Silver Stars GM Dan Hughes Discusses the Draft

The San Antonio Silver Stars have seen a good amount of change during the offseason. While player movement is always expected, the coaching staff had been well established, so when Dan Hughes announced that we was stepping down as head coach in order to concentrate on his duties as general manager, it came as a surprise. Sandy Brondello takes over the head coaching duties and will field a team that will feature a number of new faces in 2010, including the players San Antonio selects in Thursday's WNBA Draft.

Hughes took some time to chat with WNBA.com about this year's draft class, his draft prepartion and strategy, the player moves that the Silver Stars have already made and breaks down some of this year's top prospects.


WNBA.com: With the fifth pick, you guys have plenty of options. Are these any specific needs you’re trying to fill right now?

Hughes: Because of some of the free agency moves that we've made, I think we honestly have the ability to go across the board. We can take a point guard, we can take a big perimeter player, we can take a post player. A lot of it has to do with, does somebody fall who might be projected higher to us? I think we would be open to that. Any player, just about. If not, and if we’re just talking about needs, I think we’re still interested in another post player. I think we’re still interested in a perimeter player of size. It might be a continued need that we’re looking to fill, but we’re really open to who’s there. It’s not going to be need based if somebody drops. It might be, 'Ok, this player’s here. Do we think she’s a better player?' We’ll take her."

WNBA.com: Tell me a little bit about your scouting process in terms of going out, going to games. I’m sure everyone’s been tuning into the NCAA tourney, but how much do you get to go out onto the road and see some of the players in person?

Hughes: "I try to see potential first rounders, to be honest with you. That’s usually a goal of mine. I am mostly a video person. I am mostly driven by that; I watch an enormous amount of games. Every day from the start of the college season to the end, without exception for most, I wake up and I watch games from the night before or study a specific player. I’m driven more by video than I am by live. We try to see what we might determine first round picks, live at least."

WNBA.com: Obviously with the amount of video you’re watching, have there been players that you kind of pick up that don’t get the top billing but that you’ve seen enough of that you would kind of have a little of an under the radar aspect to them?

Hughes: "Yeah. I think that because of the resources in our league and in some peoples’ situation, we do use TV and we do use video out there. Just about everybody’s on TV. There are some teams that are on a lot more than others. So you look at some of those kids – Alysha Clark is a great example – I had game film on her but you may not quite have as much game film on her as somebody who plays in the Big Ten and you’re getting almost every game. In the moment, I think those kids sometimes are underlooked. The other situation that I find myself in sometimes is that you got a player maybe on a great team and they’re not the first option or the second option. And you’re evaluating them and watching them and realizing they’re good players but they’re taking the role of a second or third option on a good team. And then you got the flipside of it. You got a player who is kind of carrying their team. There’s a couple of examples. Andrea Riley was really leaned on hard by her team. Allison Hightower was really leaned on hard by her team, from an offensive perspective, both of them. So there’s an aspect now, you’re saying, 'I’m going to take that player and put them into our system. How does that fit?' I don’t know if I have an answer, but those are things that I watch tape on and then try and analyze and specifically as I get to know them personally. How the fit would be."

WNBA.com: You can look at somebody like a Kalana Greene, the third option on UConn. Is her value to fit into a system greater than someone that maybe is carrying a team?

Hughes: "Right. And that’s a dilemma. I’m not sure I completely answer that in my own mind. You think about that a little bit, because there is a reality to it. The role delineation in both situations in college makes sense. But the role delineation here is going to be different. Potentially for that one player who was leaned on exclusively, they’re going to have better players around them in some cases for them to play to. So there’s that little dilemma going on as you evaluate these good players."

WNBA.com: You guys have had a lot of player movement, even before the Draft. You have your core of Becky, Sophia and you brought back Ruth, but you really are going to fit and put a pretty new team out there this year.

Hughes: "'Blending' is the word we try to use. Because we have some staples as part of the way we’re doing. But yeah, I think you have a new coach that’s bringing her style to this. It’s not a bad time for all of this to happen because of that situation. But the word we’re using is 'blending.' We got some staples there but we’ve had to blend some other pieces in with it now."

WNBA.com: Does it feel a bit like a transition year? Obviously with you moving solely to the GM role, new coach, a bunch of new players. Is there going to be enough time to try to get everything together?

