Almost everyone I've talked to who follows the game closely considered the 2012 WNBA Draft to be somewhat uninspiring.

Sure it was widely considered a "weak" draft prior to it actually happening, but there's also a question of how well some of these players even fit with their rosters. Some players were drafted to teams that were already deep at their projected WNBA position. Some were drafted to teams that might need them to provide something that they haven't shown much of in college.

And if minutes matter in determining WNBA Rookie of the Year award - in terms of putting up the gaudiest statistics - there could be a more interesting rookie race than people expect.

The following is an alphabetical look at preseason candidates for the 2012 WNBA All-Rookie Team - based on draft prospect projections* and the rookie ranking framework I've used previously - and how well they might perform on their new teams.

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Just the Facts, Ma'am: A 16-3 second-half run by the Connecticut Sun put away the New York Liberty 92-77. Tina Charles had 25 points and 11 rebounds to lead the Sun in their home opener, while Asjha Jones added 20 points. Cappie Pondexter led the Liberty with 18 points, and Plenette Pierson had 16 points to go with a team-high five rebounds.

For a disturbing lack of faith, defective All-Stars, brown Sharpies, a note of class, and tiny Huskies, join your intrepid and perverse blogger after the jump.

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Two more teams open their season today with the Minnesota Lynx hosting the Phoenix Mercury in a 12:30 EDT matinee on ABC while the New York Liberty face the Connecticut Sun in a rematch of yesterday's game.

Today's schedule and a few SB Nation links follow the jump.

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Just the Facts, Ma'am: The New York Liberty got out to seven and eight-point leads repeatedly in the game, but the Connecticut Sun fought back every time, eventually taking a 78-73 win at Madison Square Garden. Tina Charles had 19 points and 13 rebounds to lead a balanced Sun attack that put five players in double figures. Cappie Pondexter's 19 points led the Liberty, with Plenette Pierson adding a double-double of 15 points and 10 rebounds.

For shameless ogling, stupid point guard plays, home sweet home, surges, ebbs, flows, and mouths that ought to be washed out with soap, join your intrepid and head-desking blogger after the jump.

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Every year I've used this statistical framework for evaluating teams in the preseason, there's one team that is sort of a wild card, a team that could either win their conference or finish in the lottery.

A large part of that is simply the shortcoming of using statistics to say anything about a fluid sport like basketball, but part of it is telling - it's a team that is solid, but maybe not particularly outstanding in enough ways to be considered dominant.

Two years ago, that was the New York Liberty. Last season, that was also the New York Liberty. This season the Liberty are sort of the wild card, but in a different way - their chances of making the 2012 playoffs might depend on others.

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Seattle Storm point guard Sue Bird's argument for the 2011 WNBA MVP award was pretty clear: it's hard to imagine the Storm being close to playoff contention last season without their star point guard.

With star center Lauren Jackson out for more than half the season due to injury, there were few players in the league who were responsible for a larger percentage of their team's statistical output than Bird. But from that emerged another problem for the dominant 2010 WNBA champions.

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The Los Angeles Sparks began the 2011 season on a high note, essentially picking up from where they left off in August 2010.

Candace Parker was back from injury, the bench was extremely productive in taking out the defending champion Seattle Storm, and they were sharing the ball extremely well even as Parker was looking like an early-season MVP candidate statistically.

Then Parker went down with an injury once again and so began the Sparks' path to a disappointing end to the season.

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I decided to take a look at the an often-overlooked statistic: "games started". Instead of looking at which players in WNBA history have started the most games, I decided to look at start percentage.

Were there players who have started every game they have played? To me, this was an interesting stat because the mythical lifespan of players moves from rookie working her way off the bench to starter to returning to the bench in old age. This magical graph of start percentage per season would look like a parabola, or a hill. I was more interested in players whose graph was a plateau - players who started at the top of the hill and stayed there.

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