The Kelsey Plum trade was a massive swing for the Phoenix Mercury. They may have given up their best young player and a 2027 first-round pick for a 14-game rental if Plum decides to sign elsewhere in free agency after the season. It also wasn’t a great trade for the Sparks. Sure, getting Monique Akoa Makani and two picks is better than just watching her walk away in free agency for nothing, but it still doesn’t make up for what it cost to get Plum.
The Sparks acquired Plum in a three-team trade with the Las Vegas Aces and Seattle Storm. Plum went to LA, while Jewell Loyd landed with the Aces, and the Sparks sent the number-two pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft to the Storm. That pick became Dominique Malonga, who already looks like one of the brightest young stars in the game at age 20. She just dropped 31 points on the New York Liberty. Losing out on her for a season and a half of Plum and no playoff success, is a tough mistake to recover from.Â
The only way the Sparks can make fans truly forget and forgive all the mistakes they made recently—they also traded the pick that became Awa Fam for a chance to draft Rickea Jackson, who is no longer on the team, and Kia Nurse—is if they can win the JuJu Watkins sweepstakes and build around a hometown superstar.Â
Every rebuilding team wants JuJu Watkins
Between Aliyah Boston, Caitlin Clark, Cameron Brink, Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers, Olivia Miles, and Azzi Fudd, the WNBA has seen a great number of highly coveted college players enter the league. JuJu Watkins is the next franchise-altering star teams are hoping to land. The 2025 Naismith College Player of the Year promises to be one of the greatest two-way players in WNBA history. She can single-handedly change the trajectory of a struggling franchise.Â
Watkins is from LA and currently stars at USC. Getting drafted by the Sparks would allow her to play for her hometown team, while the Sparks would get a franchise player to build around—for real this time—and give fans a homegrown star to rally around.Â
However, getting Watkins to LA isn’t as easy as it may sound. The Sparks have two first-round picks in 2027: their own and the Mercury’s. Both will be good picks in the top half of the draft, but the chance of winning the lottery is low in both cases.Â
The Sparks missed the playoffs last year and won’t make it this year either, but they were the ninth seed last year and need to do some serious tanking to get closer to the bottom of the standings this season. Connecticut, meanwhile, has a 7-23 record this season and won just 11 games last year. Likewise, Chicago is stringing together its second losing season, Seattle is tanking hard, and the two expansion teams aren’t winning a ton either. There are too many teams with better odds.Â
The odds with the Mercury’s pick are even worse since Phoenix went to the finals last year and is desperately trying to string together some wins now.
However, Watkins might not even be in the 2027 draft. She is draft-eligible, but could stay at USC for at least one more season—something that could be of interest to her if she doesn’t lead USC to a national championship this upcoming season. In that case, the Sparks would have one more season to tank and improve their chances of landing the first or second pick (with Sarah Strong also draft-eligible in 2028, Watkins may not even go first overall).Â
Strong would also be a phenomenal get for the Sparks if Watkins enters the draft next year and they don’t have the number-one pick. Still, the UConn star doesn’t bring the same LA connection and hometown hype as Watkins.Â
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