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Wings bolster franchise with DC’s Alarie in WNBA draft

By The Associated Press

The Dallas Wings had been focused on the 2020 WNBA draft for about two years, and went into the night with three of the top seven picks. “I think when we look back five or 10 years from now, we’re going to realize how important tonight was in terms of the amount of talent that we added to what I consider to be a very good, already existing talented young group of players,” Greg Bibb, the team’s president and CEO said Friday night. Oregon 6-foot-4 forward Satou Sabally, one of three juniors to forego their last year of college eligibility for the draft, was picked by the Wings second overall. Her Ducks teammate Sabrina Ionescu was picked No. 1 by the New York Liberty. Dallas selected Princeton guard and three-time Ivy League player of the year Bella Alarie fifth overall. The D.C.-native is just the third Ivy League player selected in the WNBA draft. Her father, Mark Alarie, played four of his five NBA seasons with the Washington Bullets from 1987-91, making the Alaries the third father-daughter duo in pro basketball to be drafted in the first round.

Alarie was taken two picks before 5-10 point guard Tyasha Harris from South Carolina, which was the No. 1 team in the final Associated Press Top 25 this season, just ahead of Oregon. The Wings got 6-3 power forward Luisa Geiselsoder, a 20-year-old teammate of Sabally’s on the German national team, with the 21st overall pick in the second round. “All versatile players, all the kind of modern-era basketball players in terms of their ability to extend their range at all points on the court,” Bibb said. “And all are really good fantastic human beings as well. It’s been a tremendous night for the Wings organization.” The Wings acquired the fifth and seventh overall picks in this draft when they traded Skylar Diggins-Smith to Phoenix earlier this year. They got first- and second-round picks from Las Vegas after trading Liz Cambage last May. With Cambage gone and Diggins missing last season after giving birth to a son, the Wings were 10-24, their fewest wins since 2012. Sabally was part of three consecutive 30-win seasons at Oregon, including a trip to the Final Four last year. The Pac-12 champion Ducks had three of the top eight drafted players, a trio that went 31-2 in their final season together which ended prematurely because of the coronavirus pandemic. “It really reminds me of Oregon and starting a program from new, setting a new culture. … I’m really excited to play with young players,” Sabally said about joining the Wings. “I feel like we can really build something great.” Alarie, the Ivy League’s top scorer with 17.5 points a game, was a first-round pick like her father, Mark, the 18th overall pick in the NBA draft by Denver out of Duke in 1986. Harris will be reunited with former South Carolina teammates Kaela Davis and Allisha Gray. They were all part of the Gamecocks’ 2017 national championship with coach Dawn Staley, which they won in Dallas. “They won a national championship together, so that means they’re all pretty good basketball players,” Bibb said. Davis and Gray were juniors for South Carolina’s championship run before bypassing their senior seasons and becoming top-10 picks by the Wings in 2017. Harris started 27 games as a freshman that season. “I’ll get accustomed really well. They can teach me the ropes and stuff,” Harris said. “What really excited us about (Harris) was, I think she’s one of the best floor generals coming out of college basketball, one of the best ball distributors,” Bibb said. “And she spent four years playing for and directly under a head coach who’s one of the best point guards arguably ever who played the game.” ___ More AP sports: https://apnews.com/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Natasha Cloud’s emotional reaction to Texas school shooting

By Tyler Byrum
Cloud's emotional reaction to Texas school shooting originally appeared on NBC Sports WashingtonThe Washington Mystics organization held another media blackout following the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas to discuss gun violence and to stress their pleas for government action.As she normally does, guard Natasha Cloud was the voice of the team, speaking on behalf of her teammates after Washington's 70-50 win over the Atlanta Dream on Tuesday night in Washington. "Today we're going to do a media blackout," Cloud said following the contest. "I think that you are all aware of what is happening, what happened in Texas, what happened in Buffalo not even a week and a half ago. We have an issue in this country, not only white supremacy, we also have a gun violence issue. And this is us using our platform."An 18-year-old gunman opened fire on Tuesday, killing 19 children in their last week of school before the summer break. Two adults were also killed, with many more injured. It was the deadliest school shooting since a gunman killed 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., 10 years ago.On May 15, there was a separate shooting in Buffalo, NY where 10 Black people were killed at a supermarket. City and federal officials called the shooting a racially motivated hate crime."This game doesn't matter," Cloud continued. "The [21] lives that were lost today from senseless gun violence in Texas, at an elementary school - we're talking about our kids not being safe to go to school and our government is still not implementing sensible gun laws. This isn't about taking people's rights away from bearing arms. This is about putting sensible gun laws in so this doesn't happen again."Cloud was direct in her comments asking society not to continue to make the same mistakes that allow these horrific incidents to happen. She claims nothing is being done at the legislative level because of money and for profit. She asked those who are tired of these shootings happening to write to local and federal representatives.This is not the first time the Mystics have held a media blackout. For the fourth straight season, the team has dedicated at least one media availability to discussing societal issues in the United States.During the team's championship season in 2019, a stray bullet broke a window at Hendley Elementary in Southeast D.C. - less than two miles from the team's arena and practice facility. No students or teachers were hurt in the shooting, but in the subsequent game the players refused to answer basketball questions.While holding the blackout, speaking for the team, Cloud asked the D.C. government to adequately respond and create a solution. Cloud's own blackout extended beyond just the one game and further into the season. Another media blackout took place following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wis. in 2020. The team took an even more drastic step by boycotting the game held on the evening of the shooting and wore white t-shirts that spelled out his name with seven bullet holes painted on them. Other teams inside the WNBA's COVID-19 bubble in Bradenton, Fla. felt similarly and led the WNBA to postpone all contests for two days. Cloud sat out that 2020 season to focus on her own activism and not be distracted by basketball. Mystics teammate Ariel Atkins stepped forward to be the voice of the team during that time. Over the course of her seven-year career, Cloud has become a leading face in the WNBA for her activism and does not shy away from speaking on social issues. She has addressed racial discrimination, police violence, police reform, abortion issues, advocacy for women along with gun violence. "To the families in Texas, the Mystics are sending our love, our prayers. We pray for y'all today, we will continue to pray for you and we will continue to fight for you and we will fight for everyone in this country,"  Cloud said. 
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