It was an up-and-down year for the Connecticut Sun, who finished with the WNBA’s third-worst record but showed promising flashes from a young core headlined by Leila Lacan, Saniya Rivers, and Aneesah Morrow, among others.
I sat down with Connecticut Sun general manager Morgan Tuck for a two-part interview about her first year at the helm and the direction of the Sun organization. The first part of that interview, in which we discussed the team’s standout rookies and general organizational direction, is here.
The second part — in which she discussed Veronica Burton being selected in WNBA Expansion, Marina Mabrey’s trade request, Rachid Meziane’s first year as head coach, and more — is below.
Noa Dalzell: What was it like to see Veronica Burton have the year she had elsewhere? And, did the experience of her getting picked and seeing her subsequent success change your mindset at all about how you’re going to approach the upcoming Expansion Draft?
Morgan Tuck: When you see how well she’d be doing, it is like ‘Dang, she would have helped us a lot.’ But I will say — I’m a firm believer that the fit that you’re in can make or break it. Veronica’s fantastic, right? As a person, as a player, if anyone said anything negative, I would think they’re a liar, because she’s that good. It felt good to see her flourish in the way that she did, because a lot of players don’t get that opportunity. For her to go into a situation that’s brand new — it wasn’t by her choice — and she just took another step in her career. So I’ll always be happy for players like that, because that can make or break someone’s career.
Sometimes I view it as, it’s a good problem to have. When you have really good players on your team that you don’t want to lose and that you want to be able to keep, and then when they do go somewhere else, you see how good they are, and people really get a chance to see it, that’s a good problem, right? That means that you got the right type of players. You pull in players who are high-level professionals in our league, but you never want to lose them. That’s the hard part for all of us as GMs in this space where we have expansion this year… and then three straight years of expansion drafts. That’s going to cause a little bit of an issue where we have to look at, ‘How deep can we build out our team and our roster, and how much turnover are we going to expect to have?‘ And if you’re making trades, is it worth trading where you might lose a person to expansion? It really changes how we view building out our teams year to year, versus a specific Expansion Draft.
But, we’ll do our best to protect as many [players] as we can, obviously, and the ones that we see as a part of our future. But you have to do a little give and take, and there are some parts that we can’t totally control. But Veronica — she killed it. She really did. I saw her sister last week, and I was like, Dang. Like, Veronica did such a good job. It’s just great for us that we get to say we were a part of her journey, even if it was short — we were able to help her get to that situation. But, she would have helped us a lot this year.
Noa Dalzell: You mentioned the vets — what roles did Marina Mabry and Tina Charles play in keeping this group afloat? And I know Marina reportedly had requested a trade before the season, and then she stuck around and seemed to have a good time from my vantage point.
They were our most established vets, in their success that they’ve had in the league for sure, especially Tina.
We lost a lot of games early on, and it’s really hard to keep that motivation and the discipline to keep showing up. But I can say for both of them, they still did it. They showed up. They gave what they could. They tried to help the young ones. They tried to help the youth and get us in the right direction. And I do give them a lot of credit too, for us making that shift after All-Star of having a little bit more success. We just stayed consistent. Our vets stayed really consistent.
I give Marina especially a lot of props and credit because she asked for a trade; she wanted to go somewhere else. And she could have gone either direction. She could have said, ‘You know what, they made me stay here. I’m not going to help. I’m not going to be a part of this.’ And, it could have been a different year for us. But, she really bought into it.
There were some times when it was tough, and it’s hard to do, so especially when you’re losing. And she’s a winner, right? She wants to win. She’s really competitive, but I think she got to understand the role and impact that she can have on a team on a little bit of a deeper level than maybe what she’s had previously. So I give her a ton of credit for seeing it that way and staying committed to the process even when she didn’t want to, and that speaks to her as a person.
But she and Tina, in the best ways that they could, helped keep our team afloat, keep them going. It was funny to see, especially with Tina — we had a lot of youth, and they called her TikTok Tina, and she’s out there dancing and doing all this stuff. It helped on both sides, where our vets were able to help our team stay consistent. But the youth may have brought something else out of our vets that they hadn’t brought out in years past. So overall, that’s something we want to build off. We want to make sure that we double down on that and that we keep around the same vets and bring in the right type of vets to help that young core keep developing, but then also keep our team on the right path.
Dalzell: Do you have any sense if either of those two — Marina Mabrey or Tina Charles — will be back?
It’s tough to say for sure, especially with so much uncertainty. But the part that is consistent is that we understand the impact of a good vet. We can harp on our youth all day, but if you don’t have the right type of vets, or vets that are really bought in, it can make or break it for you. So it’s something that we’re really looking at — we’re looking at our roster as a whole, and trying to make sure we’re going into what could be the craziest free agency period that we’ve probably ever had with an open mind. But, an open mind doesn’t always mean new right? That could mean staying consistent. So it’s hard to say which direction we’ll be in yet. It’s a little early for those conversations. But, as we go, we’re going to keep in mind that whether it’s people who were on our team or new people, we want to have the right type of people around our younger players.
Dalzell: You traded for Aaliyah Edwards midseason from the Washington Mystics. What went into that decision?
We had our eye on her the year before in the draft. We knew it was very unlikely that she would be around. We had the 10th pick.
When you’re looking at trade opportunities, we weren’t looking to move anyone necessarily. I’m always more of an opportunistic person when it comes to trades. I felt like our post position — we needed a little bit more, especially in that four spot. I felt like we had to get a little bit more kind of umph in that area. And so, as conversations went, Aliyah was someone to me that it was like, ‘Hey, if we can get her, we should, right? Like, within reason. We all have what we’re willing to give and all that.
I’m always going to harp on first as a person, who she is. And, obviously, I was very familiar with her, with her playing at UConn. She fit what we’re looking for, and especially in that four spot, that’s a hard spot, right? Some of the best players in our league are at the four, and you need to try to find someone who can compete and hold their own. And she’s obviously still very young and has room for growth. But she was someone that we felt like, ‘Look, if this is a real thing and we can get her, we have to find a way to do so.‘ We were really excited that we got to get her, honestly. I wish we could have gotten her a little bit earlier in the season, but glad that we got her before the deadline.
Dalzell: Finally, what did you make of Rachid Meziane’s first-year head coach performance?
We knew coming in that this year was going to be a challenge, right? We’re very realistic — it would have been totally unrealistic to expect, ‘Hey, come in coach and get us to the Finals in Year 1.‘ We knew that wasn’t going to happen, unless there was an absolute miracle. So, we’re very realistic to understand that this year was about creating a foundation, getting things started.
He was probably harder on himself than anything, because he does want to be successful, like all of us. But I think for a first-year coach, he did pretty well in the sense of staying consistent. He had an idea and a vision when he came in. And I think at times when you’re not winning, it’s hard to stay consistent. It’s easy to panic or to pivot, or to just scrap it and try something new. But I give him a lot of credit for staying committed to the process and understanding that even if it’s rough right now, we’re going to keep finding a way to show up and improve. That was the biggest thing that we wanted to see — progress, right? We wanted to have a different feeling from the beginning to the end.
He’s still going to be our coach, right? We’re not changing things up, and he’s someone that we still believe in and understand, and we trust that he’s going to help our team get to where we want to be. But we’re very bought into the process and appreciate that he is too. We’re in October, it’s early offseason, and we’ve been to work getting ready for the next season, discussing how we can improve, how we can grow. I’m very excited even though we have a long time, and very excited about next season, and to see what he does with our team.
