The first order of business is clearing up one fact - Sunday's season finale for the Connecticut Sun will tip at 3 p.m. Apparently there has been some confusion regarding the start time of the game against the Indiana Fever at Mohegan Sun.

There is no confusion regarding the Sun's playoff hopes. Atlanta's 88-64 win on Friday night knocked Connecticut out of the postseason race. It was a stunning way for Connecticut's run of playoff appearances to end, being run off the court by a second-year franchise. Now the first-place Fever come to town and it will be interesting to see how the Sun players respond.

In reality, the playoff exit did not come last night but with Asjha Jones strained Achilles' tendon. With Lindsay Whalen, the MVP runner-up last season, not able to approach her previous level of excellence on a regular basis and rising star Sandrine Gruda not nearly as effective without Jones as she was with her, the Sun stumbled down the stretch. It took the Sun rallying from double-digit deficits for wins against New York and Minnesota and an overtime victory against New York for Connecticut to avoid going 0-10 without Jones in the lineup.

The only positive is that the Sun should finally get a top five draft pick for the first time since trading Shannon Johnson to get the No. 4 overall pick back in 2004. That turned out pretty good with Whalen coming to Connecticut.

While it's unlikely that the Sun would be in position to take either Jayne Appel of Stanford or UConn's Tina Charles unless the draft lottery works to their favor, somebody like Kansas wing Danielle McCray would be a nice fit in Connecticut.

Looking back at the drafts, it is pretty clear that outside of Gruda, which the Sun stole with the last pick of the first round in 2007 draft, Connecticut has not made very good use of the draft in recent years. Whether it is taking Kamesha Hairston over Camille Little in 2007, trading away its 2005 and 2006 first rounders for Margo Dydek (although Dydek did play a role in Connecticut having the best record in the WNBA in 2006) or passing on Nicky Anosike to draft Ketia Swanier last year, some questionable personnel moves in recent years set up the Sun for what happened this year. Add in the curious decision to leave Erika de Souza unprotected in favor of Erin Phillips, allowing de Souza to head to Atlanta and become a key piece in the Dream's rapid rise and the Sun are exactly what they should be - a non-playoff team.

Had the Sun kept de Souza, there would have been no reason to draft Chante Black in the first round this year and could have picked Shavonte Zellous instead. Sorry, but if you around the league and offered to trade de Souza and Zellous for Phillips and Black, the universal response would be "where do I sign?"

The Sun reached into the overseas market and there's no questioning the skill level of Gruda, Phillips and Anete Jekabsone-Zogota but still you are playing with fire every time you attempt to build a team around a European or in Phillips' case, an Australian. I realize it has worked pretty well with Lauren Jackson in Seattle but with the European Championships conflicting with the WNBA season, the status of Gruda will be one of those "let's wait and see" propositions. The prospects of a top four or five pick teaming with Jones, Whalen and Gruda are pretty promising but what about if there is no Gruda? It's a little bit of a different story, isn't it?