2015 Regular-Season Record: 8-26 (6th in Western Conference)
Postseason: Did Not Qualify
If there was a WNBA team in 2015 that couldn’t catch a break, it was the San Antonio Stars. After making the playoffs in seven of the previous eight seasons, the Stars had just about the worst year possible, going through everything from the retirement of franchise cornerstones and the backfiring of draft day trades to seemingly endless injuries and bad luck in the upcoming lottery.
Everyone who follows the WNBA knew of Becky Hammon’s importance to the Stars, but not many predicted that her retirement after the 2014 season would have such a negative impact. San Antonio still retained potent veterans Sophia Young-Malcolm and Jia Perkins, with sharpshooting wing Kayla McBride coming off an excellent rookie campaign and speedy point guard Danielle Robinson seeming primed to take the next step towards becoming an elite WNBA point guard.
Instead, what the Stars got was an injury-plagued Perkins, a regressed Robinson and a retiring Young-Malcom. While San Antonio has always lacked the “star power” enjoyed by its Western Conference rivals, head coach and GM Dan Hughes has often found ways to make it work, but there was no such wizardry to be found this season.
In fact, several of his own moves put the team in an even worse position for 2015. Shenise Johnson was shipped to Indiana for a pair of draft picks (and promptly went on to have a career year), and San Antonio’s own first-round pick was traded to New York in exchange for wing Alex Montgomery. Montgomery spent most of the season injured, while New York used the draft pick on All-Rookie performer Brittany Boyd.
That’s not to say the Stars’ season was completely devoid of bright spots. McBride once again led the team in scoring, and rookie Dearica Hamby (drafted with the pick the Stars acquired in the Johnson trade) showed promise as a versatile spot-up forward. Hughes was also able to swipe first-round draft pick Samantha Logic from Atlanta in a low-risk, high-reward midseason move that figures to be a part of the team’s plans for 2016.
Still, when your main horses are either underachieving or not playing at all, little victories like these tend not to translate. It shows in the numbers: the Stars were by far the worst offensive team in the WNBA, scoring just 90.3 points per 100 possessions on an eFG% of 41.9 percent. Couple that with their league-worst defensive eFG% of 48.2 percent, and it’s easy to see how the Stars didn’t win their first game until June 25, and won just two games in the final two months of the season combined.
Needless to say, the Stars finished 2015 with the worst record in the WNBA (despite winning their final game: a nail-bitingly bad tank-off with the Seattle Storm), but got one final handful of salt thrown in the wound when they didn’t even win the 2016 draft lottery…and as anyone who even just casually follows the women’s game knows, it’s a pretty lousy year to strike out on the #1 pick.
Biggest Need Heading Into 2016: Talent
Hughes is now in a position envied by no GM: leading a rebuilding team with very few assets. The Stars will still get to pick #2 in the upcoming draft, but it’s a pick Hughes absolutely must hit a home run on, with his team lacking any real star power in both the frontcourt and backcourt.
And really, what else can he do? Trade Hamby or McBride? As is, they have the highest value of any Stars player (with most of their other youngsters picked up off the scrap heap), but they also figure to have high ceilings, and the Stars need to accumulate as much young talent as they can. There’s little doubt that McBride in particular will have a few All-Star appearances to her name before it’s all said and done, so she’s as good as untouchable.
Any chance of finding a hidden gem in the second round? They’ll have to get a pick first, as the Stars won’t pick again after #2 until early in the third round of the draft. Dangling a veteran like Perkins or Jayne Appel for a draft pick might be in the Stars’ best interest, but even so, Hughes would have to make another wildly successful selection for it to pay off.
Other than relying on superior scouting of both collegiate and foreign prospects, there’s not much the Stars can do to bounce back from their disaster of a 2015 other than hope players once viewed as the team’s core, like Robinson and Danielle Adams, bounce back themselves. Barring a huge leap from Hamby and McBride and a sudden return to form from Robinson and Adams, San Antonio is going to have an awfully tough time being in the playoff picture this coming season.