Post Draft Q&A’s

Interview with Lindsay Whalen

Q: Are you all right with the move from Minnesota to Connecticut?
A: Oh yeah definitely. I am just excited about the opportunity and the chance to be able to play again and to get to know the team.

Q: What do you know about this franchise?
A: I went to a game last year when I was on the young women’s team, so I know that it’s in a casino and I know Katie Douglas from the Big-Ten and I have talked to the coaches and started to get to know them, so I am very excited to get there.

Q: What do you think you need to work on now that you will be playing professionally?
A: Well I need to work on my game in a lot of different ways. I need to work on my jump shot, try to eliminate turnovers, and to improve on the defensive end will be keys to improving.

Q: What have the past few weeks, months been like for you? Have you been able to rest at all?
A: It’s been very busy lately with the way that our season ended and everything else it has been a busy, busy month for me.

Q: Do you prefer to play the one or two guard?
A: Well I am ready to do whatever I need to do to help the team and whatever will help us go is what I am ready for.

Q: Are you more comfortable at one position or the other?
A: It depends on the team and the situation that we are in. At Minnesota I played each position about half of my time there and it is all about doing whatever I need to do to help the team win.

Q: Do you prefer the take charge mode and have the ball in your hands?
A: Well again it just depends on what my team needs me to do. I like to have the ball in my hands and if we need a basket then I will do all that I can to get us one.

Q: Can you talk about coming into a team that specifically needs a point guard with the Sun having traded Pee Wee Johnson and also the opportunity that opens up for your rookie season?
A: It gives me a chance to step in and contribute in any fashion that I can.

Q: Has your new coach given you any indication of what he expects out of you heading into camp or early on in your career and how you might fit in immediately?
A: Not really. I am sure that I will talk to them later in the day and season to find out what my role is and what I need to work on.

Q: Here’s a trick question for you, coming into a state that loves their women’s hoops can you guess how many reporters are in the room right now?
A: Oh that’s a good question, I would have to guess about fifteen.

Interview with Coach Thibault

First of all I am very excited about our draft. As some of you have figured out we got the player that we had coveted, in fact I probably saw Lindsay play about a dozen times over the course of the year and we tracked her starting last year and we are very happy to have her. In fact we have been tracking all the girls we took in this draft since last year.

In one of my early trips last year I got to see all three of our first three picks play in the same tournament in the Bahamas that hosted Minnesota, Penn State and George Washington. I felt that when I came back in Thanksgiving, I knew that we wanted Lindsay Whalen. To be honest with you, if we had the second pick in the draft we would have taken Lindsay Whalen. That is not to say that Alana Beard isn’t a great player, but the player that would have best fit our team was the player we ended up with.

While Beard is similar to a few of our key players, Nykesha, Katie, but with Whalen she is going to change the whole way that we play. She has a little bit of John Stockton, a little bit of Jason Kidd in her and for our league she has some size. I heard her say that she has to work on her shooting, but I know that for at least the first four months of the year she was shooting over 50% from the field and she does have three point range. She has played a lot of two guard in her career, but we are going to need her more at the point guard role.

I think there was a correlation to her scoring dropping when she played point guard, but her assists also went up. I attribute that to her doing whatever her team asks her to do in order to win a game. She understands the importance of getting the ball down low, she knows how to run the pick and roll, she can play both positions so I am thrilled to have her. I kind of got through the week saying "Phew" and there was a lot of talk about a trade this week, but to be honest unless Minnesota offered an unbelievable deal we weren’t interested in trading away this pick.

Q: How do you see this playing out in training camp? Do you think she will be able to play right away?
A: You know what I have told all of our players this and Lindsay the other day that I obviously am going to know the returners because I have that familiarity with them, but a good coach will let the players decide who are going to play. I know certain combination that I want to play together, but as of right now Debbie Black is our point guard and only the play in training camp is going to change that.

Q: Was the factor of Lindsay wanting to stay at home a bigger deal earlier in the month?
A: Well she is a small town kid from Minnesota, was fortunate enough to play for the University in her home state and when you have that whole career it is hard to picture something else. I was born in Minnesota and lived there for a few years so I can relate to the mindset. But also the reality of it is that it is really hard for someone to live up to the hype created by their home state, so as much as I would like top have Diana Taurasi in a Sun uniform probably for Diana it is better for her to play somewhere else so she doesn’t have to match all that she did in her college career.. I think Lindsay will find out that our fans will quickly adopt her. As she saw in New Orleans when they were down there and Sun and Uconn fans were stopping her on the street and say that they hope the Sun draft you because we love how you play. She knows what this is about, she is pretty quiet on the phone, but on the court she is a competitor and she understands the fan support here and I think there will be reciprocal adoration.

