Julia Poe

So Rice would have made a lot of sense if you're looking at, OK, let's kind of make sure that we have a young developing player behind those vets.

But that's not what the Sky were looking for.

They were looking for what they consider to be a winning player.

And Jaquez, what she can fill on the wings, makes sense for a team that is trying to make the playoffs this season, that wants to make a playoff run this season, and kind of has very lofty goals for what they can do in year one of this rebuild.

So I think that you're right if you were surprised by it.

I was surprised by it.

I wasn't necessarily even sure about the pick at first when it came through.

But I think that when you kind of look at the logic of how this guy had been doing this build, it does at least make sense for what they're thinking.

Now it's up to Hawkins to show that her defense can make it over into the WNBA and also that her shooting can just be as consistent as possible.

Those are going to be kind of the big factors for her to be able to make an impact right away.

They're going to have a big challenge coming into the training camp.

Uh, something that, you know, folks who maybe aren't as familiar with the WNBA don't maybe realize is how few roster spots there are.

There are 12 spots right now.

This guy has one open and Hawkins is going to try to do her best to make sure that she holds onto that as obviously the front runner for that position.

So I think what we're going to see is some training camp battles.

I think,

that uh the two other players drafted that you mentioned they can come in and put some pressure on last year's draft picks maddie westfeld and hayley van lift they both play similar positions and so they're going to come in and really compete for that but you know second and third round wmba draft picks are typically really just doing their best to fight for either again that 12th position training camp uh contracts or maybe some of these new player development contracts that we've seen added in so that's going to be kind of the focus for those two

Yeah, I think when you talk about the popularity, something that's interesting to me, and this is from an outside perspective.

I did not grow up in Chicago, but I've been here for about five years now.

And the thing that I really feel like I've learned about Chicago is that Chicago does love stars.