Intrigue to Begin After Today’s Top Picks

Today’s WNBA draft has plenty to offer, with a rich senior college class full of marquee names the league hopes can take its game to new awareness and acceptance.

What it won’t have is suspense -- at least at the top.

The Phoenix Mercury has the first pick and -- surprise, surprise -- will take guard Diana Taurasi.

The former Chino Don Lugo High star had a tremendous college career at Connecticut, playing on three consecutive national championship teams. She is already considered by some as one of the best female players ever.

“We had the whole college season to go through, so we kept our minds open,” said Seth Sulka, Mercury general manager. “But the night we won the draft lottery, we thought we also won the Diana Taurasi sweepstakes.”

Sulka also expects to strike gold elsewhere. In a three-way deal with Washington and Connecticut, Phoenix acquired the eighth pick. The Mercury also has the 14th pick, the first choice in the second round.

What remains to be decided is whether Sulka will package those picks for proven WNBA players or give new Coach Carrie Graf a precocious core to develop.

“As Seattle did, we could have gotten a vet to make us better sooner than just being totally young,” said Sulka, referring to the Storm’s trading the sixth pick to Minnesota primarily for forward Sheri Sam. “We can be competitive if we don’t make a move. It will be a slow process. But we will still have upgraded the talented tremendously.”

Washington is expected to keep the second pick and take Duke standout Alana Beard, who won the Wade and inaugural Wooden Award trophies as player of the year. That will load up the Mystics at the guard spot, opening the possibility of a trade to improve their frontcourt.

After that, the draft figures to get interesting.

Charlotte, picking third, is thought to be wavering between Florida center Vanessa Hayden and Stanford forward Nicole Powell. Trudi Lacey, coach and assistant general manager, likes the size of the 6-foot-4, 230-pound Hayden, considered the best center available. But Hayden recently broke her right foot and will not be ready for training camp, or the start of the season.

The 6-2 Powell showed great versatility in college, playing all five positions. Where she fits in the WNBA is the question scouts have been debating for months.

“We’ll be burning the midnight oil on Friday” before in making a decision, Lacey said.

There is more talent for the other teams to select from. Minnesota guard Lindsay Whalen, coveted by the Lynx, increased her stock tremendously with the Gophers’ run to the Final Four. Arkansas forward Shameka Christon raised her profile at one of several league predraft combine camps.

Others expected to merit first-round consideration include Kansas State forward Nicole Ohlde, Penn State guard Kelly Mazzante, Houston guard Chandi Jones and Purdue forward Shereka Wright.

“There are probably five players who could have an immediate impact on teams,” Lacey said. “Then you have some very good players in the draft who will be good in time.”

The Sparks, whose two-year reign as league champions was ended last season by Detroit, have the 12th, next to last, pick in the first round.

Spark General Manager Penny Toler has spent the off-season dealing with the knee injury of starting forward DeLisha Milton-Jones, now expected to be ready for training camp, and the increasing unwillingness of guard Jackie Stiles to join the team and instead force a trade.

Toler, who signed the team’s starting core of Lisa Leslie, Milton-Jones, Nikki Teasley, Tamecka Dixon and Mwadi Mabika to multiyear deals, has limited room under the league’s $647,000 salary cap to fill the rest of her roster.

The Spark general manager said that she would go for “the best player available, backcourt or frontcourt. But I don’t know who will be there.”

One who could is Ebony Hoffman, a three-time All-Pac-10 forward at USC. Toler acknowledged interest in Hoffman, saying: “She had a very good pre-draft camp. But so did a lot of guards.”

It’s that kind of draft.