Swish Appeal community 2014 WNBA mock draft: Who should the San Antonio Stars draft with the third pick?

We expected a tighter contest for the second pick in our community mock draft but maybe not to the point where using a tiebreaker became a distinct possibility.

After Baylor's Odyssey Sims and Maryland's Alyssa Thomas went back and forth as the top vote-getters in our poll to make the Tulsa Shock's selection, Thomas was just two votes ahead of Sims as of midnight PST (when this was being written). Today's poll for the third pick will reflect the player who was behind in voting as of 9 a.m. PST today - people are free to continue voting and arguing even as the draft goes on. Louisville's Shoni Schimmel has been added to the poll to replace the player who was ahead in voting.

That means that this is being written without actually knowing who the second pick was. But since it's down to just two players and our polling thus far suggests one of them might be the favorite for the third pick, we'll forge ahead and add a brief snippet about Tulsa's pick later.

You are the GM of the newly-renamed San Antonio Stars. You're coming off a 12-win season that had a built-in injury excuse before things really even got started: with veteran All-Stars Becky Hammon and Sophia Young essentially out for the entire season, it was always a rebuilding year and the record simply reflects that.

The upside is that 2013 ended up being a showcase for the young talent on the roster: Danielle Robinson became an all-star and one of the best at her position, Danielle Adams and Shenise Johnson continued to show that they'll be solid contributors in the league, and Jayne Appel showed what an impact defensive player she can be. Add Hammon and Young to that young core and you have a talented team, which could make simply taking the best player available the best option as Jacob Sundstrom described earlier this offseason.

The Silver Stars have four starters all but confirmed and will probably need to fill one starting spot and one bench spot after the draft. Their biggest need is at the forward position...Rolling over the two rookies from last season, the two new rookies from the upcoming draft, Shenise Johnson and Jia Perkins will make up the bulk of the bench with one free agent needed to round it all out...Quite frankly, San Antonio just needs to worry about drafting the best available player in the draft.

And even though Hammon and Young's value to the team was evident last season (if it wasn't before), they're both veteran players coming off injuries - at some point you have to prepare for them to move on. Rebounding has been a persistent for the franchise, but that doesn't necessarily narrow anything down given the prospects available aside from saying that a guard might not be preferable - that's not exactly a profound point when you already have Hammon, Robinson, Johnson, and Jia Perkins as proven players in the backcourt rotation. A small forward who can defend would be nice, but that is also just a general principle of successful basketball.

In short, this really is a team that should be drafting the best player available - the team had problems across the board last season, will have talent at every position this season, and even if the best player doesn't "fit" she'd be another asset to use in future efforts at improving the roster.

Tulsa has already made the tough choice between what many think are two of the top three players in the draft, which will probably lead some fans to believe your choice is obvious - just pick whoever Tulsa left you. But there's still plenty of other talent out there and you've done your own independent scouting to determine who you think will fit best.

So who do you pick with the third pick in the 2014 WNBA (mock) draft?

We are awaiting your pick in the poll below as well as 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.