TEAM-BY-TEAM CAPSULES

Predicted order of finish

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Houston Comets

* 1998 record: 27-3

* Coach: Van Chancellor.

* Best player: Cynthia Cooper.

* At a glance: Just when you thought the two-time champion Comets had improved, along with the rest of the league, in the draft, they go out and get upended in an exhibition game by the Washington Mystics. Not to worry. The Comets are still the best. They have reloaded handsomely, arming themselves with an international veteran center, Russian Natalia Zasulskaya, added the ABL’s best passing and shot-blocking center, Kara Wolters, and--better late than never--finally is suiting up Bulgarian Polina Tzekova. She was to have played last year but stayed home to care for her ailing mother. All of that besides league most valuable player and scoring leader Cynthia Cooper, crack shot Sheryl Swoopes and Tina Thompson. The Comets are missing only point guard Kim Perrot from their two title teams. She continues to battle brain cancer. Chancellor is trying two ABL draftees at her position, Sonja Henning and Jen Rizzoti.

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Phoenix Mercury

* 1998 record: 19-11

* Coach: Cheryl Miller

* Best player: Jennifer Gillom.

* At a glance: Phoenix was stumbling along at the midway point last year, barely playing .500 basketball, when Gillom, who turns 35 next week, ignited her team. The Mercury won six of its last seven to reach the playoff semifinals, beat Cleveland, then took Houston to the final minutes of the third and deciding game before falling. Australian point guard Michele Timms is 34 and wants to finish her career at the Sydney Olympics. She had an off year in 1998 but reported to camp in “the best shape of my life.” Gillom, too, reported 20 pounds lighter. The Mercurty’s first draft pick was Edna Campbell, a 14-point scorer and 40% three-point shooter in the ABL. Miller will have to do without Aussie starter Michelle Griffiths, who is pregnant. Replacing her will be No. 2 draft pick Clarissa Davis-Wrightsil, formerly of the Long Beach StingRays.

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Los Angeles Sparks

* 1998 record: 12-18.

* Coach: Orlando Woolridge

* Best player: Lisa Leslie

* At a glance: Rosters on paper don’t mean much, but it’s nonetheless hard to find a WNBA team that improved itself more in the draft. OK, maybe Utah. For Los Angeles, nothing broke right last season, starting with Allison Feaster’s foot. The top draft pick broke her foot in the season’s third game. After that, Coach Julie Rousseau was fired and replaced by Woolridge at midseason. The Sparks came up huge in the draft, and the result will be that Lisa Leslie has major help all around her, led by ABL standouts DeLisha Milton, Clarisse Machanguana and La’Keshia Frett. Now, with help inside, Leslie isn’t strictly a low-post player anymore. Also, Milton, Machanguana and Frett are major defenders. Feaster, who played in the Israeli league after her foot healed, will start at the wing. The new point guard is Purdue rookie Ukari Figgs, who has beaten out Penny Toler. Joining the club this week from the European Championships are two Yugoslavs, guard Gordana Bogojevic and center Nina Bjedov.

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Sacramento Monarchs

* 1998 record: 8-22.

* Coach: Sonny Allen.

* Best player: Yolanda Griffith.

* At a glance: Point guard Ruthie Bolton-Holifield is rehabilitating slowly from knee surgery. If she can’t play at full throttle early, that will dampen Monarch hopes because in the draft, with the second overall pick, they took a player some call the best in the women’s game--6-4 Yolanda Griffith. She’s a fast, aggressive low-post player who in the ABL’s last full season averaged 18.8 points and 11.2 rebounds. To balance her dominating inside game, the Monarchs drafted former Stanford and ABL star Kate Starbird, a slasher who also brings a three-point shot. Returning in the backcourt is one of the game’s premier point guards, Ticha Penicheiro.

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Utah Starzz

* 1998 record: 8-22.

* Coach: Frank Layden

* Best player: Natalie Williams.

* At a glance: Hopes are riding as high as the Wasatch range at the Delta Center, where Layden emerged from the draft with arguably a “best in the game” low post player. Natalie Williams, the third pick overall, brings Utah back to maybe a .500 team. But the Starzz also needed help in the backcourt and they got it with the smallest player in the draft, 5-3 Debbie Black. After two years at Colorado in the ABL and seven in the Australian League, she’s a 32-year-old rookie with a riveting, all-out defensive style. The third pick, Adrienne Goodson, was the ABL’s No. 3 rebounder. Utah now has maybe the best rebounding corps with Goodson, 7-2 Margo Dydek, Wendy Palmer, Olympia Scott and Williams. Dydek, by the way, led Poland to the title in the recent European Championships at Warsaw. She won the MVP award and led the tournament in scoring at 19.3.

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Minnesota Lynx

* 1998 record: Expansion team.

* Coach: Brian Agler.

* Best player: Kristin Folkl.

* At a glance: The Lynx started out by hiring the ABL’s most successful coach, Brian Agler, who won two championships at Columbus with Katie Smith, Sonja Tate and Andrea Lloyd-Curry. No surprise, then, that all three are now on his WNBA team. Smith blew out her knee in the last weeks of the ABL and won’t be out of rehab until July. Folkl was an allocated player. She, like Orlando’s Nykesha Sales, wasn’t in the 1998 draft because she’d had knee surgery. The Lynx also have Adia Barnes, onetime Pacific 10 player of the year at Arizona. Folkl will be spectacular, but the Lynx will struggle until Smith is ready.

