The Lynx will have the second overall pick in the WNBA draft Monday night. It is the team's highest pick since 2011, when Maya Moore came to Minnesota at No. 1 as another piece on a franchise that would go on to win four league titles in seven seasons.
President of Basketball Operations and coach Cheryl Reeve is going into the draft — in which the Lynx also have the 12th, 16th, 24th and 28th overall picks — with a mind-set that hasn't been seen around here in a long while:
The long view.
"It's a different time,'' Reeve said.
For so long there was no time like the present with the Lynx. During their title years draft choices were often used as ways to get complementary veterans to keep the juggernaut going. Even after Rebekkah Brunson, Lindsay Whalen, Seimone Augustus and Moore left or retired, there was no time like the present for Reeve, a mind-set bolstered by the addition of Napheesa Collier of UConn with the sixth overall pick in 2019.
Even last year — the team's first outside the playoffs since 2010 — Reeve tried to build a team that could help center Sylvia Fowles, entering her last season, win.
It didn't work out as planned, thanks mostly to injury issues with veterans Layshia Clarendon and Angel McCoughtry.
But, for the most part, Reeve's plans worked. The Lynx made the playoff semifinals in 2020, finished third in the WNBA regular season in 2021. But things have changed. Reeve and the Lynx are now in building mode — although things would have been different had the Lynx been able to lure All-Star guard Courtney Vandersloot in free agency.