Host Jackie Powell is joined by The Next and Locked on Women’s Basketball’s very own Hunter Cruse where the pair tries to understand why WNBA teams have made it a point this offseason to not only trade draft lottery picks but are trading first round draft picks. How does Hunter assess the strength of the 2025 Draft and what are the reasons that Courtney Vandersloot believes high value picks have been traded so frequently during this WNBA off-season? Powell asks Cruse to assess the risk of the two major trades where the Sky sent their 2025 third overall pick and two other future draft assets over to the Washington Mystics for Ariel Atkins and the Sparks sent their 2025 second overall pick over to Seattle in the three team trade that sent Jewell Loyd to the Las Vegas Aces. Lastly, the two discuss how contenders in the WNBA have kept their cores together while using the draft wisely to build out roster depth.

Thumbnail Photo Credit: MICHAEL CLUBB/SOUTH BEND TRIBUNE / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Further resources:

Across the Timeline’s Draft resources:
https://acrossthetimeline.com/wnba/drafts.html#

Across the Timeline’s core contract data:
https://acrossthetimeline.com/wnba/transactions.html#types=core

Follow Hunter’s work here:
https://www.youtube.com/@HunterCruse14
https://www.thenexthoops.com/author/hunter-cruse/

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Locked On Women's Basketball is a daily podcast covering all aspects of the women's basketball world! Join host Howard Megdal (The IX, The Next) as he interviews the incredible staff of The Next, along with the biggest and most influential names in the sport. All that and more on Locked On Women's Basketball, part of the Locked On Podcast Network.

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