If you've kept in the loop on the 12 WNBA teams through our offseason StoryStreams, you've probably noticed that the Washington Mystics had the most stuff. And now the season will begin on Memorial Day. Therefore, that means that we're going to bid adieu to this offseason StoryStream, which pretty much shows the spectrum of emotions that many Mystics fans had since the end of last season, and on a personal level, not to sound self serving, it is to a large degree all mine.
Obviously the 2012-2013 offseason started on a somewhat expected note, starting with the termination of former General Manager/Head Coach Trudi Lacey. But right after that things just seemed to take a huge nosedive when the Mystics ended up with the 4th pick in the WNBA Draft. That prompted the Manifesto, which you can find in the Stream.
Between that time and late November after Mike Thibault was terminated by Connecticut, many wondered whether the lottery balls could have spelled the franchise's demise though nothing else besides speculation seemed to indicate otherwise. When Thibault was shown the door in Connecticut, like many others I prayed that Ted Leonsis would hire him.
Fortunately in December, my prayers were answered, and Mike Thibault came to DC as a true A-List head coach where he was confident that he can turn things around, but said there are no shortcuts. After then, he began to make his mark on the team by signing Ivory Latta in free agency, making a couple moves to pick up Kia Vaughn, and also acquired Quanitra Hollingsworth with a third round pick that didn't figure to make the team anyway. These were moves that I thought were impossible before he came to town.
Then in the Draft, he ultimately decided to go with Option 1 of the Manifesto, by selecting Tayler Hill with the first round selection, then going with Nadirah McKenith and Emma Meesseman with his remaining selections. All three are on the opening day roster. He also acquired another rookie guard who's on the team with Tierra Ruffin-Pratt who could also add more positive contributions. Finally, though he did ultimately keep all of the team's top players from the 2012 season, they come to DC this year realizing that nothing is guaranteed with a respected figure like Mike Thibault and hopefully this gets them to play at a higher level than last.
With that said, we now head to the 2013 season.
As some of you have already seen, another member of our team, Zack, who has written a good number of posts on the Maryland women's basketball team this past season will also do the same for the Mystics this summer and some of his pieces on the DC team are out already. I am pleased to tell you that he'll be writing more game stories, give more of a "media-side" take on the team, in particular for games at the Verizon Center this summer.
I'll still be providing a perspective as a fan and try to have some other fans put their thoughts down too, because, I'm only one guy and certainly don't represent everyone who follows this team.
So in the end, we say goodbye to the 2012-2013 Mystics offseason StoryStream, from the standpoint of being a constantly updated feed (you'll still be able to read everything on here), and we look forward to the 2013 Mystics season StoryStream as we get to see how Mike Thibault begins his rebuild of this team.