The Minnesota Lynx drafted some great players since entering the league in 1999. Their most notable draft selections were Seimone Augustus, Maya Moore, and Napheesa Collier. Augustus and Moore led the Lynx to several championships, and Collier just led her team to the WNBA Finals.
At the same time, the Lynx, much like any professional sports team, also drafted some great players who had better careers elsewhere in the WNBA.
4. Betty Lennox
Betty Lennox was selected with the sixth overall pick by the Minnesota Lynx in the 2000 WNBA Draft. She went on to win Rookie of the Year and be the first rookie to play in an All-Star Game. After her stellar rookie season, she broke her hip—a serious injury she had to battle back from—and was traded to the Miami Sol.
The Sol folded, though, and Lennox was selected by the Cleveland Rockers in the dispersal draft. Shortly after, the Rockers also folded, and Lennox ended up in another dispersal draft. This time, she landed with the Seattle Storm.
Lennox found immediate success with the Storm, winning the 2004 WNBA Championship with her new team and taking home the Finals MVP award. Nevertheless, the Storm did not protect her in the 2008 expansion draft and Lennox was selected by the Atlanta Dream. In Atlanta, she recorded the highest scoring average of her career.
Lennox played well during her time in Minnesota but did what every basketball player dreams of with the Seattle Storm.
3. Erin Buescher Perperoglou
Erin Buescher Perperoglou entered the WNBA as a late second-round pick in 2001. Nevertheless, she played all 32 games of the season for the Lynx in her rookie year, averaging 5.7 points, 3.7 rebounds, 1.9 assists, and 0.9 blocks. Those were great numbers for a second-round pick, but Buescher Perperoglou only really took off when she started playing for the Sacramento Monarchs. In 2002, the Minnesota Lynx traded her to the Charlotte Sting. Buescher Perperoglou played two seasons for the Sting but her regular-season averages were far from inspiring.
That changed once Buescher Perperoglou was traded to the Sacramento Monarchs. In 2005, she played a small role during the Monarchs’ title run. Just one season later, her role expanded, she played almost 20 minutes per game, and was named the 2006 Most Improved Player of the Year for increasing her scoring average by around six points per game.
2. Janell Burse
The Lynx drafted Janell Burse in the second round of the 2001 WNBA Draft, and she played three seasons in Minnesota. She performed well, especially in her third season in the league, but was much more successful with the Seattle Storm.
Ahead of the 2004 season, Burse was traded to the Storm in a trade that the Lynx hoped would bring Lindsay Whalen to Minnesota, and she promptly became a rotational player during the Storm’s title run. The next season, Burse even became a full-time starter and averaged double-digit scoring for the first time in her career.
While Burse played well for the Lynx and even played rotational minutes for them in the 2003 WNBA Playoffs, she found the kind of success every WNBA player is looking for with the Seattle Storm and not the team that drafted her.
1. Sugar Rodgers
After leaving Georgetown as the school’s all-time leading scorer, Sugar Rodgers was drafted with the 14th overall pick by the Lynx in the 2013 draft. She played 26 games in Minnesota but contributed little to the team’s title run that year. After the season, she was traded to the New York Liberty, where she eventually broke out during the 2016 season.
Now a full-time starter, Rodgers averaged 14.5 points, 3.7 rebounds, 2.4 assists, and 1.1 steals per game. The next season, Rodgers was moved back to the bench, but earned the first and only All-Star selection of her career and was named the WNBA’s Sixth Woman of the Year.
Rodgers may not have won a championship with the Liberty, as she did with the Lynx, but played her best individual seasons there.