After nearly three seasons, the Utah Starzz had just figured it all out in the final three weeks of the 1999 WNBA season. They actually became a team. They won seven of their last nine games and were 8-3 following the late-July trade with Detroit for guard Korie Hlede and forward Cindy Brown.
But as of Wednesday morning, that exact team will be no longer.By Wednesday afternoon, two players will join expansion clubs. An educated guess -- total speculation -- of who's going might include guards Debbie Black, Chantel Tremitiere or Dalma Ivanyi or perhaps young forward LaTonya Johnson.
The WNBA protects its teams' Expansion-Draft protected lists to the death, but logic says those four might be among Utah's six-person unprotected group.
The four WNBA expansion teams for 2000 -- Indiana, Miami, Portland and Seattle -- will chip two players away from the Starzz roster, as well as two players from every other current teams' rosters, in the six-round 1999 Expansion Draft to be held secretly via teleconference Wednesday morning.
Each existing team can protect five of its players in the first three rounds, during which each team will lose one player. After a timeout, the current teams will then be able to protect three more players, a total of eight, for Rounds 4-6, during which each will lose one more player.
It's heartbreaking for Utah coach Fred Williams. "I really liked the nucleus we had from last year. At the (mid-November) league meetings, all the other franchises were looking at us strongly," Williams says.
But now, the Starzz, and the other teams, will lose one player who is either a starter or very close to being a starter, in the first three rounds. The other player lost will be one who got less time on the court, someone likely between Player No. 9 to No. 11 on '99 rosters.
Williams will not offer many clues to the protected list turned in to the league last week by the Starzz, but he did say that he kept "size, experience and things I saw stat-wise."
Williams also said that, in the league meetings last month, WNBA officials told teams that, other than the Australians, all Olympic players from other countries are expected to be available to their WNBA teams next summer. He's still a little worried about that. "It's up to the league to make sure they do get back with us," he said, "but that's what the league told us."
If it's true that the league has or will re-sign international Olympians, other than the Australians who declared last summer that their players would have to spend Summer 2000 practicing with the national team for the September 2000 Sydney Olympics, it would mean two key Starzz would return.
And that would mean they would likely be on the Starzz protected list for Wednesday's draft.
They are Polish Olympian Margo Dydek, the Starzz's second-year 7-foot-2 center, and Russian Olympian Elena Baranova, a 6-5 third-year forward. Guard Krystyna Lara is also a Polish Olympian but played little last season and would likely be unprotected.
Utah's Natalie Williams is a U.S. Olympian, but Team USA will allow all of its WNBA players to spend next summer with their pro teams, and Utah's top scorer (18.0 ppg) and the league's No. 2 rebounder (9.2 rpg) will undoubtedly be protected by lock and key Wednesday.
That leaves two others to be protected in the first three rounds. They would almost certainly be Hlede, who solidified Utah's guardline when she arrived and gave the team outside shooting and slashing to the basket that it had never had, and guard/forward Adrienne Goodson, the WNBA's No. 10 scorer (14.9) who also averaged 4.3 rebounds and 2.7 assists.
The Arizona Republic newspaper, which claims sources that have actually seen the unprotected lists, says Utah's Black is likely available to the expansion clubs, as well as Phoenix guards Michelle Timms and Edna Campbell. Michelle Smith of the San Francisco Chronicle, writing for ESPN.com, also sees Black as a likely prize for expansion teams, one (Portland) of which is coached by her former ABA (Colorado) coach.
Other Starzz likely unprotected in the first three rounds include guards Ivanyi, Lara and Tremitiere and forwards Johnson and Brown. Williams says he spoke with Brown a while ago, and she told him she is thinking of playing a couple more WNBA seasons, though she spoke of retirement prior to her trade to Utah. She will be 35 in March.
Once the first three rounds are done, the Starzz can protect three more. Depending upon the player already taken, that group could include Black, Brown and perhaps Johnson or Tremitiere.
Indiana has the first pick in the first round Wednesday, followed by Seattle, Miami and Portland. The order is reversed each round, and Portland will get the highest pick of the expansion teams in the regular April 2000 WNBA Draft.
WNBA observers say the four expansion teams, which received no "allocated" players, as did all of the current clubs, will have a hard time becoming competitive being only able to select one "sixth-man" type of player and one from the bottom of other teams' rosters.
However, Williams says the recent change in WNBA trade rules that allow for "unbalanced" trades will mean some of the expansion clubs will try to quickly do some 2-for-1 packages to acquire starting players, and that would involve players who are on protected lists.