Maya Moore Has Exceeded Expectations Set On 2011 Draft Night

Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 8:12 PM

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Selecting the No. 1 overall pick of a draft carries weight.

Winning the lottery is of course what every team looking to rebuild and embark on a new era hopes for, but the pressure to secure your team’s missing piece is consequential. Make the right selection and your team could be headed for greatness. But if you strike out, a damaging “what if” will be attached to your franchise for years and years to come.

There have been 24 WNBA drafts and therefore 24 No. 1 overall picks. Less than half of those selections went on to be named Rookie of the Years and six were never or have yet to be named an All-Star. (Sorry, Jackie Young. You’re grouped into that bunch for now, but we’ll give you some more time.)

Needless to say, there have been draft classes without a clear No. 1 pick. Luckily for the Minnesota Lynx, that was not the case when they selected Maya Moore with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2011 WNBA Draft held on April 11.

Nine years later, it’s easy to say that Moore was the obvious No. 1 pick now that she’s racked up Rookie of the Year, All-WNBA, All-Defensive, MVP and Finals MVP honors along with four WNBA titles. But bringing Moore on board in Minnesota was a decision that required little deliberation even before Moore became known as one of the greatest basketball players of all time.

The Lynx had the second-best odds of winning the 2011 WNBA Draft Lottery, just behind the Tulsa Shock. Minnesota had secured Connecticut’s first-round pick in a 2010 draft-day trade that sent Kelsey Griffin to the Sun and boosted the Lynx’s lottery odds.

The Lynx concluded the 2010 season with a 13-21 record while the Sun went 17-17. Together, their first-round picks gave the Lynx 380 chances out of 1,000 to earn the first overall selection. Yet, Tulsa still had a slight advantage with 442 chances.

But the Lynx’s franchise was already beginning to turn the corner.

“This is an exciting day to be a Minnesota Lynx fan,” former Lynx Executive Vice President Roger Griffith said after his team won the lottery. “In winning today’s Draft Lottery, we are guaranteed to add someone that we expect to be an MVP caliber player from the day she steps foot onto the court.

“When you add the No. 1 pick to the talent we already have on this roster, you can’t help but be excited for what’s to come.”

In the five months leading up to the 2011 draft, Moore cemented one of the most prolific college basketball careers. She earned the 2011 Associated Press Player of the Year Award along with just about every national Player of the Year Award you can think of. She became just the second four-time AP All-America after Oklahoma’s Courtney Paris and left the University of Connecticut with a 150-4 career record that included an NCAA-record 90 consecutive wins and two national championships.

Moore’s Husky career missed perfection when Notre Dame bounced UConn in the 2011 Final Four, but I think this quote from UConn associate head coach Chris Dailey said about Moore in Mechelle Voepel’s 2011 article is rather telling.

“She had a plan, and I don’t know if anyone else came to us quite like that,” Dailey said. “For others, their plan was, ‘I’m going to go to college, I’m going to do well in school, I’m going to get better in basketball, and I want to win a national championship.’

“I think hers was much more detailed than that, in terms of what exactly she wanted to do and how she wanted to do it.”

Moore hit the next milestone of her prestigious plan eight days later when she headlined draft night.

“It feels really great to finally be able to have the moment of being drafted, going No. 1, and just all the hype and excitement around it,” said Moore that night. She went on to tell reporters, “I think I live in the land of high expectations after playing at Connecticut.”

Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve who was about to take on her second year of head coaching with Moore aside her said, “I don’t know that things could have gone better for us.”

Moore and Reeve walked away from that 2011 draft night with their own expectations (I can’t decide whose expectations I think were probably higher at the time) and similar plans. But even as clear of a No. 1 pick Moore was, could they have known just how ground-breaking their future together would be?

Moore and the Lynx have since won four championships — which exceeded any other franchise’s title count in the 2010s — but have done so much more than hang banners. Moore and the Lynx have made basketball more than relevant in the State of Hockey and have shown young girls all over the world that their athletic feats are just as important as those of their male counterparts.

But of course, that isn’t enough for Moore’s plan.

Moore missed the 2019 season to focus on criminal justice reform and advocate for the release of Jonathan Irons, a man she believes was wrongly sent to prison for convicted burglary and assault. Her cause will also keep her out for the upcoming 2020 season.

Since Moore’s hiatus from the WNBA, though his case isn’t over, a Missouri judge has overturned the ruling against Irons.

We never thought Moore would be a bust on that 2011 draft night — that was always out of the question. But who could have known how much she’d exceed our expectations? Only Moore.

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