Los Angeles, CA- It was no surprise, Paige Bueckers the projected No. 1 draft pick went to the Dallas Wings once announced at New York’s Hudson Yards at The Shed while ESPN broadcasted 38 draft selections by 12 different WNBA teams out of 13 across the country, becoming more unexpected and less predictable after the first two picks, as USC’s star forward and Stanford graduate transfer, KiKi Iriafen, garnered tons of interest before being selected as the No. 4 pick by the Washington Mystics while her fellow USC teammate and four year forward, Rayah Marshall, became the No. 25 pick for the Connecticut Sun after the LA Sparks holding the No. 9 pick and No. 21, choose two SEC players, Alabama’s Sarah Ashlee Barker and South Carolina’s Sania Feagin. Then rounding out their draft picks at No. 27 with the selection of Notre Dame’s unheralded star forward, Liatu King.
“She is who we wanted going into this ninth pick and who we had circled, so we were fired up,” new LA sparks coach Lynne Roberts said during a post press conference following the draft. “The thing about Sarah Ashlee she is just a competitor at heart.”
Following Barker’s draft announcement, she spoke about learning from another Sparks’ shooting guard and recently acquired WNBA champion, Kelsey Plum, while also gleaning from former Sparks’ rookies, Rae Burrell and Rickea Jackson.
Continuing to usher in a new era both for the league and Sparks team, with some athletes retiring while many athletes are evolving into playing dynamic roles, coach Roberts described Feagin as one of the rare traditional post players still able to carry on frontcourt elite tradition of Sparks Center Lisa Leslie and Power Forward Candace Parker whose jersey the Sparks will retire this year.
“She’s a winner and she knows how to compete. There is value in that I love her potential and know thats kind of an overused word, but when you talking about specifically post players, it’s an important word“ Coach Roberts said. “I think she has all the natural tools to be a really good WNBA player.”
Summarizing about their draft class, Sparks GM Raegan Pebley reflected on this humbling experience, sharing a personal connection that she had during King’s draft interview.
“She is the daughter of two deaf parents and I know some sign language so I was able to welcome them to the Sparks,” Pebley said. “Helping them feel apart of this Sparks family.”
Both Pebley and coach Roberts felt their Sparks won the draft with their three draft picks all exemplifying in their own way the kind of players drawn to Roberts’ coaching style.
Roberts emphasized, “they all had to fight thru some things, wait their turn and all the above and that’s who we want to have…they are studs.”
Feeling as if she had walked out of a war room after the draft, Roberts said,
“For where we were, where we are, and what we really want our franchise to be about, I think we won.”
