Temple Great Candice Dupree Lands Seventh WNBA All-Star Roster

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

Temple graduate Candice Dupree, a 2018 Big Five Hall of Famer currently on the Indiana Fever whose number was retired earlier that season by her alma mater, and Connecticut great Tina Charles of the New York Liberty are the two most veterans on the WNBA All-Star roster pool with seven appearances each.

Rutgers alum Erica Wheeler of the Fever will make her first appearance.

The next part of the process to set up the WNBA mid-summer attraction, this season at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, home of the Aces, a week from Saturday (330 EDT, ABC-TV), was completed Monday  afternoon with the announcement of the rest of the selections which are the substitutes named  by the league’s 10 coaches.

The game will be the first major WNBA event under commissioner Cathy Engelbert of Collingswood, South Jersey, across from Philadelphia, who officially takes office Wednesday and being the first to hold the commissioner title following the presidential succession of Big East  Commissioner Val Ackerman, Donna Orender, Laurel Richie, and Lisa Borders, who stepped down last October.

The 10 starters (four guards, six forwards) from a category combination of fan, media, and player vote tabulation were already named last Wednesday with Delaware alumnus Elena Delle Donne being named one team captain as the top vote getter.

 She will be making her sixth appearance.

Second-year pro A’ja Wilson, the reigning rookie of the year out of the Aces, who starred for Dawn Staley at South Carolina and winning the 2017 NCAA championship, was the runner up in the overall voting and named the second team captain.

In a change to the format last year from what had been mostly East-West competition, and still to occur, the captains pick the rosters from the overall pool, including the four starters apiece joining the duo.

With the best records as of July 12, Las Vegas’ Bill Laimbeer was named coach of Team Delle Donne, while Washington’s Mike Thibault was named the Team Wilson coach.

The Connecticut Sun’s Curt Miller, whose team had been the frontrunner, noted Friday after it snapped a five-game losing streak at home at Mohegan by beating the Phoenix Mercury, had not the recent Washington-Las Vegas game out West been suspended at halftime due to an earthquake in Southern California, he would be taking his coaching staff to Sin City as one of the All-Star groups regardless who had won that Mystics-Aces meeting.

The ten league coaches got to fill the pool by selecting 12 players, voting for three guards, five forwards, and four more players without regard to their positions. They were not allowed to vote for their own players.

The backcourt reserve pool consists of the Chicago Sky trio of Diamond DeShields, Allie Quigley and Courtney Vandersloot, Minnesota Lynx Odyssey Sims, Wheeler, and Washington’s Kristi Toliver.

The frontcourt reserve pool joining Dupree and Charles are Phoenix’s DeWanna Bonner, Minnesota’s Sylvia Fowles, who just became the league’s career double double leader, Connecticut’s Alyssa Thomas, and the Los Angeles Sparks’ Nneka Ogwumike.

The starters previously named joining Delle Donne and Wilson are in the backcourt, Las Vegas’ Kayla McBride, Seattle’s Jewell Loyd, Los Angeles’ Chelsea Gray, and New York’s Kia Nurse, while the frontcourt besides the team captains contain Seattle’s Natasha Howard, Las Vegas’ Liz Cambage, Connecticut’s Jonquel Jones, and Phoenix’s Brittney Griner.

Whether Seattle’s Howard plays is to be determined by the league investigating a domestic abuse allegation, one of two currently along with one involving Los Angeles’ Riquna Williams.

Of the total leader pool in the starters balloting announced last week, Las Vegas’ Kelsey Plum and Phoenix’s Diana Taurasi in the backcourt, and Los Angeles’s Candace Parker and Minnesota rookie Napheesa Collier out of UConn are the only four who didn’t make the list, though Taurasi just returned to action Friday in Connecticut while Parker missed a large portion of the front of the season.

Players who weren’t that high in the starter pool but got picked are Quigley, Wheeler, Charles, Dupree, Ogwumike, and Thomas. 

A sign that the league is getting younger is just six of the 22 players are appearing in six or more All-Star games. 

Behind the seven each behind Dupree and Charles are at six each Delle Donne, Griner, Fowles, and Ogwumike.

First-time performers are Nurse, Sims, DeShields, Howard, and Wheeler, while two each are held by Loyd, Vandersloot, Wilson, Jones, and Thomas, and three each for Gray, Toliver, Cambage, Bonner, McBride, and Quigley.

No one has four or five appearances.

As for how yours truly voted as part of the media group, Griner, Delle Donne, Jones, and Howard made the frontcourt starters, and  Charles and Fowles made the reserves, and while not on this ballot, the Guru was certain Ogwumike would land on the team.

Nurse made the backcourt starters, Vandersloot and Sims made the reserves in the backcourt, while the Guru’s hometown nod to Washington’s Natasha Cloud out of Saint Joseph’s, who was fourth in the league in assists at the time the ballot was due, did not make the team.

As for by team, hometown site made good with Las Vegas placing three players, all starters, one being captain, and one coach on a squad.

Next with numbers, Chicago placed three players to match the Aces.

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The rest of the teams who had representation went two each with Seattle being both starters and one of each to Connecticut, Washington, New York, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, and two reserves each to Minnesota and Indiana.

Atlanta and Dallas went unrepresented.