Duke guard Lexie Brown and former Tennessee guard Diamond DeShields will be two of the 10 women present for Thursday’s 2018 WNBA draft at Nike’s New York headquarters.
While Brown and DeShields weren’t competitors in college, they did compete against each other several times as high schoolers in Gwinnett County - Brown at North Gwinnett and DeShields at Norcross.
“My senior year, she actually beat me in the state finals, so we’re very familiar with each other. ... I think she’s a superior athlete,” Brown said. “She’s just a really dominant player. She can shoot it, she can handle it, she has a post game. I think she’s just an all around incredible player and she has confidence.”
The 6-foot-1 DeShields, projected by ESPN to be drafted third, by the Chicago Sky, is the only draft prospect who did not play college basketball last season, as she opted to forgo her final season at Tennessee and play with the Turkish professional team Cukurova. DeShields, daughter of former major leaguer Delino DeShields, averaged 16.5 points, 5.9 rebounds and three assists with Cukurova after two seasons at Tennessee and one at North Carolina.
WNBA draft: First round, Thursday, 7 p.m., ESPN2
Although DeShields is one of the more coveted players in the draft, Brown is confident in her own standing and accomplishments. Projected to be drafted at eighth overall by the Indiana Fever by ESPN, the 5-9 senior said she's drawn interest from the Seattle Storm, Dallas Wings and Washington Mystics who have the fifth, sixth and seventh picks respectively in Thursday's draft.
While she said she didn’t have a preferred landing point, Brown said she has favorite players all around the league and would be honored to play with any of them, especially Kristi Toliver of the Mystics.
“Kristi Toliver was my idol growing up,” Brown said. “If I could play next to her in the WNBA, that would be a dream come true definitely.”
The daughter of former NBA player Dee Brown, Lexie Brown has a familiarity with the WNBA as she grew up watching her father coach two WNBA teams — the Orlando Miracle in 2002 and San Antonio Silver Stars in 2004 -- and three NBA teams. Although she’s been around basketball all her life, she never thought she’d be given the opportunity to attend the WNBA Draft as she will Thursday night.
“Never in my life did I think I would be a top-10 draft pick ever, so being in that conversation at all has been amazing and how hard I’ve worked to get to this point,” Brown said. “So, to see it all panning out this way after this long journey through college has been really cool.”
While Brown is enjoying the rewards of her labor from the past four seasons, she acknowledged the difficulty of her redshirt senior season at Duke and how it could have hindered that top-10 prospect status.
The Blue Devils (24-9, 11-5) struggled with injuries early in the season, most notably with starting the season without point guard Kyra Lambert because of an ACL injury from the 2016-17 season and losing freshman guard Mikayla Boykin to a season-ending knee injury in December. While the team couldn’t make it past the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, Brown said she was still able to showcase her skills to scouts during her senior campaign.
“I know this year I wanted to show my ability to play off the ball a little bit more because I know that’s what a lot of teams were looking for me to do this year, so I wasn’t really able to do much this year, but I still think I held my own and was able to display my improvements from last year especially with the way teams were coming out and defending us this year,” Brown said.
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