April 15, 2025
Minnesota Lynx add three prospects to cap off busy draft day
Cheryl Reeve: 'We tried to balance the idea of the 2025 team that deserves our best foot forward, as well as the future'
MINNEAPOLIS — As the leadership of the Minnesota Lynx assembled above The Courts at Mayo Clinic Square (the practice facility for the Lynx and Timberwolves), a crowd of some 1,200 Lynx fans gathered on the floor of the Target Center across the street to celebrate the 2025 WNBA Draft. The unofficial curtain riser to another WNBA season had finally arrived.
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Per team staff, the size of the crowd marked one of the biggest recorded turnouts for a draft party in franchise history. Considering the Lynx weren’t even on the clock until the second round, at No. 15 overall, it’s safe to say the fanbase in Minnesota is ready for another season to start.
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The Lynx did hold a first-round pick at No. 11 overall when invitations went out to their most ardent supporters, but head coach and president of basketball operations Cheryl Reeve sent it to Chicago in a draft eve trade with the Sky for the second consecutive year. The exchange extinguished a previous right to swap picks with the Sky in 2026, and handed the Lynx Chicago’s first-round pick next season outright, which in turn freed up Minnesota’s own 2026 first-round pick to be shopped. To borrow a term from everyone’s favorite piece of fictional draft content/cinematic masterpiece, Draft Day, Reeve took next year’s pick, ‘sprinkled it with fairy dust,’ and turned it into Karlie Samuelson. A pair of trades in two days and still three picks to come, all 1,200 Lynx fans in attendance had plenty to catch up on.
“Karlie Samuelson is a player that’s really a neat story,” Reeve told reporters before the draft. “I think she was on social media talking about this since it’s draft day, she was undrafted, cut from a team, that sort of thing, her journey that has taken her to her best years as a WNBA player, and now being sought after the last two seasons. We think she could be really helpful to our 2025 bid for getting back to the Finals and compete for a championship.”
Samuelson adds even more sweet shooting and tenacious defense to a team that prides itself on doing both. Playing under new assistant coach Eric Thibault, Samuelson had the best season of her professional career last year with the Mystics. She’ll enter camp as a prime candidate to fill the void left by Cecilia Zandalasini, who was selected by the Golden State Valkyries in December’s Expansion Draft.
“Karlie will be on the roster, not competing for a spot,” Reeve told reporters during her post-draft media availability. “We made an aggressive trade. We just felt like for 2025, the team that we want on the floor is putting our best foot forward to get back to the Finals and provide us the depth that was so vital to us. With two coaches that we have on our staff that have coached her and had hands-on (experience) were really, really high on her. So, we’re excited. I think it kind of was a piece that we had pursued through a fair amount of the offseason, and then there was finally an opening timing-wise and we had the asset to be able to do it.”
“We tried to balance the idea of the 2025 team that deserves our best foot forward, as well as the future, so we were pleased at how that turned out,” Reeve continued.
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As the draft kicked off and the Dallas Wings were finally on the clock to get the night started (it didn’t take long for the hometown crowd to cheer for one of their own when Paige Bueckers went No. 1 overall), the Lynx continued to build their 2025 roster with that balancing act in mind. With pick No. 15, Reeve and the Lynx brought in one of the youngest and most intriguing prospects in the draft, Anastasiia Olairi Kosu from UMMC Ekaterinburg in the Russian Premier League.
Kosu, a Russian player of Nigerian descent, is one of the most decorated 19-year-olds around. At 14 years old, she represented Russia at the 2019 FIBA U16 Women’s European Championship. At 15, she became one of the youngest players ever to play in EuroLeague, and at 16 she represented the national team at the 2021 FIBA U19 Women’s Basketball World Cup.
Now 19, Kosu is arguably the most athletic player in this year’s draft class and has a real chance to make her WNBA dreams come true. Earlier this year, our Hunter Cruse wrote about Kosu’s childhood, where she grew up watching WNBA players like Nneka Ogwumike, Candice Dupree, Epiphanny Prince and Michelle Snow playing for her hometown club, Dynamo Kursk. Ogwumike in particular left a strong impression on the young Kosu and the future WNBA draft pick modeled her game after her favorite player.
“I was always inspired by Nneka’s powerful and fast game,” Kosu said. “I wanted to play the same as she did. I also know that Nneka’s family is from Nigeria, where my father is also from.”
It wasn’t long before Kosu went from admiring WNBA players from the crowd to sharing the floor with them. When Kosu turned professional for her hometown club, she played alongside WNBA players like Natasha Howard and Arike Ogunbowale.
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“This is somebody that is really, really hungry to play in the WNBA,” Reeve said. “[She has] no European obligations right now because [Russia is] unable to compete. She just loves the WNBA. She went to a number of games, EuroLeague games, watching Dynamo Kursk, and became a WNBA fan at a very young age, which I love. You know the story of the WNBA [now] being around for so long, and this young person dreamt about playing in the WNBA because Nneka Ogwumike and others were there. She’s modeled her game after some WNBA players. So [I’m] very enthused by her desire to be here in the WNBA.”
Kosu may be a teenager on the other side of the world, but Reeve made it very clear this pick is not a ‘draft-and-stash.’
“No. No, no we expect her to be here,” Reeve told reporters after the draft when asked if the intention was to bring her over in 2026 at the earliest. “I don’t know how long the immigration part of it will take. It could be a little bit later in camp. I don’t think we can expect [her] by the start of camp, but the expectation is that she will be reporting.”
Reeve couldn’t recall the last time a 19-year-old player got the invite to Lynx camp, or if it’s ever happened, but it’s clear whenever Kosu is able to make it to Minnesota, her athleticism, instincts and defensive ability will make her a candidate to contribute in year one for the Lynx.
Less clear for Kosu is the process of securing a visa. Minnesota’s basketball operations staff is already hard at work in navigating that process for its new draft pick, but at the moment an ETA is non-existent.
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After selecting Kosu, the Lynx were next on the clock with the second to last pick of the 2nd round at No. 24 overall. They used it on Dalayah Daniels, the lengthy post player from the Washington Huskies.
“What we like a lot is a post that plays away from the basket, and she does that well,” Reeve said about Daniels. “She plays in a system where she’s doing a lot of screening and ball handling at the top. I like her pursuit of the ball. Rebounding-wise she’s a smart player. [She] just brings really good energy wherever she’s involved. She’s super excited about the opportunity. [Lindsay Whalen] and [Rebekkah Brunson] were the two that really had us key in on [Daniels].”
Minnesota had one more pick on the night and used it on UConn forward Aubrey Griffin at No. 37 overall, the penultimate pick in the draft.
“Aubrey is a versatile athlete who defends, rebounds, runs the floor, is a willing cutter and efficient scorer,” Reeve said in the team’s press release. “As a member of four Final Four teams, Aubrey understands what it takes to win.”
Griffin very likely could have heard her name called much sooner if it weren’t for a lengthy history with knee issues. She missed all of the 2021-22 season due to multiple injuries, and missed the second half of the 2023-24 season after she tore her ACL in January of that year.
After the four additions on draft day, the Lynx roster now stands at 18. The team reports to training camp on April 27.
Written by Terry Horstman
Terry Horstman is a Minneapolis-based writer and covers the Minnesota Lynx beat for The Next. He previously wrote about the Minnesota Timberwolves for A Wolf Among Wolves, and his other basketball writing has been published by Flagrant Magazine, HeadFake Hoops, Taco Bell Quarterly, and others. He's the creative nonfiction editor for the sports-themed literary magazine, the Under Review.
