Team Grades for the 2018 WNBA Draft
Evaluating how each team performed with four years of hindsight
Thanks for reading the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter. If you like our work, be sure to check out our stats site, our podcast, and our social media accounts on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. You can also buy Her Hoop Stats gear, such as laptop stickers, mugs, and shirts!
Haven’t subscribed to the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter yet?
Everybody loves draft grades. Part of the fun of following the draft is arguing about whether WNBA war rooms made the right call. Often, pundits and analysts and fans will make their instant reactions after the draft (like we did here!), but we need time to watch players develop in order to evaluate the picks accurately. Four years is generally a pretty good time lag; rookie contracts have just expired, and players are at the age where they should be entering their primes. For the sake of fairness, I have consulted several mock drafts from the time in order to gauge what would have been a reasonable selection (four of them reproduced here, this one from SB Nation, this one from Bleacher Report, and this one from our own Aneela Khan at Women's Basketball Blog). I also reviewed our historical pages and Across the Timeline's wonderful (and filterable!) transactions database to understand how each team stood at the time. Without further ado, let’s take a look at how I think teams did during the 2018 WNBA Draft!
Atlanta Dream: Monique Billings (No. 15), Kristy Wallace (No. 16), Mackenzie Engram (No. 27) - B+
Billings took several years to develop, but Atlanta has been patient with her, and she showed last season that she could actively contribute to a WNBA team. In the second round that is a clear win, even considering that there were post players drafted after her (Myisha Hines-Allen and Mercedes Russell) who have performed even better. Wallace was always a long-term play, having suffered a major injury shortly before the draft, and she had a solid college resume. Unfortunately, her career has not gone as planned even post-recovery, and while she has finally signed her rookie contract and joined Atlanta’s training camp, I am skeptical that she will make even this shallow rebuilding roster.
Chicago Sky: Diamond DeShields (No. 3), Gabby Williams (No. 4), Amarah Coleman (No. 28) - C
The WNBA story for DeShields and Williams has still been far from fully written, and it is hard to ding the Sky too much given how most evaluators had at least one of these two players getting drafted in the top four. However, Azura Stevens was also consistently slotted in one of the other Sky picks, and we all saw how well she fit with Courtney Vandersloot and the rest of this Chicago franchise after being acquired in a trade two years later. That comes even before we discuss this draft class’s second-best player, Ariel Atkins, although Atkins was already a surprise pick when she went at No. 7. DeShields and Williams have both shown early promise but stagnated as DeShields has struggled with injuries and Williams was ultimately traded for value below even her relatively underwhelming productivity after being suspended because of salary cap complications.
Connecticut Sun: Lexie Brown (No. 9), Mikayla Cowling (No. 33) - C+
It is a bit concerning when a team picks a fifth-year senior in the first round who cannot get off the bench, then trades her for a second-round pick a year later, even when selecting at the end of the round. This was the start of Curt Miller’s now-infamous tendency to avoid playing rookies, but Brown has struggled throughout her professional career outside of her 2019 season with the Minnesota Lynx. Given the construction of Connecticut’s roster at the time—even Jonquel Jones barely played 20 minutes per game in 2018, splitting time with Alyssa Thomas and Chiney Ogwumike, and Brionna Jones sat in a strictly developmental role—it may not be the easiest to assert that the Sun should have selected another post player, where most of the draft’s remaining steals played. However, a version of Kia Nurse that was a bit luckier with injury and could remain in an ancillary offensive role would have done something to alleviate Connecticut’s persistent problem with wing depth.
Dallas Wings: Azura Stevens (No. 6), Loryn Goodwin (No. 18), Natalie Butler (No. 30) - B-
It stings when a rebuilding team gives up on a promising prospect too soon. In retrospect, it seems like that is what happened when Dallas traded Stevens to Chicago after an injury-marred second season, receiving Katie Lou Samuelson in return. Maybe after one down season, Dallas still did not feel the need to commit to the rebuild, and Samuelson was both a higher and a more recent pick, but hindsight has seen Stevens grow into a starter on a championship team while Samuelson is on her fourth WNBA team in as many seasons. Speaking narrowly about the pick itself, Stevens was a strong selection, especially given that Ariel Atkins was not expected to be taken as high as she was at No. 7. Stevens had also dropped further than most media prognosticators had expected. As for Goodwin, I am typically very enthusiastic about taking swings on guard prospects, but Goodwin was a sixth-year senior who had played for four different schools, only one of them in a major conference (no, the pre-UConn New Big East does not count), and struggled significantly as an outside shooter.
Indiana Fever: Kelsey Mitchell (No. 2), Victoria Vivians (No. 8), Stephanie Mavunga (No. 14) - B
On the surface, this draft looks somewhat uninspiring from the Fever, but a closer look reveals that it is not as bad as it seems. While Mitchell has not brought elite level offensive impact—despite increasingly efficient volume scoring—and has struggled mightily on the defensive end, she has graded out as an approximately average player overall. More importantly, the Fever at the time had very little talent in place. They were coming off a 9-25 season in 2017, their first without all-time great Tamika Catchings, and had recently traded away Briann January for that No. 8 pick. Under those circumstances, they needed to swing for upside, and Mitchell’s electric scoring at the college level as well as the overall scarcity of star-level guards made her a good bet. Vivians had a promising rookie season, but her career has been derailed by injuries, and her outside shot—only a serious strength during her senior season at Mississippi State and rookie year in the WNBA—has more or less disappeared once again (25% from three over the past two seasons). Mavunga stayed on WNBA rosters for three seasons, longer than your typical second-round pick, and has played at or near WNBA caliber in much of her time overseas.
