Swish Appeal's community 2014 WNBA mock draft: Intro and first pick

Over at some of SB Nation's NBA sites, such as Bullets Forever or Golden State of Mind, the community has discussed and voted upon a draft board leading up to the draft.

After some discussion about the WNBA draft this year, we've decided to do something similar: a general draft board is difficult without taking team need into account, but a community mock draft is something that we can do.

You can see examples of how a community draft board has worked at both BF and GSoM here and here, but the process is pretty simple:

• We'll begin with a list of top players to include in a poll, which we posted yesterday.

• We make a post each day to put a team "on the clock". Today, we'll begin the draft by putting the Connecticut Sun "on the clock" in the morning.

• You, the readers, vote on who that team should select.

• You're voting for the player who you think is the wisest selection for the team on the clock not who you think they'll actually take based on published reports or rumors.

• For each day (likely at 9 a.m. PST), we put the next team "on the clock" for 24 hours and take the previously selected player off the poll. We'll replace that previously selected player with another player - if you make suggestions, we'll add the most popular player; otherwise, we'll add based on our own ratings. So, for example, after Chiney Ogwumike someone is selected with the #1 pick we'll take her off the 10-player poll and add a player who you, the community, or we, the management, deem to be the 11th-best player. The process will repeat after each pick.

• We'll continue the process until the first round is completed.

With that, we'll kick off the draft with the #1 pick held by the Connecticut Sun.

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You are the Connecticut Sun's GM.

Last season you had a MVP center on the roster in Tina Charles, an Olympic gold medalist in Kara Lawson, a solid sixth woman in Renee Montgomery, and two of the most improved players in the league in 2013 in Kelsey Griffin and Allison Hightower.

Yet after a surprising coaching change in the last offseason and serious injury trouble, you won just 10 games last season. You have recently traded Olympic gold medalist Kara Lawson for second-year guard Alex Bentley and there have been rumors, no matter how valid, that there could be more change to come. And you still have a bunch of free agents - Charles, Griffin, and Hightower among them - to make decisions on.

The upside: for your trouble, you now have the number one pick in the 2014 WNBA Draft.

Your draft day decision is made much easier by Stanford's Chiney Ogwumike heading this draft class, but you've done due diligence and researched the other top candidates: Baylor's Odyssey Sims has been lighting up opponents all season and leads the nation in scoring. Maryland's Alyssa Thomas is a triple-double machine. Notre Dame's Kayla McBride has helped lead Notre Dame to an undefeated record.

But the consensus number one is this consensus for a reason: she's really good at basketball and carried a Stanford team to the top of the PAC-12 despite losing in the conference's tournament.

So now you're on the clock: we are awaiting your pick in the poll below and your thoughts on who needs to be added to our list for future picks in the comments.

For more background on all of the draft's top prospects, check out our 2014 WNBA Draft prospect watch storystream.