In a transition year without former WNBA MVP Maya Moore and the league's all-time winningest player, Lindsay Whalen, the Minnesota Lynx looked ready to compete in Wednesday's draft.
The team addressed needs in the frontcourt with their top two picks, UConn's Napheesa Collier sixth overall, followed by Notre Dame's Jessica Shepard in the second round. They also added the scoring and three-point shooting they'll need to try and compensate for the loss of Moore for 2019 by adding Buffalo's Cierra Dillard, who was the second-leading scorer in all of Division I basketball this season, and trading for Lexie Brown, a Duke grad who played limited minutes with Connecticut but showed promise as an athletic scorer and long-range shooter in college.
The Lynx also drafted Gopher Kenisha Bell with their final pick in the third round. Minnesota drafted Gopher and fellow Minnesota native Carlie Wagner in the third round last season, but she did not make the team out of training camp.
"It was a really good night for the Minnesota Lynx," head coach and general manager Cheryl Reeve said. "We're excited. We feel like we got a haul, which we needed."
Moore, the No. 1 overall pick in 2011 who helped lead the Lynx to four WNBA championships most recently in 2017, said she taking this season off to pursue her "ministry dreams." The Lynx finished one game over .500 last season, barely advanced to the playoffs as the seventh seed in a 12-team league, and lost in the one-game first round to the Los Angeles Sparks. Whalen retired and finished her first season as the head coach of the Gopher women's basketball team.
The Lynx season begins Saturday, May 25 when they host the Chicago Sky.