The Sky Begins To Take Shape

[SportsPageMike]

The Sky Begins To Take Shape

By Brady Martin, Seattle Staff Writer: November 17, 2005

Things are starting to get clearer in Chicago. On Tuesday, the brand-new Chicago Sky took their first steps toward putting a team on the floor for next season, announcing their picks in the expansion draft. And judging by their picks, the Sky have a chance to actually be very good next year.....

http://www.sportspagemagazine.com/published/pro/the-sky-begins-to-take-sh.shtml

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

The whole Dales-Schuman thing is intriguing to me. Depending on how you look at it, you could argue that she screwed Washington. Obviously, I don't know the whole story, but I got the sense that the Mystics, still owning her contract, left her available in the expansion draft so that they could protect some of their actual players, with the understanding that Dales-Schuman would remain retired. And now that she's been drafted by the Sky, suddenly she's unretired?

I'm curious as to whether or not she let the organization know her intentions, or if this might have been some kind of clandestine way of getting out of Washington. Because Dales-Schuman could have probably gone back to the Mystics tomorrow and been the second-best player on the team, so I can't imagine that Washington would have left her unprotected had they known she was planning a comeback.

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

They missed little in my book by not having her there because she really did nothing while she was there when she actually WAS the 2nd best player on that team. She's a nice player and all, but she was not producing what you'd expect out of someone who was the third overall pick.

If her best position is at the 1, she doesn't fit in Washington right now, if her best position is a 2 they really don't have a need for her. They needed her at the 3 and she rarely performed consistently when she had the opportunity there except maybe her rookie year or whatever that year was when she had to carry the team while Meek was out for a long stretch midseason. The last time I saw her with the Mystics she was coming off the bench, so I'm not sure how that equates to her instantly becoming their 2nd best player if she un-retired and returned to them. She couldn't outplay either Beard or Johnson right now. She could theoretically be missed if she was better at any of the post positions - then I could see how they miss her because I really don't think Milton is the answer the Mystics need at SF, and she's an UFA so she could walk anyway.

My sense is that if SDS had any intention of returning to the Mystics, they would have protected her or if they had any use for her in their current system. I doubt the Mystics rolled the dice like that blindly. But then again, with their uncertain situation with Milton-Jones, they had a stronger need to protect the post players they did have than they did stringing along the contract of their ESPN WCBB studio anchor/college football sideline reporter.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

... She couldn't outplay either Beard or Johnson right now...

Eh, I'm not so sure about that. I'm skeptical about Johnson's rookie season; I think that she may possibly be overrated, myself. It just reeks of a "good player on a bad team" situation to me; Coco Miller had one of the worst seasons of her career, and Dales Schuman had retired. It was more like a lack of options as to why she was starting; at least Dales-Schuman has been a contributor on a playoff team.

It's entirely possible that I'm being harsh, but my gut tells me that Johnson doesn't put up those numbers if Dales-Schuman were cutting into her playing time. For all we know, she might not even have started; Dales-Schuman was hardly a bad player and, disappointment or not, in team sports, you generally have to play your way out of your spot as a starter.

At any rate, I found these comments interesting:

On Nov. 1 the Mystics submitted to the league a list of six players who were not available for selection. Because Dales-Schuman had not decided to resume her career by then, Washington did not protect her, Mystics General Manager Linda Hargrove said.

"We would have looked at our list a lot differently if we had known she had interest in coming back," Hargrove said.

Dales-Schuman said she called to inform Hargrove of her decision a few days ago.

Source: Washingtonpost.com



Eh, sounds kind of shady to me...

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

I think you are being harsh and entirely too skeptical re: Johnson. She is not overrated, she would have been an intergral piece on any of the 12 other teams she could have conceivably gone to and probably would have started for each and every one of the ones having a vacancy at PG. If anything she was vastly underrated in terms of her ability to be effective at the W level. I certainly didn't see anything different in her abilities from college to pro, except maybe during that stretch of games where she was struggling with the pending and ultimate passing of her college coach.

Dales-Schuman would not have outplayed or displaced either Beard or Johnson unless she had decided to come back and remotely play like she's capable of playing. If you saw that from her, then I'll grant you that, it's been a while since I've seen her be that effective. If she had intentions of resuming her career in Washington, she would have played last year. Or of course at the VERY least had the common courtesy to call Hargrove and say "Linda...you know what, I am going to play next year" before maybe say, Hargrove had to submit her list. I don't think I read SDS's intentions wrong, and as much as I don't have any faith in Hargrove's abilities as GM, she still apparently had no choice since SDS decided to sit on a deadline.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

The issue is not whether or not Dales-Schuman could have displaced Johnson; if she hadn't "retired," it would have been her spot to lose; Johnson would have had to displace her. And I have my doubts that, coming off the bench, she would have been able to do that.

I mean, Dales-Schuman was a starter in the WNBA, whether she was a star or not, a "disappointment" or not; it's not like she was a scrub. And it's not as if Johnson was some kind of "lead-pipe cinch" coming into the league last year, like a Diana Taurasi or a Swin Cash or an Alana Beard. If she had a proven starter playing ahead of her, then she would have had to prove that she deserved that spot, and my argument is that I'm not convinced that she could have done it.

 

[StevenHW]

Part of MBF's post about Temeka Johnson:

...I certainly didn't see anything different in her abilities from college to pro, except maybe during that stretch of games where she was struggling with the pending and ultimate passing of her college coach...

Are you referring to the late Sue Gunter (of LSU)?

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

Dales Schuman was not the starting point guard in Washington and I actually don't remember her ever being the point guard there. So if Dales Schuman was going to get minutes next year with Washington, it was going to be at the 3 which oddly isn't where she was considered to be at her best.

Johnson wasn't considered a lead pipe cinch simply because of her size, not her game and she still was cinch enough to go in the first round. And she quickly silenced those doubts. Her rookie numbers weren't all that off what SDS put up as a rookie with much more fan fare and 9 more inches of size. Dales-Schuman was expected to put up the lead pipe cinch numbers and to me, she never really did after her first year. The sense I got from the fans when I was in DC for a Mystics game in 2004 was they were a little disappointed with her game at that point too. So I was not the least bit suprised that she "retired" when she did.

Yes, I was referring to Gunter.

 

[cometsluv4play]

SDS was indeed a three in Washington, the same year the " experiment " with Holdclaw at the four. very ironic, that she came from a college Championship series as a point guard the the WNBA Coach literally four to five weeks later made her a three.....go figure! i think that WNBA coach is now fired.