions include Rebecca Allen from the New York Liberty and former UConn stars Tiffany Hayes and Olivia Nelson-Ododa. Those moves leave the Sun without a first-round pick for just the second time in the last decade.
The Courant spoke with Darius Taylor in an exclusive interview about how the Sun are approaching the draft, with topics ranging from what types of players and specific prospects they’re targeting to the impact of players opting to spend a fifth or sixth year in college and some possible surprises on draft night.
“I’m very excited about the opportunity to move forward as an organization and continue to be competitive and compete for championships,” Taylor said. “We’ve been doing a lot of legwork to just look at prospects and see who would be good fits. One of the issues is players are continuing to pull out of the draft, so it just kind of changes your strategy. People that you think may be there when you pick are probably not going to be there, so it’s always good to have kind of a backup plan and just be ready for anything that can happen on draft day.”
As Taylor indicated, because of the Sun’s draft position a lot of the decisions will come down to who is still left on the board. With most of the team already set and very limited cap space to work with, the biggest objective with those selections is filling holes in the roster.
“Bigs that can shoot the ball from the perimeter are always a premium, so if there’s somebody like that out in the draft that’s draft eligible, that’s a possibility,” Taylor said. “We got pretty good wings and two guards, but always looking at players that can score at three levels I think is a big thing as well. So if there’s a player that happens to be there that can score at three levels that we like, you know, there’s a guard there, we would certainly look at them as well to bring them in. So that’s kind of where we’re looking.”
Taylor said the Sun also have their eye on international players that fans might be less familiar with than players coming out of the NCAA.
“There are a few in this draft and a couple I think that can be really good in this league,” Taylor said. “I continue to get emails from agents telling me about their players and who they have overseas and who would be good in camp and who would be a good third round pick, so we’re getting constant information coming in.
“But I would say for us, we’re looking at bigs that can fill a role, whether that’s again shooting from the perimeter, stretching the floor, or some defensive rebounding and rim protection as well because losing JJ (Jonquel Jones) will impact us some, and so if we can find somebody that can help by committee fill that void we certainly will be open to it.”
Taylor attended practices and games to watch prospects in person throughout the college season and has consumed much more film leading up to the draft. He was already familiar with many players in this class from his time scouting and recruiting them when he was an assistant coach at the college level, most recently under Dawn Staley at South Carolina from 2010 to 2015.
As the draft nears, the Sun have been having conversations prospects over the phone and Zoom to get to know them better and how they might fit into the organization.
“We try to just find out from them how they handle adversity, we try to learn a lot about their character, we try to find out about their competitiveness, we try to find out how they deal with when things aren’t going well for them or changing their roles,” Taylor said. “And just trying to get realistic expectations of what they expect in a WNBA rookie year, because some people are very self aware, some people are very confident, some people are clueless and have no idea what they’re about to embark on. So it’s always good to get a gauge from the players.”
Taylor and his staff have also had plenty of conversations with the college coaches of players, people close to their college programs and others in the NCAA recruiting space.
When asked about specific players Connecticut is targeting, Taylor explained that it’s a difficult process because of how much fluctuates on a day to day basis at this time of year.
“We’ve interviewed some players, some guards specifically like Abby Meyers and Taylor Mikesell and Dara Mabrey,” Taylor said. “We’ve interviewed guards that can really shoot the ball, that can score at three levels, that have great basketball IQ. We’ve interviewed some of the players have played in the Final Four. You just don’t know who will be there. So as a staff we try to be realistic at who we are interviewing because, again, a lot of players are gone before we even pick.”
The bonus COVID year eligibility makes things even trickier with how many players have opted to return to school, leaving less options towards the end of the draft. That impacts the entire WNBA not just in this draft, but in terms of planning for seasons to come.
“It’s stacks the other classes, so ’24 and ’25, they’ll be a lot of talent in those pools so everybody’s reluctant to kind of trade those picks away because we know how loaded the classes could be,” Taylor said. “This year’s class, I think there could be some sleepers. Obviously, I think the top is heavy with talent and then it’s everybody else is kind of in the same boat. So it’s all about just right fit, their commitment to development and really just there being a roster spot available for them.
“So I know it’s a challenge for us all, not just the W but also for those players coming out of college because there’s no like real resource they can go to to really kind of figure out where they are, and even players that maybe were projected to go higher still decided to go back to college. Obviously, I’m sure other there are other factors that play into that with in NIL and things like that of that nature.”
And speaking of trades, Taylor expects some to go down around the league in the coming days.
“I think there are some teams that still have some moves to make that they just haven’t made yet for whatever reason,” Taylor said. “I think there are teams that have a lot of picks that they can’t bring in to camp, or they can bring them into camp but they don’t have roster spots for them. So I think there will be some movement either on draft day or perhaps afterwards. … I do think there’ll be some kind of movement on draft day for sure.”
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