January 21, 2023
Locked on Women’s Basketball: What do Jonquel Jones, Allisha Gray trades mean for 2023 WNBA Draft?
By The Next
Plus, where does LSU's Angel Reese stack up in the National Player of the Year race?
The latest episode of Locked on Women’s Basketball features co-hosts Hunter Cruse and Joshua Welch talking about the latest happenings in women’s college basketball and the WNBA. The conversation begins with a bang as they discuss recent WNBA trades and how those moves will impact the 2023 WNBA Draft.
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One such trade, announced Saturday, sends guard Allisha Gray from the Dallas Wings to the Atlanta Dream in exchange for the 2023 No. 3 overall pick and a 2025 first-round draft pick. Here’s Joshua discussing what the No. 3 pick could do for the Wings:
“They have [the] potential to bring in a really solid prospect, and we’re going to be having that debate in a second on whether it will be [Stanford’s] Haley Jones or [Maryland’s] Diamond Miller. But yeah, I don’t know where either of those players fit into the lineup just with all the questions they have in their backcourt. Clearly, they have enough frontcourt players that they can stop there. But, yeah, I don’t know if they’re gonna have [guard Marina] Mabrey back. Obviously, Arike [Ogunbowale] and [Veronica] Burton [are back], but where Miller and Jones would fit in that lineup and if they would play as big of a role [are unclear]. In Atlanta, they were going to have a chance to start; I don’t see that in Dallas.”
Hunter thinks that the Wings might do something unexpected with the No. 3 pick instead of picking Jones or Miller, who are both “wing-forward combos” and might not fit well with Dallas’ front court-heavy roster:
“They can potentially catch us off guard at No. 3 … I could see them going for maybe Jordan Horston, who’s more of a wing. They can maybe go … [with Ohio State guard] Jacy Sheldon; that’s another player I can see them maybe reaching for. Both players I wouldn’t say are great No. 3 overall value. Maybe Horston you can kind of make a better explanation for it.”
Make sure to subscribe to the Locked on Women’s Basketball podcast to keep learning about WNBA trades and free agency, the 2023 WNBA Draft, women’s college basketball and much more! And click here to read our latest stories about WNBA free agency.
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