Dunn Makes Triumphant Return to Seattle

The Southern drawl. The Diet Coke. The low-scoring, slow-paced defensive affair. All the trademark signs were there July 22 at KeyArena: Lin Dunn had to be in attendance.


Dunn led the Storm to its first playoff appearance in 2002.
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Indeed, the Seattle Storm's first Head Coach, now an assistant for the Indiana Fever, was making her first return to the Key since resigning as General Manager and Head Coach on Sep. 3, 2002. Fittingly, Dunn came back to Seattle with the Fever five years to the day after she was named to that position, becoming the second employee of the then-unnamed Storm (Chief Operating Officer Karen Bryant was the first).

Sitting on the other bench at KeyArena, Dunn got a good look at the team she was largely responsible for building. The same talented superstars (Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson) that she once spent hours figuring out how to make use of kept her awake Thursday morning.

"I woke up at 5:30 this morning and I had pictures of Jackson hitting threes, Bird driving to the basket, and I couldn't sleep," Dunn said before Thursday's afternoon game.

For the first three years of the Storm's existence, Dunn was the franchise. While she was aided by her assistant coaches and Executive Vice President Billy McKinney, who replaced Dunn as GM and led the search to find her replacement on the bench, every basketball decision ultimately went through Dunn. She chose to build slowly through the draft, knowing that the price - lots of losing the first two years - would be tough to pay but ultimately worthwhile.

"This expansion team, I thought, we built it through the draft, and that meant we were going to take some licks early," Dunn explained. "We didn't go out and try to do a quick fix; we went with young, talented players. I think it's starting to really pay off. It started paying off the third year. They had some injuries last year, it's paying off this year. This is a team right here that's a legitimate WNBA championship contender."

A 6-26 inaugural season yielded the first pick in the 2001 Draft and Jackson. A year later, the 10-22 Storm won the WNBA's first draft lottery to earn its second straight top pick overall, used after much deliberation on Bird. The Storm's foundation was complete, with two of the WNBA's top five players as cornerstones.

"The difference in picking first versus third, fourth, is huge," said Dunn, contrasting the Storm with her new franchise. "We don't pick first, we don't get Lauren Jackson and Sue Bird. They're gone, they're someplace else. Imagine this franchise without them."

Here, however, Dunn is being modest. Jackson came to the Emerald City not as a finished product but as a shy 19-year-old who was inconsistent and seemingly perpetually at odds with referees. While Dunn's replacement, Anne Donovan, has gotten much of the credit for Jackson's development into an MVP player the last two seasons (and deserves it for making Jackson into more of a low-post threat), it was Dunn who mentored Jackson during her first two seasons in the WNBA and helped her grow up. To ask Dunn, Jackson's development was a question of when, not if.

"I knew the big thing for Lauren was going to be for her to develop physically, emotionally, for her body to mature and her poise and composure to mature," Dunn explained. "She was a 19-year-old kid coming to a foreign country. We saw big changes from the beginning of year one to the end of year one. She just got better every game. Once she learned how to control herself, get away from all the technicals, not allow the officials to frustrate her, continue to get stronger, it was just a matter of time."

The selection of Bird was also not the clear-cut decision it looks in hindsight. In addition to other stars in the 2002 Draft like Detroit's Swin Cash and Los Angeles' Nikki Teasley, Dunn had to consider trade options. Notably, the New York Liberty reportedly pushed hard to bring Bird to her hometown.

"To be honest, I am seriously considering - more than last year - the possibility of trading the first pick," Dunn told WNBA.com before the 2002 Draft. "I'd say there are at least three serious offers on the table."


Dunn is happy in her new role as an assistant in Indiana.
Ron Hoskins/NBAE/Getty
Ultimately, Dunn stuck to her plan to build through the draft, and Bird and Jackson have become one of the WNBA's top duos.

Perhaps Dunn's best work in the draft came the year the Storm did not have the top pick, prior to the inaugural 2000 season.

"Let me tell you what the real bonus for this franchise was - that we got Kamila Vodichkova with the ninth pick in the 2000 Draft and that was a real, real steal," Dunn noted. "She's still one of the best centers, I think, in the league."

Four years later, only seven players taken in that draft remain in the league, three of them selected ahead of Vodichkova. She is the second-leading scorer (behind current teammate Betty Lennox) and rebounder from the class of 2000, and arguably the best player from that draft.

As much as Dunn enjoyed her time in Seattle, she felt the need to step down after the 2002 season because she could no longer make the time commitment to running a team. In large part, she wanted to help take care of her mother, who lives in Dunn's hometown of Dresden, Tenn.

Dunn spent 2003 scouting for the Fever, a role which suited her well because she could work part-time. After Indiana replaced Coach Nell Fortner with Brian Winters, however, she decided to return to the bench full-time, albeit in an assistant capacity.

"Lin Dunn's great," Dunn said about her current role. "Really enjoying working with the Indiana Fever. Great franchise, great management, great facilities, and about a five-hour drive from Dresden, so it's perfect."

She also enjoyed getting a chance to get back to Seattle.

"It's nice. It's a very pleasant experience. I always loved Seattle. Great friends here. Great city. Loved the people that I worked with, so it's very pleasant."

There is one Dunn-related question Storm fans are interested in above all others - will she ever make good on her promise to dye her hair red if the team made the 2002 playoffs? Dunn donned a red wig provided by a fan after the Storm's regular-season home finale that year (several fans wore the wigs to remind Dunn of the bet), but she never dyed her hair.

"Had I stayed in Seattle, I would have definitely dyed my hair red," Dunn explained. "I had already made an appointment, I was giving it serious thought. I talked to my hairdresser - I wanted to make sure my hair wasn't going to fall out if I dyed it red. She assured me that I could rinse it. I wouldn't have to dye it, I could rinse it. So if I were to ever move back to Seattle, I'd give that some thought."