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Cleveland Rockers

* 1998 Record: 20-10.

* Coach: Linda Hill-MacDonald.

* Best player: Suzie McConnell Serio.

* At a glance: Cleveland won the Eastern Conference title last summer, but gave up almost as many points as it scored. So the Rockers made defense a draft theme with their first two picks, taking 6-2 Chasity Melvin, a former ABL player, first and Old Dominion’s 6-1 Mery Andrade second. But Cleveland’s best player is still point guard McConnell Serio, the 32-year-old two-time Olympian, mother of four and an off-season high school coach at Oakland Catholic in Pittsburgh. Only Sacramento’s Ticha Penicheiro had more assists last season and no one showed more court smarts. However, she’s recovering from a foot injury and may miss the first week or two. Eva Nemcova was easily the WNBA’s best three-point shooter (45.2%) last year. A major problem shapes up at center, where Isabelle Fijalkowski (6-5), the No. 6 rebounder last year, remains unsigned. With her, Cleveland can make another run at a title. Without, no chance. McConnell Serio’s backup will be Tennessee’s Kellie Jolly-Harper.

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Charlotte Sting

* 1998 Record: 18-12.

* Coach: Marynell Meadors.

* Best player: Dawn Staley.

* At a glance: The Sting gambled a bit with the first-round draft selection of Staley, 29. She’s the premier point guard in the women’s game on her best days but also has the most fragile knees. If she holds up, she should blend well with proven scorers Andrea Stinson (15.0), Tracy Reid (13.8) and Vicky Bullett (13.3). Charlotte’s second draft pick, Purdue’s Stephanie McCarty, has sizzled at times in Sting scrimmages. Third pick Charlotte Smith, former North Carolina All-American and ABL standout, should help improve both poor attendance and Sting court speed. Charlotte reached the playoffs last summer but was flattened by Houston in the semifinals. A lot is riding here on Staley if the Sting is to improve.

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New York Liberty

* 1998 record: 18-12.

* Coach: Richie Adubato.

* Best player: Teresa Weatherspoon.

* At a glance: Many were surprised when Nancy Darsch was fired by Liberty General Manager Carol Blazejowski after an 18-12 season. But that record was a drop-off from 1997, when the Liberty reached the championship series with Houston. Last summer, New York didn’t make the playoffs. So Adubato, former NBA coach at Dallas and Orlando, was hired. The Liberty tried to boost the offense with its first draft pick, three-point specialist Crystal Robinson, the best three-point shooter (46.6%) in the ABL’s last full season. Next, New York took agile Duke center Michele VanGorp to strengthen New York’s low-post game. The Liberty also recently signed former Long Beach ABL center Venus Lacy, who wasn’t drafted, to compete down low with Rebecca Lobo and Kym Hampton. Rookie Tamicka Whitmore scored 26.3 points a game with Memphis in the ABL’s final season. Weatherspoon, the league’s most emotional player, is the team leader.

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Detroit Shock

* 1998 record: 17-13.

* Coach: Nancy Lieberman-Cline.

* Best player: Cindy Brown.

* At a glance: In a preseason teleconference, Lieberman-Cline called herself “Hawkeye” and her basketball team “MASH” casualties. The three top draft picks, Jennifer Azzi, Val Whiting and Dominique Canty, all missed the club’s two exhibition games with the Sparks because of injuries, as did Cindy Brown, the WNBA’s No. 2 rebounder. Brown may miss the first two games. In addition, Russians Oksana Zakauluzhnaya and Elena Thornikidou are reporting late. Detroit’s 6-8 returning center, glacier-slow Razija Brcaninovic (newly married, she was Razija Mujanovic last summer), may not survive the final round of cuts. Detroit, with Azzi and shooting guard Korie Hlede, now has a backcourt--when intact--as good as anyone’s. Figure the Shock to start slowly and finish strong.

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Washington Mystics

* 1998 record: 3-27.

* Coach: Nancy Darsch.

* Best player: Chamique Holdsclaw.

* At a glance: The Mystics could go from worst to near best, after making Tennessee’s Holdsclaw, the league’s first draft choice. In an exhibition game against Utah, not much had changed for her. She scored 14 points and had 13 rebounds in a 76-71 win. And when the Mystics knocked off champion Houston in Knoxville last week, Holdsclaw had 20 points, 10 rebounds and six assists. One problem might be how well Darsch’s superstars, Holdsclaw and Nikki McCray blend their games. McCray was the league’s No. 4 scorer last year at 17.7. The Mystics also got a premier ABL rebounder, Shalonda Enis, and she’ll be paired with returnee Murriel Page up front. Former Long Beach StingRay point guard Andrea Nagy has won the starting assignment.

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Orlando Miracle

* 1988 record: Expansion team.

* Coach: Carolyn Peck

* Best player: Nykesha Sales.

* At a glance: Eight hours after her Purdue Boilermakers had won the NCAA championship in March, Peck, hired earlier by the expansion team, had already switched hats and was on her way to Orlando. She has assembled a good team but not one anyone expects to challenge for a playoff berth. The Miracle was awarded Sales as an expansion assignment player. She missed the 1998 season because of a torn Achilles’ tendon. Orlando then picked up an underrated ABL point guard, Shannon Johnson, as an allocated player. In the draft, the first choice was Tari Phillips, a tough inside player who averaged eight rebounds per game with the Colorado Xplosion in the ABL.