7. Seattle Storm select Mikayla Pivec, 5’10 G, Oregon State
It is easy to forget, in the wake of Mike Thibault’s triumph with the 2019 Mystics, how similar the 2018 Storm were en route to the WNBA title. Significantly, they played positionless basketball, and when evaluating their options with the seventh pick, it is easy to envision Seattle looking for someone who can plug different holes in different lineups, while defending well. Enter Mikayla Pivec, she of the absurdly high basketball IQ, who Synergy once again rates among the best defenders in the country (0.595 points per possession), north of 60% from two and hitting 37.5 percent of her threes, with an assist percentage befitting a point guard and a turnover percentage lower than Sabrina Ionescu or Satou Sabally.