May 26, 2022
Locked on Women’s Basketball: Why don’t WNBA draft picks make rosters?
By The Next
COVID had such a dramatic impact on how coaches were able to evaluate talent
It’s time for another episode of the Locked on Women’s Basketball podcast. This one features host Missy Heidrick and James Kay discussing why it is so difficult for players to make WNBA rosters.
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James speaks about why players don’t make WNBA rosters:
“I think there are a lot of reasons for it. But one of the things that I want to point out too when we go into this discussion as well, especially when evaluating the draft over the last two years, is COVID. You know, COVID had such a dramatic impact on how coaches were able to evaluate talent. And that even extends to the college level for college coaches. Trying to evaluate high school talent and not really not being able to do so.”
James talks about what makes the Fever different than any other roster or team:
“I think they just had a lot of flexibility in terms of their long term plan versus some other teams. I mean, you look at the Chicago Sky. They they traded their first round pick this season. In order to get Julie Allemand which the debt transaction itself makes a ton of sense. But at the same time, it was also just going to be really hard to keep that pick on the roster because of the financial interface into that because Julie Allemand It’s actually cheaper to keep the roster on the WNBA roster compared to whoever the first round pick would have ended up being. So the Indiana Fever you’d look at them, they are clean slate.”
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