2009 Draft

[creative one]

I appreciate the response, MBF!

Here's my answer to that question. Montgomery is so far off my radar screen it's not even funny. Right now I can't say I'm remotely interested in her if she is available. What's Montgomery's career numbers for 3ptFG and FG generally? I may take a look at her season and career numbers later and see if that changes my mind.

I think Montgomery's career shooting %s are 42% FG, 33% 3-point at about 13 ppg. I'll argue that she's a worse shooter than those percentages suggest (because no college team is going to guard her straight up when they have to contend with Maya Moore, Tina Charles, and Mel Thomas/Caroline Doty). That's not exactly what I would want from a lottery pick even in a weak draft. Her season percentages are about 44% FG and 37% 3-point, which are right around Ketia Swanier's averages (and Swanier was considered to be a HUGE drafting mistake by the Sun after her 2 for 20 shooting disaster during last year's preseason). For someone with those shooting percentages, she takes an awful lot of shots (about 12 per game for her career).

Pass. She's not a good enough shooter to warrant as many shot attempts as she's going to take, and nothing else about her game is good enough to overcome her shooting fallacies. Her stock is inflated because she's UConn's PG...as if Rita Williams and Jen Rizotti were anything special in the WNBA. Yes, she's a great college PG. Yes, she's the best PG in college this season hands down! Yes, UConn owes a lot of its success this year to her. However, a 5'5/120 pound PG with average WNBA athleticism and a shaky jumper isn't going to be a starter in this league EVER*. Hornbuckle would be a better candidate for starting PG (good size, great shot, excellent athleticism, great court vision), but it's going to take a LOT to pry her away from Detroit.

*Please don't use Shannon Bobbitt as a retort, folks. Who, other than the Sparks, would be stupid enough to start a 5'2 PG who shoots 28% from the floor and 25% from three while averaging less than four assists a game playing alongside THREE Olympians?

 

[RDub21]

Humphrey seems more gettable, I might bite on that if all it cost me was the #7 and a deep bench player under contract

I really like Humphrey, I think she's better than anyone would be available at #7 this year. But then again, I like Braxton also...what is it with those Georgia posts with so much talent but have too much baggage?

So, let's assume that she slips past Indiana. (1) Should Sacramento take her? (2) If you say "yes" to #1, where does she play and what kind of an impact would she have here?

Let me preface this by saying that I completely despise UCONN and I am a little biased...I hope that Renee is not even close to the radar screen. Yes, we need a point guard and yes, we need a scorer, but we don't need a 5'5" combo guard playing as a point. If we do happen to choose a point guard, I'd rather have Toliver.

 

[creative one]

Let me preface this by saying that I completely despise UCONN and I am a little biased...I hope that Renee is not even close to the radar screen. Yes, we need a point guard and yes, we need a scorer, but we don't need a 5'5" combo guard playing as a point. If we do happen to choose a point guard, I'd rather have Toliver.

I appreciate the response, RDub, but I don't think a skinny 5'7 SG is the way to go, either. Let the Mercury or Fever have her.

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

I had a chance to see Shalee Lehning today in her game against Texas A&M. I did note going in the Graham Hayes write up on her, that she's a very solid rebounding guard for her size. I saw that today, she's scrappy and certainly grabbed rebounds and had the body and willingness to mix it up to get them. She ran her team well and came up with a hustle play at the end of the game that gave her team a chance to tie the game at the end.

It's hard to judge her in isolation, I remember a guard last year Washington's Emily Florence, who I think is a couple of inches shorter than Lehning put up astounding rebounding numbers too. So I kinda take that with a grain of salt - but give more props to Lehning because her numbers on the glass appear to extend throughout her career. I like pgs who can board.

What concerned me about her was that it seemed to be a conscious decision on A&M's part to get/create matchups where Lehning had to guard one of their top scorers - which(and I'm no rocket scientist) suggests she is suspect defensively. I'm not partial to pgs who have trouble on the defensive side of the ball.

 

[creative one]

What concerned me about her was that it seemed to be a conscious decision on A&M's part to get/create matchups where Lehning had to guard one of their top scorers - which(and I'm no rocket scientist) suggests she is suspect defensively. I'm not partial to pgs who have trouble on the defensive side of the ball.

It depends. Is she trying hard but fails due to bad technique? Or does she just not seem to care about defense altogether?

I, too, prefer point guards who are proficient on defense. I can live with point guards who aren't great defensively but try hard because the right coach might be able to spark improvement in that area. I have ZERO tolerance for players who don't at least try to play good defense. That's why I don't see why people are so high on the likes of Boddie and Toliver. Is either ever going to become a lockdown defender? No, but it doesn't hurt to at least act like you give a darn on that side of the ball.

Of course, I should add that I don't think Lehning is a WNBA PG. She seems too much like Lyndsey Medders (another Big 12 PG who couldn't guard anyone) in terms of being a prospect.

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

I would say she tries hard, she's just apparently not a good defender or probably more fairly, she has deficiencies that are exploitable. The upside is definitely that she'll give up the body to board against the bigs. You can't teach that.

