The Mercury has the player every team in the league wanted. It has the attention of sports fans who have ignored the WNBA for years. Credibility has smiled on the franchise.

Now it just needs one more thing.

Wins.

The new-look Mercury, with expectations higher than they have been in years, hopes to get the Diana Taurasi era off to a good start tonight in the season opener against Sacramento. The crowd is expected to exceed 10,000 and would fill the lower bowl at America West Arena.

"There's definitely a new peak of interest," General Manager Seth Sulka said. "But we are going to have to win some games. We're going to have deliver a great experience."

Carrie Graf, the Mercury's first-year head coach, knows that reinventing a team that won only eight games a year ago isn't an easy challenge and won't happen overnight.

"We're a work in progress," Graf said. "We're going to keep getting better until the end of the season, but we're such a new team as far as bringing new talent together. Look at our team, and it hasn't got a lot of people from last year's roster. Look at other teams, and they've got a good core of players. This will take time. It's a building process, literally game by game, week by week.

"People have to understand that you have ebbs and flows in sports, highs and lows. It's not often that you can turn around straightaway. We're not going to put a ceiling on ourselves . . . but we're so new and unknown to ourselves and everyone else, there's an air of excitement about us, but it takes time to build a new thing."

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While Taurasi is the catalyst for most of that excitement, the Mercury will be far from a one-person team. Balance has been stressed from the first day of training camp, and if the trend established in preseason continues, a lot of players will get in on the action.

Experienced players, such as Taurasi's perimeter mate Anna DeForge, All-Star center Adrian Williams and newcomer Penny Taylor, will have to act as stabilizing forces for a team striving for chemistry and a reversal of fortunes.

There should be no lack of offense, but Graf stresses that better defensive play is needed.

"We have people with enough offensive talent to score enough to win games, but we're nowhere where we need to be defensively," she said. "Often when you have people who are offensively focused, they don't tend to be as good as defenders. We need to get that to be a really strong part of their game."

Taylor, obtained from Cleveland in the dispersal draft, could be the player to provide a defensive spark. "What she has done so far is not a surprise," Graf said. "I know what she can do. She has been superb so far. She can score, but she does the little things - rebounds, pressures the ball. She's a solid defender."

DeForge said everyone is excited about the season and ready to play games that count after going 2-1 in exhibitions.

"We have a learning curve yet, trying to get familiar with each other, trying to jell and get that chemistry rolling, but that will come," she said. "We are very optimistic. If you compare this to last season, the only way we can go is up."

Graf isn't making any promises or predictions, except that the season will be exciting. At the same time, she cautions, "Where it goes is anybody's guess."

Mercury scouting report

BRIGHT SPOTS:

Diana Taurasi, the most-heralded rookie in WNBA history, leads an influx of new players joining a few holdovers and a new head coach. The team has the attention it has been lacking in recent years and has a chance to recapture a fan base. Offense figures to be strong on the perimeter, with no shortage of players willing to take a shot.

CONCERNS:

Coach Carrie Graf says the team is "nowhere near" where it needs to be defensively. Untested rookies will have to mature rapidly. Taurasi has played non-stop for several months, and stamina might come into play as the season wears on.

THE X-FACTOR:

Talent on team has been upgraded considerably, but can a group of players just getting to know each other find instant chemistry and turn around a last-place team in one year?

SURPRISE, SURPRISE:

Veteran Nikki McCray is trying to revive her career, and rookie Shereka Wright is just starting hers. Both have shown they are tough players who can disrupt the opponents' offensive schemes and could be the surprises of the year.

BOTTOM LINE:

Heightened expectations abound for a team that won only eight games last year, but players seem to be keeping things in perspective. In the midst of the Taurasi craze, veterans Adrian Williams and Penny Taylor have slipped under the radar, and both could be primed for big years. If things fall into place, a .500 record seems reasonable, which would double last year's wins.

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