Hughes: "Well I think the biggest year of growth that I’ve had in San Antonio was also the biggest year of change. So I think it’s kind of how we handle what we end up with. You look back here; we went from winning 13 games in year two to winning 20 games. And there was significant change. You know, Becky came in, Ruth came in, Erin Buescher came in. A lot of those players came in on those particular years. The other thing I would say is, our league is so fluid that you better, ya know, if I look back at last year and have any regrets about the year – and I don’t have a lot, but I have some – it would be that we had a very good season the year before. We didn’t make a lot of changes. But the league kept getting better. And I think that we in the WNBA, if you’re standing still your competition may be getting better. And so that constant look to try and get better is something that we have to embrace in the WNBA because we seem to be escalating our play each year in a way that we got to be aware of."

WNBA.com: If you’re not moving with everybody else you’re gonna get passed, right?

Hughes: "Yeah. And you know, we had such a wonderful team the year before, I was hesitant to a lot of change a year ago. But in hindsight, I thought teams got deeper. I thought there were some issues that we were dealing with that we hadn’t dealt with in the year before in our competition, so we had to address that kind of as we get ready 2010."

WNBA.com: Well one of the things you had to deal with last year was Ann Wauters coming in midway and obviously this year she decided not to play at all. Were you expecting that? Did you know this coming in and it just got announced this week, or did she make this decision fairly recently?

Hughes: "Well I think she put the final stages on the decision just recently. We knew she was making a decision and we knew, we have a good relationship with her, and we knew that it was a pull and tug with her because she enjoys playing basketball here. The issue had nothing to do with basketball. The issue had to do with, kind of her overall look at her life, from the standpoint of playing year around and that type of thing. And we knew from the basketball experience that we have a really good relationship with her and that she enjoys playing here a great deal. A great deal. But we were aware that she was going through a really difficult decision and I think bringing Michelle Snow in here was one of the reflections on that, for example."

WNBA.com: The final thing I want to talk about is your transition. How has it been just sitting in the GM seat and not having to wear the coach’s hat anymore?

Hughes: "I haven’t really felt it yet because I’ve been extremely busy. It’s just business as usual with me. The only difference really has been that I think I spent a lot of time trying to understand Sandy’s look at things. And I spend more time thinking about players that I think fit how she wants to play the game. I think that’s important. It’s not just thinking about Dan Hughes’ comfort level, I think it’s important to think about Sandy Brondello’s comfort level in some of these decisions. And we share a lot of history so I have a good beginning point with that. But I’ve probably been as busy or busier than I’ve ever been in any year right to this point. Now I think when the season starts it’ll be a little different for me, but right now it’s just me trying to compliment what they’re trying to do as much as I can in my role."

WNBA.com: That’s obviously a new challenge this year. Before you’re drafting players and you’re coaching the players, so you’re drafting exactly who you want to coach. Is it tough to draft for someone else to coach the player? How much input are you really taking in from Sandy to help guide these decisions?

Hughes: "I’m taking a lot of input, to be honest with you. I know how important it to have a comfort level in who you coach. You’re absolutely right. At some point I switched from being GM to coach and I looked at the players mostly as coach at that point. How I would coach them and how we’re going to do that. So I think it’s very important how they feel. Very, very, VERY important. (laughs) And at some point I feel like it’s my job just to hand this team over to them and say, “OK. You’re a team.” You know? And for us to have worked together to that point. I don’t like messing with teams a lot during the season. If you’ve typically watched me, I haven’t done a lot of moves in-season through my decade and I don’t really necessarily want to do that with them unless it’s absolutely called for by events or something. I want to work together on putting together a great training camp for them and I kinda want to let them see how this team finishes up in their minds to take into the season at that point. And I just want to be helpful in that process, but I think it’s very important that hey have ownership of this team as well as the players that I’m attracted to."

WNBA.com: I don’t know how much information you’d be willing to divulge, but can you give me an idea of some of the players you guys are looking at any maybe targeting at the number 5 spot? I mean that you projected to kind of be around. Everyone would love to have Tina Charles, but it’s just not gonna happen. One, two and three seem pretty firm but after that you really do have a lot of options there.

Hughes: "Wright, Appel and Charles I don’t think we need to talk about. They’re the names we hear ahead of us. I think if those players fall we’ll certainly consider any of those players, including Charles (laughs). But I think with the grouping you got – you got Griffin. You got Riley. You got Hightower. Greene we’ve looked at a lot of tape of. Monroe. You got a group like that, depending on what position you want to kinda wanna go to at that point. We’ve fluctuated within that group, to be honest with you. And I say that honestly. I don’t know exactly where our pick is just yet. But we will consider if any of those other kids fall. There’s no question we’ll consider that."