As the team that finished with the worst record in the WNBA this season, the Mystics had a 44.20% chance of winning the first pick in the draft lottery held today, a 31.55% chance of getting the second pick, an 18.10% chance of the third, and only a 6.15% chance of coming out on the bottom with the fourth overall pick. And so when WNBA President Laurel Richie this evening, live on ESPN's SportsCenter, revealed the Mystics' logo as she announced the team that drew the fourth pick, the only printable word the BCs could say was "un[blanking]believable." What a sad moment for the Mystics fans and players.
And just to top off the heartbreak of today's lottery, the Phoenix Mercury -- you know, the team with Diana Taurasi, Penny Taylor, DeWanna Bonner and Candice Dupree, the team that spent most of the season as the object of tanking accusations from many irate WNBA fans (the BCs among them) -- was the BIG winner of the number one overall pick, as in 6'8" super-talented BIG. In other words, the winner of the BG-I sweepstakes.
Unbelievable. (Anything else we have to say is simply unprintable.)
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Thursday morning follow-up: a must-read post-lottery piece about the Mystics by ESPN's Graham Hays, here, as well as Mechelle Voepel's overall take on things, here.
posted by BasketCases @ 8:01 PM
22 comments
22 Comments:
I agree BC's. The new GM is going to have to pull a rabbit out of the hat real fast.
But either way, the Mystics will have to just outwork everyone else and they still have to build a team anyways. We'll see what happens.
We gunna get EDD. Just u watch.
I am heart broken. I know the Mystics players feel much worse. The only way I can accept what has happened is to say GOOD FOR THEM! Brittney, Skylar and Elena deserve much better than Ted, Greg and Sheila. They will go to well managed teams with good coaches.
We will end up in the lottery again. Maybe the Mystics players and fans will finally get lucky and have a chance to draft Alyssa Thomas.
Oh please. Trudi is finally gone and it appears that management has finally seen the light and plan to bring aboard a coach and GM or a coach/GM based on what's best for the team and fans. They screwed up. Everybody screws up but you hope they eventually figure it out. It appears that may be happening with Mystics management. Stop beating up on them and lets talk about moving forward. What makes you think Phoenix the tanking team, Tulsa that has a weak fan base and Chicago that obviously had some issues between the coach and Fowles are better managed teams. What happened was grossly unfair. It was unfair last year when LA won out over Tulsa. The WNBA needs to fix this if they want this league to survive.
My top 2 pics for coach/gm are Gail Goestenkors or Debbie Ryan.
I think the Mystics got what they deserved. Sheila and Trudy assembled this year's team with an eye toward having the best chance to win the lottery (if you don't believe this, review their offseason moves, stockpiling also-ran players that other teams didn't want (e.g. Robinson, Lacy, Snow), while letting Beard go). I think the players did play hard, but most nights, the Mystics had far less talent than their opponents. Sheila tanked this season to roll the dice for Griner and it came up snake eyes.
The Mystics didn't tank this year, at least in the way the Merc did. Trudi was trying to win every game, she was just incompetent.
Question now is who would come into this mess as GM or coach. One of the things the Mystics lost by not getting a top pick was something to attract a really good coach. Now it will be more difficult.
Something just isn't right. The only way that I can make sense of it is to believe that the league wouldn't want a team that isn't returning to have one of the top picks. I hope I'm wrong.
Gail Goestenkors - now that's a reason to renew the season tickets!
The curse of Les Boulez/Wizards/Mystics strikes again! Swin did look sexy and beautiful as always however.....can we please acquire her if we cant get one of the big 3picks???
Who is the fourth best player in the draft?
Monumental suffering continues!
Dear Anon at 12:40pm:
The fourth best player in the draft:
Darnd F. Weeno
Red shirt Senior Forward out of the University of Phoenix
-- BC
I said good for them because I want the best players to get drafted by teams with good coaches. It's the best thing for the player, the team and the WNBA. I think Phoenix, Chicago and Tulsa have good coaches. We need to turn this team around fast in order to save it. I think we need a coach like Bill Laimbeer or Cheryl Reeve.
@ BasketCases
I'm ROTFLMAO. That was original!!!
Maybe we should let them play the season before we decide there are only three draft-worthy seniors in the whole country.
Dear Anon at 11:24pm:
No one has said anything remotely like that.
-- BC
Does anyone else want to cry when they see Lindsay Harding play with ATL. She is such a great PG. For one glorious season we had her here wearing a Mystics uniform.
@Anonymous 8:37PM - Yes, I want to cry when I see both Lindsey Harding and Alana Beard play. Both are playing well in the playoffs.
I am still shocked that we did not try to keep Alana and Lindsey Harding in Washington. We let Beard go and LA's GM (notice GM and not GM/Coach) had the wisdom to pick her up. Alana and N. Ogwumike are the pieces of the puzzle LA needed to move to the next level.
The Mystics won the eastern division in 2010 and then proceeded to dismantle the team and fired the coach and GM, MIGHT HAVE BEEN THE SAME PERSON, who did they think they were, the Florida Marlins. POOR mgmt, an owner who has no clue about running a basketball team, finally came to a head. I hate to say it, but they brought this on themselves. When they get a good player, they can't seem to keep them, for some reason, they seem to want to leave after 2 or 3 season. I like the Mystics, but something is wrong in this organization.
Let's remember that while Mystics management screwed up by letting Alana go their were a good number of fans who were hollering that we need to let her go. I never thought we should let her go but spoke to and sat near fans that gave up on her. I'm happy she found a team that offers an opportunity to go all the way. Fans and management blew it.
10/16/12
Great article on Taj at espn by Mechelle
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