Earlier this week I asked for your thoughts on my 2007 WNBA awards ballot. It's been in the back of my mind as events have unfolded over the past two weeks, and I've also taken your comments into consideration. Now here's Part One of my WNBA Awards, starting with the First and Second All-WNBA Teams. Monday we will post my picks for individual awards, except the MVP, which will be posted on Wednesday. Send your comments - agree, disagree, or your picks - ShockExchange@palacenet.com, and we'll post your emails sometime during the playoffs.

First Team Guards: Becky Hammon (SA) & Deanna Nolan (DET)
Second Team Guards: Alana Beard (WAS) & Seimone Augustus (MIN)

Hammon

The Silver Stars have enjoyed a renaissance season under Hammon, who leads the league in assists (5.1 apg) and looks as revitalized as her team. She has guided the Silver Stars to their first winning season in San Antonio and built real hopes for a WNBA title. Hammon could have been thunderstruck by the blockbuster draft-day deal that sent her out of the Big Apple, instead she came back better than ever at age 30. A career 11.4 points-per-game scorer, Hammon is averaging 19.1 in 2007.

Nolan

Nolan is the best player on what could be the best team in the WNBA. She has carried the Shock offensively in more games than she should have had to, including her franchise-record 36 points at Connecticut July 24. But Augustus has carried the load, too. The league's No. 2 scorer (22.9 ppg) hasn’t let the loss of her backcourt mate, Rookie of the Year candidate Lindsey Harding, slow her down. In fact, she’s picked it up, averaging just less than 25 points over the last 10 games. On a last-place team playing for 2008, she could have packed it in at the All-Star break. She hasn't, and everyone who has watched her play has benefited by it.

Augustus

As much as I would love to see Nolan and Augustus - possibly the WNBA's two best finishers the league - play one-on-one to settle the debate, it came down to this for the First Team: Both players are do-it-all talents, but only Nolan's team wins because of it.

Beard

Choosing between Phoenix’s Diana Taurasi (18.6 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 4.4 apg) and Washington’s Alana Beard (18.8 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 2.9 apg) was as difficult as it looks. Taurasi led Phoenix to the playoffs for the first time in seven years while Beard was the catalyst in Washington’s turnaround from an 0-8 start. But Taurasi looked awful against the Shock, shooting 6-of-22 and 2-of-12 in their two meetings (a woeful 23.5 percent combined). She’s shooting 45.1 percent against the rest of the league and seems to have people’s attention for MVP.
Still, I give Beard the advantage. The Mystics defeated Phoenix both times they met, including a stunning 17-point victory to snap that winless start. Beard averaged 24.0 points, shot 50 percent from the field and totaled 11 assists to seven turnovers (all in the second meeting). Taurasi averaged 26.5 points in those games, but tallied only three assists and twice as many turnovers (six).

First Team Center: Lauren Jackson (SEA)
Second Team Center: Tammy Sutton-Brown (IND)

Jackson

Even if she’s a forward in Seattle’s lineup, moving the 6-foot-5 Jackson - and her league-best 23.6 points and 9.5 rebounds - clears a logjam at forward. In a league with few premiere pivots, Jackson is the brightest skyscraper on the landscape. She is a transcendent talent who happened to have her worst game of 2007 against the Shock (11 points, seven rebounds). But after tying the WNBA record with 47 points in a game, I’m calling it a wash.

Sutton-Brown

I initially had Houston’s Michelle Snow on the Second Team, but she didn’t wow me with her 1-for-3, two-point second half at The Palace Aug. 14. Considering all that Sutton-Brown has done to keep Indiana competitive in Tamika Catchings’ absence, and her body of work overall (12.2 ppg, 5.5 rpg), I think she belongs here.
Postscript (Aug. 17, 3:45 pm): So it turns out I should have read the ballot before writing about my picks. I cannot pick Jackson as a center because even though she’s listed as one, she does not predominantly start at the position. I relented to keep my ballot valid and promoted Sutton-Brown to First Team. Here’s how I got out of the jam:

Feenstra

Like I said, I’m not thrilled with Snow, and she’s the only other center averaging double figures. There is a dearth of quality centers in the WNBA, which is why it was tempting to move Jackson there in the first place. Since consistent excellence is hard to find at that position, I shifted my criteria to which center most often has a significant performance, i.e., a double-double. Lo and behold - I didn’t see this coming - but Detroit’s own Katie Feenstra leads all centers with four double-doubles. Three of them have come in August. When you consider Feenstra started the year as a backup who didn’t fit Detroit’s scheme and is now the starter, I found it rather easy to make Feenstra my Second Team center. If she had been doing it since May, she’d be on a lot more ballots, too.

Jackson did not perform well at all against Detroit, while the other four forwards I had already named each had big games against the league’s top team. Considering the media outlet I represent, that’s a rather large criterion, and couldn’t bring myself to bumping any of them. So I made the bold move of leaving Jackson off my ballot. (I don’t think it will hurt her chances of making the First Team, however.) Keep in mind the all-league team ballot is separate from the MVP ballot.

First Team Forwards: Penny Taylor (PHX) & Tina Thompson (HOU)
Second Team Forwards: Candice Dupree (CHI) & Sophia Young (SA)

With both of my sure-fire First Teamers knocked out by injuries - Detroit’s Cheryl Ford and Catchings - I was left with a group of five forwards who are virtually indistinguishable for two spots. I’m not sure what was tougher, determining which player to leave out altogether or which ones deserved to be on the First Team.

Taylor

I thought Taylor was going to be my hidden gem after watching her light up the Shock for 59 percent shooting in two games (13-of-22), including a 23-point, 10-rebound, four-assist performance at Phoenix. Then Taylor is named the Western Conference Player of the Week, WNBA.com blogger Doris Burke puts Taylor on her First Team, and it turns out she’s the WNBA’s third-leading scorer in the month of August (21.4 ppg in five games). Always a solid but unspectacular scorer, it seems the “Paul Ball” has taken her game to another level - 18.1 ppg this season, more than five above her career average.

Thompson

Thompson wasn’t on my radar screen until she came into The Palace and scored 10 points in the first six minutes. Her 25 points and nine rebounds Aug. 14 were highly convincing, as was this nugget: Thompson leads the league in minutes - more than 36 minutes a night - on a team that was going nowhere. Here’s a highly decorated vet with multiple championships, and she’s logging the most minutes on a losing team - and she’s producing 22.0 points in August, second in the league. That deserves First-Team respect.

Young

Young also has been a monster in August, averaging 19.4 points down the stretch as San Antonio tries to claim the top seed in the West. And though she was horrible at The Palace (5-of-19 shooting) she did score 23 against the Shock July 31. Young is, well, young, so the veteran Thompson gets the nod.

Dupree

Dupree was initially a First Teamer in my book after watching put together a pair of double-doubles at The Palace, including a 24-point, 12-rebound showing July 26. But Dupree has slumped a bit the second half of the season, going from 19.8 points on 52.8 percent shooting in June to 14.0 points and 38.5 percent in August. It was worth a downgrade, not a dismissal.
So the player left out is … Connecticut’s Asjha Jones, a first-time All-Star who made a big splash in her first season as a regular starter. It just wasn’t enough as Thompson, Young and Taylor all had amazing Augusts. The Sun forward joins teammate guard Katie Douglas on my All-Snub Team, which goes to show what an 0-4 record against the Shock will get you.