WNBA Draft 2019 presented by State Farm is less than three weeks away, and questions continue to swirl around what the Aces will do with the number one pick. Will they draft a big? Will they draft a guard? Will they trade the pick before the draft? What about after the draft?
We don’t know.
Well, maybe we do, but we’ve been sworn to secrecy.
In the meantime, we thought it would be interesting to take a look back at the top five trades in Bill Laimbeer’s storied WNBA career. He has been in the middle of quite a few of them, earning the nickname “Trader Bill” from the WNBA diehards who post on the rebkell message boards.
We begin with …
July 9, 2002
Detroit Shock acquires Elaine Powell
When Bill Laimbeer took over as head coach of the Detroit Shock in 2002, the team was 0-10 with five of those losses coming by double figures. He knew he had a handful of quality players around which to build—particularly Swin Cash and Deanna Nolan—but much of the remainder of the roster was ripe for turnover.
One of the key moves he made in 2002 which would directly lead to the team’s championship runs was the trade that brought guard Elaine Powell to Detroit from the Orlando Miracle. On July 9, 2002, the Shock’s record stood at 1-16. It was then that Laimbeer sent Wendy Palmer and the team’s second round pick in the 2003 WNBA Draft to Orlando, in exchange for Powell and the Miracle’s first round pick in 2003.
“E.P.” was coming off of her best season as a pro, averaging 11.2 points and 3.1 assists per game in her first year as a starter, but she found herself coming off the bench again in 2002.
At the time of the trade, Powell was averaging 5.9 points and 2.0 assists per game. After the trade, Powell started 13 of 15 games for the Shock, and averaged 9.9 points and 4.0 assists. She also improved her shooting percentage by nearly 100 points.
The following season, she helped Detroit to its worst-to-first turnaround, starting 33 games, averaging 9.0 points, and handing out 3.9 assists per game. Powell also shot 45.1 percent from the field, which was her highest percentage since her rookie year of 1999. In the postseason, she handed out 4.8 assists per game.
After the 2005 season, the Chicago Sky selected Powell in the expansion draft, but she returned to Detroit that same season, helping them to WNBA titles in 2006 and 2008.