Locked on Women’s Basketball: 2023 WNBA mock draft

The latest episode of Locked on Women’s Basketball is a special one, as co-hosts Hunter Cruse, Em Adler and Joshua Welch are doing their first mock draft for 2023!

The hosts split up the teams as follows:

• Hunter: Chicago Sky, Dallas Wings, Indiana Fever
• Em: Minnesota Lynx, New York Liberty, Seattle Storm
• Joshua: Atlanta Dream, Connecticut Sun, Los Angeles Sparks, Washington Mystics

(The Las Vegas Aces and Phoenix Mercury have no picks until the third round, and this mock draft is for the first two rounds only.)

After Hunter drafts South Carolina center Aliyah Boston No. 1 overall for Indiana, the draft takes an unexpected turn at No. 2, with Em passing on sending Stanford wing Haley Jones to Minnesota. Speaking as the Lynx front office, Em explains:

“Given our needs, we feel like Napheesa Collier and Jessica Shepard fill out our frontcourt enough that it’s a better idea to not look for frontcourt defenders so much. So we’re gonna go away from our pure board, and we’re actually going to draft Diamond Miller [from Maryland].”

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Joshua takes over with Atlanta’s pick at No. 3:

“The number one thing that we need as far as in the draft and to have that caliber of being drafted as a lottery pick, it’s support for [star guard] Rhyne Howard and getting that additional scorer to give her consistent support. I am going to go Charisma Osborne [from UCLA] … Averaged 20.1 points. What really impressed me is her 2-point shooting. It moved up from 38.6% last season and now she’s shooting 56.7%. Just contributes in so many ways. Love her energy on the glass and on defense. This is someone else that I really think is going to find chemistry with Rhyne and who I have Atlanta selecting number three.”

How far does Jones fall in this mock draft? You’ll have to watch the video or listen to the episode to find out!

To learn even more about the 2023 WNBA Draft, the NCAA season and so much else in the world of women’s basketball, don’t forget to subscribe to the Locked on Women’s Basketball podcast!

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