The WNBA free agency market officially opened on Thursday and turned up the off-season moves.
Elena Delle Donne has been linked to the Phoenix Mercury among possible top free agents.
One of the league’s insiders Alexa Philippou said during ESPN’s WNBA Free Agency Special on Thursday that Delle Donne is interested in either the Phoenix Mercury or the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces.
On Jan. 22, another league insider Khristina Williams reported that Phoenix inquired about Delle Donne’s availability for a trade, nine days after Washington extended a core qualifying offer for the final year of her four-year supermax deal worth $234,350.
Washington giving her core status ensures the team’s negotiation rights, seeking draft compensation. So it would have to be a sign-and-trade if she were to be dealt anywhere.
The 34-year-old Delle Donne is an 11-year veteran, two-time MVP, and has played the past seven years for Washington.
Imagine her in Phoenix.
That could possibly form a new Big 3 with Diana Taurasi and Brittney Griner, who are among the greatest 25 players in league history. Having a versatile inside-outside threat like the 6-foot-5 Delle Donne would complement the Taurasi-Griner tandem well.
It would be a shock if Griner doesn’t re-sign with Phoenix after playing all of her 11 years in the desert.
Taurasi is entering her 21st season and has one year left on her supermax deal.
Phoenix has room for one more supermax player after six-time All-Star Skylar Diggins-Smith signed with the Seattle Storm on Thursday. Diggins-Smith, Griner, and Taurasi were Mercury’s Big 3 from 2019 to 2022. They had a finals run in 2021, and Diggins-Smith was out on maternity leave last year.
Phoenix has the No. 3 overall pick in April’s draft, but is it worth trading it while in rebuild mode?
The conservative approach is that Phoenix will need to focus on the future after Taurasi and Griner retire or leave the team.
There were 20 picks traded between 2013 and 2023 when former Mercury general manager Jim Pitman was at the helm. Now, the team has its highest draft pick since they got Griner in the year Pitman took that job.
During the draft lottery in December, Pitman’s replacement Nick U’Ren said that “everything is on the table”, whether to use the lottery pick to trade for top player, or select a future franchise star out of college.
There’s plenty of the latter in this year’s draft class.
The short-term outlook in a Delle Donne trade is that Phoenix needs all the help it can get to get back to the postseason next year.
Phoenix had the worst record in the WNBA last season. The eye test improvements adding Delle Donne would be the team’s scoring, 3-point shooting, taking care of the ball in its possessions, switching on defense, and rim protection. Phoenix was last in scoring, rebounding, defensive rating, worst in turnovers committed per game, and third to last in 3-point percentage.
Griner, 33, is still in her prime, but will be in the back-nine of her career within the next few years. Last season, she averaged the team-best 17.5 points, 6.3 rebounds, and was still one of the league’s top defenders (1.6 blocks ranked third) through 31 games.
Same for Taurasi, who turns 42 in August. She missed 14 games from injuries in 2023. Besides 2022 when she played in 31 of the the 40-game regular season schedule, she hadn’t played over 30 games since 2018. Taurasi averaged 16 points, 4.6 assists, shot 40%, and can still get streaky like when she blitzed past her 10,000-point career mark in a 42-point outing in August.
Like Taurasi, Della Donne has been plagued by injuries the past three seasons. When she was healthy, she averaged 16.7 points, 5.4 rebounds, 0.9 blocks, shot 48.5%, and 39.3% from 3.
Della Donne, 34, would be an upgrade as a better shot creator off the bounce than the Mercury’s former backup big Megan Gustafson. She signed with Las Vegas after having a career year off the bench and produced 7.9 points, hitting a decent 34% from deep, and 3.9 rebounds.
Plus, the Mercury just signed a big addition for its backcourt with Taurasi in Delle Donne’s longtime Washington teammate Natasha McCloud. The eight-year veteran led the league at 6.2 assists per game in last season, and was a 2022 All-Defensive First Team selection.
If Phoenix gets Delle Donne, it could help make the team more competitive against the gold standard Las Vegas and Phoenix’s first-year coach Nate Tibbetts will have more talent to work with.
If not, the Mercury could become more mighty behind a generational talent in the years to come.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Should Mercury trade No. 3 pick for Elena Della Donne?