In this system, she can probably thrive because you can squeeze out some rotations where she'd have decent defenders around her. You couldn't play her with Lawson - another player who had deficiencies that have improved in the system but some of which are still exploitable. There was something about Lehning that reminded me of the San Diego point guard from last year who went undrafted and whose name escapes me except the San Diego kid was a better defender(presumably). Ugh on Medders...I find Iowa St players as suspect as I find Vandy players.

As far as a plug and play piece, I'd still prefer January...who I still can't fathom as a point guard, but always seems to put up numbers contrary to my perception of her. There's maybe a drop off in assists and maybe a shade on the rebounds, but I can see January fitting into more rotations.

I like Toliver more than Montgomery, but am not jonesing over either being the pick.

 

[Luv13fan]

Amanda Rego... The PG from San Diego.

I liked what I saw of her, but I only got one good look at her. I thought she would be a better pick up then Aqua. But when your team goes One and Done, and you are already a bubble/fringe Player, It hurts your draft opportunities.

 

[creative one]

Amanda Rego... The PG from San Diego.

I liked what I saw of her, but I only got one good look at her. I thought she would be a better pick up then Aqua.

Well, Rego is leading the German League in assists and still HAS a job overseas.

As for January, the more I see her play with Arizona State, the less I'm convinced she's a real difference-maker for them. She is a good player (a two-guard, not a point like the experts want you to believe) and, at the very least, a decent pro prospect. However, it's quite clear that Dymond Simon is the straw that stirs ASU's drink.

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

Thanks for the assist on her name. I do think that a nice run could have helped. (see: Kim Beck in 2007) because as a low seed she'd have faced more major conf talent and given a better indication of how 'real' her numbers were. I also think Franklin was actually scouted by the gm who drafted her. Franklin's tourney run is what I think got her to the combine, well that and Blair resorting to public shaming the W to give her invite . A&M runs a defensive scheme similar to the M's and UTEP might have as well. I'm interested in seeing whether the Ill St pg gets drafted given Rego' fate. Making a team is a whole different question.

 

[creative one]

Thanks for the assist on her name. I do think that a nice run could have helped. (see: Kim Beck in 2007) because as a low seed she'd have faced more major conf talent and given a better indication of how 'real' her numbers were. I also think Franklin was actually scouted by the gm who drafted her. Franklin's tourney run is what I think got her to the combine, well that and Blair resorting to public shaming the W to give her invite . A&M runs a defensive scheme similar to the M's and UTEP might have as well. I'm interested in seeing whether the Ill St pg gets drafted given Rego' fate. Making a team is a whole different question.

Those "runs" didn't help much, as Beck and Franklin were still late third round picks. Beck was never going to be a high pick on anyone's draft board because of her body type and lack of strength. It had nothing to do with her conference affiliation because the A-10 was essentially a major conference when she played in it (Temple had back-to-back first round picks in 2006 and 2007 and Xavier currently has two future first round picks who aren't freshmen). And despite the system that she played in as a collegian, Franklin is a very poor defender at the WNBA level (we already know her offense was never at a pro level).

Both have bombed out in Europe, so what does that say for the WNBA GMs who scouted/drafted them?

Cirone will get drafted, but she won't make a team. Defense is important for a prospect unless you're one of the "chosen few".

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

Franklin wasn't brought in here to be a difference maker, and doesn't have a long term future here or in the league. But she was a good gamble for plug/play ability.

As far as hers and Beck's offseason...I think all that showed is...to paraphrase Denny Green, they were what folks thought they were. Beck wasn't going to get bulkier and Franklin wasn't going to get taller.

 

[creative one]

Franklin wasn't brought in here to be a difference maker, and doesn't have a long term future here or in the league. But she was a good gamble for plug/play ability.

I get that she wasn't brought in to be a difference maker, but that doesn't explain why there wasn't there more competition for that roster spot. We basically gave Franklin a spot based on name recognition and her college program's visibility. She had and still has done nothing to prove that she was worthy of the opportunity to play in this league. Perhaps this is a Texas A&M thing because her teammate stinks as well.

In short, Franklin made the team last year because there wasn't anyone else to compete with her--and it was assumed she was good enough to have a roster spot because her college team made the Elite Eight and because people respect her coach. Whoop de do. Would that opportunity have been extended to a "unknown" player of greater ability whose coach wasn't a used car salesman? No.

As far as hers and Beck's offseason...I think all that showed is...to paraphrase Denny Green, they were what folks thought they were. Beck wasn't going to get bulkier and Franklin wasn't going to get taller.

While that played into it, I think Beck's inability to perform against major conference foes (Auburn in 1st round, California in 2nd round, Rutgers in Sweet 16)--which invalidated her numbers--and Franklin's lack of offense (at one point in her senior season, she was shooting 31%...from the FIELD) led to their demise in Europe and perhaps here as well. Without the commentators backing them and their college coaches pimping them to WNBA GMs at all costs, they bombed. This is enough evidence to prove that neither should've been given the opportunity they received last year. I'm not a fan of the roster reduction, but if it reduces such favoritism then I'll give it a shot.