Q: Do you agree or disagree that she is a smaller version of Diana Taurasi?
A: Well she has that ability that Diana has to make her teammates better. All offseason we had talked about how she would change our team, our post players will be happy because she can get them the ball, our perimeter players will thrive because she can find people in rhythm. She knows how to go back and forth between when it is time to be a scorer and when it’s not. I don’t want to go with comparisons, but I will say the fact that they are both winners.

Q: can you go over the other three picks and what you liked about them?
A: Well we had a real debate in the second round because there were four or five players which we really liked and I thought that Brungo would help us more than the others because of her versatility. She has the ability to play small forward and power forward and we have talked about the importance of having that hybrid player, especially in our conference, and I think that Brungo can be that girl for the Sun. She is also a great competitor and her outside game reminds me a lot of Wyckoff in that regard because she can hit the three but also face up and drive to the basket. I think that her greatest asset which many of you got to see in that Uconn game is her competitiveness. Oha is a project. She is 6’4’’ with the length of a 6’7’’ person. She is so long, she will bother a lot of people. In about two years from now she could turn out to be the steal of the draft. And our last one Candace Futrell caught our eye about a year ago, and she kept scoring and running. She is a great athlete and has a body that is ready for the WNBA. We had already decided a few months ago that we were going to draft her if we had the chance with this pick.

Q: How many players are you going to bring to camp?
A: Well it is going to be a little different because of our players in the European leagues and their playoff schedules. So it will be a little bit pieced together but by May 5th we should have about 15 girls left and know who we would like to keep.

Q: Mike it is needless to say but there is a world of difference between training camp one and training camp two, can you verbalize at all now that the draft is done?
A: With the collective bargaining hanging over everyone last year it was pretty crazy time at the beginning of the season. But one of my major points for this offseason was to make sure that everyone came to camp in shape and ready to play. Last year there were a few underlying circumstances why people were not in the best shape but I have seen Nykesha and she looks like she is in the best shape of her career and also Debbie is in great shape so I am just excited on that front. Another big move that has gone unnoticed was our ability to re-sign Taj in the offseason. She was such an important piece of our success last season that it was great to be able to make sure she was coming back with us. Also, when I have talked with some of the players they were asking whether we were going to be able to get Whalen, so just by that I could sense the excitement for the season and the opportunity to have Lindsay Whalen on our team.

Q: How would you describe her personality?
A: Quiet off the court, but on the court she doesn’t say a lot , but she plays with a passion. She gets on her teammates when they need it and you tell that her teammates would feed off of her energy.

Q: Mike, were you nervous today that you wouldn’t be able to get Whalen?
A: Well I came in today with about six different scenarios and the one that I didn’t want to see the most is Washington to not take Beard and screw up the rest of the teams later. I talked with Charlotte about 40 minutes before the draft and got a feel that a deal between them and Minnesota was dead, so I had a good feeling that we were going to be able to get the player that we wanted.

Interview with University of Minnesota Head Coach Pam Borton

Q: Is there a carry-over of Lindsay’s popularity over to the Lynx?
A: Yes, well I think that is one of the many reasons why they wanted to keep Lindsay in Minnesota. Women’s basketball in Minnesota is busting at the seams and the Lynx were looking for a player like Lindsay to raise the level of excitement for the game and with that comes the boost in ticket sales, attendance and to help the franchise survive, but I think Lindsay will be able to do that wherever she goes.

Q: Do you think that she will be able to step in and start right away?
A: I think Lindsay has the ability to, but no matter what role the organization or coach gives her, she will do it 100%.

Q: What do you think she will have to work on the most in the upcoming year and what do you think she has gotten better at over the past four?
A: I have seen her develop her game tremendously every year on both ends of the floor, so it might be to add to her repertoire. She has the ability to drive to the hoop probably better than anyone I have seen does, she can hit the open three so maybe her next step is to really develop her mid-range game. Her ability to make everybody else on the court better is going to be her biggest strength.

Q: Can you talk about how it seems like she thrives when it comes to big games?
A: Lindsay steps up whenever her team needs her to step up. I don’t think that you can limit it to just big games, she steps up at some point in every game depending upon when her teams needs her to. If the team needs a rebound she tends to go and grab it, or if it is to create a shot for another teammates she has the knack to get it done. Lindsay has a good feel for what the team needs at different points in the game.

Q: What’s her personality like? Is it going to be easy for our fan base to latch on to her?
A: I think so. Lindsay is a great role model for anybody. She is a quiet kid, but also has a very funny side to her. One of the biggest things to appreciate about her is that combined with her basketball ability is her team first mentality and when you have someone like that they are easy to like.