Kara Braxton for Sidney Spencer: A Diehard's Analysis

I have followed the WNBA so long and so specifically that certain occurances are quite transparent now. So when I saw that Kara Braxton would be missing the Minnesota game suspended for misconduct, I quickly figured she was about to be traded. Her seemingly forgotten lack of effort and heart had started to rear it's ugly head again and it caused one to wonder what was going on. I had been speaking on trades the Merc should make in the past few weeks but I honestly didn't expect to lose a starter for a uniformed cheerleader. This is no knock to Spencer's ability to help us as a shooter because she's a great fit, but we trade for a player that hasn't truly had an effect on the game since her rookie season in Los Angeles.

The way that I look at it is, we traded for and signed Braxton as if she didn't have these issues already. If you consider the fact that, we lost Tangela Smith and traded away a pick that became Kayla Pedersen, both great fits, positive locker room mindsets, and players with winning pedigree for a player that we shipped apparently to the first team that made an offer. Regardless of the situation, we have basically given New York a championship caliber team in the last two years and gotten back inconsistency to boot.

This trade, for me, takes the Mercury down a notch or two, as it seems that Corey has decided to make DeWanna Bonner a full-time post player which makes no sense to me. We've all heard the adage, "if it ain't broke don't fix it" Bonner is the two-time reigning Sixth Woman of the year, coming off the bench basically playing a guard position where she creates huge mismatches. But now we're basically giving teams a chance to take her out of the groove of the game by defending her with a stronger post that can push her off her spot. Combined with basically saying that we trust Nakia Sanford, whose greatest improvement in the last few years is that she only misses one layup per five minutes on the floor as opposed to four.

I also find it very hard to watch former Phoenix draft picks Plenette Pierson, LaToya Pringle and Leilani Mitchell playing quite well for their respective teams while one of our better pickups, Alexis Gray-Lawson sits seemingly permanently glued to the end of the bench. I honestly thought that these days were over when we didn't bring Taylor Lilley and Brooke Smith back but apparently Corey has the same concept, he just wanted some new faces. With players such as Ashley Walker, Ashley Paris, Jene Morris, Kelly Mazzante and even Hamchetou Maiga-Ba out there without teams.

I think this trade has the possibility to work out okay as anytime that you remove a player that's causing problems and add one that bring a great attitude it can help. This just puts the team in a position where there are no nights off, Everybody has to show up and play their best night in and night out and we've all seen how much of a struggle that is with injuries piling up this year. The posts are going to have to triple their production and the idea of Penny and DT playing less minutes has to go out of the window. I haven't given up hope on my Merc but I can say I was highly disappointed by the nature of this trade but we'll see how it works out.

MIIIIIIIIIIGHTY MERCURY!! #TEAMMERCURY