Las Vegas Aces: A’ja Wilson (No. 1), Jaime Nared (No. 13), Park Ji-Su (No. 17, acquired on draft night), Kahlia Lawrence (No. 24, acquired on draft night), Raigyne Louis (No. 25) - A
Perhaps it feels a bit silly to give the Aces an “A” for making the obvious No. 1 overall selection, both on draft night and with hindsight. Wilson was a star in college and has been a star in the WNBA, the latter of which is not matched by anyone else in this draft class. Credit must be given for not overthinking the decision. Furthermore, while Nared may have missed even the lowered expectations of a second-round pick, Park has remained on the roster for three seasons, albeit in a bit-part role, and has consistently shown her prowess as a high-level rim protector on the international stage. Park has struggled considerably on offense in the WNBA, but Las Vegas’s consistent double-post offense under Bill Laimbeer did her particularly few favors given the fact that her jump shot is the weakest part of her game at that end and that her excellent passing shown on the international stage often comes from serving as a post hub.
Los Angeles Sparks: Maria Vadeeva (No. 11), Shakayla Thomas (No. 23), Julia Reisingerova (No. 35) - B-
Things have not worked out as well as might have been hoped with Maria Vadeeva, given that she was only able to join the Sparks for the first two seasons of her rookie contract, and she never played major minutes for the Los Angeles franchise. However, she has been exceptionally efficient offensively when she did play, and she continued to command minutes for UMMC Ekaterinburg even when they still had their full complement of WNBA All-Stars. This grade is as much an incomplete as anything else. On a side note, while it is extremely unlikely that Reisingerova will ever play in the WNBA, there remains an outside shot of it happening, more than can be said for the average third-round pick.
Minnesota Lynx: Jill Barta (No. 32, acquired on draft night)- B-
This seems like an odd grade to give a team who only kept a third-round pick. However, the trade where the Lynx acquired Barta and traded the picks that became Park Ji-Su and Kahlia Lawrence netted them a future second-round pick which they used on Jessica Shepard. Shepard has barely played, in part due to injuries, but her passing ability seems to count as an elite skill at the WNBA level, and she has not yet been cut by the Lynx. Moreover, Barta was an extremely strong statistical prospect even if she failed to make the team and played overseas only briefly.
New York Liberty: Kia Nurse (No. 10), Mercedes Russell (No. 22), Leslie Robinson (No. 34) - B
This grade would be relatively higher if the team had actually been able to keep Russell, but the team did not have space for her, re-signing her for a week on a hardship contract and then releasing her when Kia Vaughn returned. Of course, Seattle ultimately picked her up, and the rest is history. As for their first-rounder, Nurse was on a strong upward trajectory in her first two seasons despite New York’s lack of success, earning an All-Star appearance with the support of the Canadian fan electorate but probably eking her way into a spot regardless. Things deteriorated during the Wubble, when she played through injury and an excessively large role, but she returned to a high-minutes, low-usage role with Phoenix last season before suffering a major knee injury.
Phoenix Mercury: Marie Gulich (No. 12), Tyler Scaife (No. 20), Raisa Musina (No. 21), Imani Wright (No. 26) - C
Gulich garnered three chances in the WNBA with three different teams, but she never really established herself as even a plausible WNBA player. Given that she did not break out until her senior season, when she was already 23, makes this seem like a probable result even without hindsight. Scaife, Musina, and Wright all seemed like good swings, but Musina was always a long-term prospect yet was cut before even being able to appear at training camp because of visa complications; she probably should have been asked to wait a year or two.
Seattle Storm: Jordin Canada (No. 5), Teana Muldrow (No. 29) - B-
Canada’s selection may not have worked out as planned, but she has still demonstrated high-level defense and passing ability. The problem is that her shot, always a concern, translated even less than could have been reasonably expected. However, the fact that Canada was able to produce for Seattle, both taking over the starting point guard role when Sue Bird missed the 2019 season and even sharing some line-ups with the veteran floor general, indicates that I should be more generous than some might expect. While Muldrow has never stuck in the WNBA, she is the one American prospect drafted in the third round who has had a relatively substantial professional career overseas and stayed on the WNBA fringe.
Washington Mystics: Ariel Atkins (No. 7), Myisha Hines-Allen (No. 19), Rebecca Greenwell (No. 31) - A+
Coming away with the biggest steals of both the first and second rounds is no mean feat. If one excludes A’ja Wilson from consideration, Atkins’s four seasons and Hines-Allen’s 2020 Wubble campaign arguably comprise the five best individual seasons from any player in this class. It is basically impossible to argue any lower grade from the Mystics, especially given that Atkins was picked higher than any prominent media members expected.
Thanks for reading the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter. If you like our work, be sure to check out our stats site, our podcast, and our social media accounts on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.