The Connecticut Sun already swung a major deal with Minnesota, giving up All-Star guard Lindsay Whalen in a move which landed them the top overall pick in Thursday's draft.

On Wednesday Connecticut made a lesser deal, shipping former first-round picks Amber Holt and Chante Black to Tulsa for the No. 7 overall pick and a second-round selection in next year's draft.

With the Sun set to pick UConn center Tina Charles and selecting DeMya Walker in a dispersal draft after the Sacramento Monarchs folded, it's unlikely that Black would have made the Sun's 11-person roster.

The move could pave the way for the Sun to take UConn's Kalana Greene, who is expected to be a mid to late first round pick. Greene is far from the only player on the Sun's radar. The Sun could also pounce if one of the players at the top of the board falls to the seventh pick.

"We’re glad to have another pick in this year’s draft," Sun coach Mike Thibault said in a statement. "We have not decided what we are going to do with it. We have three or four options, depending on how the draft falls. We felt like we knew what the core of our team was. We would have had to cut another player when Sandrine comes, and this will help alleviate that situation as well as some salary cap issues. Amber and Chante are going to be good young players in the league, and they will help Tulsa. But we felt like we were heading in a different direction."

While the WNBA opted to be All-Star game free in the upcoming season, there is still a mid-season event for former UConn stars and members of the Connecticut Sun to take part in.

Voting for the EuroLeague Women All-Star Game 2010, which will be held on Mar. 9 in in Gdynia, Poland, began today.

Former UConn star Diana Taurasi figures to be one of the leading vote-getters for the "Rest of the World" squad once again while the Connecticut Sun's Sandrine Gruda and Anete Jekabsone-Zogota are among the top candidates to earn starting spots for Europe.

Fan balloting runs until Jan. 31. The UConn players on the ballot are Svetlana Abrosimova, Charde Houston, Asjha Jones and Renee Montgomery while Jones' Connecticut Sun teammates Lindsay Whalen, Amber Holt and Erin Phillips as well as Alba Torrens, a third-round pick of Connecticut's in April's WNBA draft. Fans will get to pick the starting lineups for both teams while the league will vote on the reserves.

Connecticut Sun forward Asjha Jones will miss two weeks to rest her ailing left Achilles tendon. Jones, who has missed just six of 259 games since entering the WNBA in 2002, is Connecticut's leading scorer (16.7 points per game) and is second in rebounding and assists.

The top candidates to replace Jones (Amber Holt, Tamika Whitmore, Kerry Gardin and Chante Black) have all started at least one game for Connecticut this season.


Jones' former UConn teammate Diana Taurasi, who averaged 25 points, 4 assists and 3.5 rebounds for the Phoenix Mercury, was named the WNBA's Western Conference Player of the Week.

There's a chance that Amber Holt will play her first regular-season game with the Connecticut Sun on Saturday night.

Holt has been out since breaking a bone in her right hand in a May 27 preseason game against Atlanta. She practiced without restriction for the first time since suffering the injury on Thursday and went again on Friday.

Connecticut Sun coach Mike Thibault and head athletic trainer Jeremy Norman will meet before the game to decide whether to let Holt play against Detroit or hold her out until Tuesday when Los Angeles comes to Mohegan Sun Arena.

"The doctor said it is my decision if I want to play tomorrow but I am going to leave it up to Coach (Thibault)," Holt said. "Hopefully I’ll play."

Holt is not the only player who will be a game-time decision. Tamika Whitmore missed half of Friday's practice as one of the muscles under her knee is still a bit tender.

"Some days it feels great, some days it is pretty sore," Thibault said of Whitmore.

If Whitmore sits the game out, that would be noteworthy based on her ironwoman reputation.

Whitmore missed five games as a rookie with the New York Liberty in 1999 with a left ankle sprain. Since the beginning of the 2000 season, she has missed just one game (on June 25, 2003 when the Liberty played the Phoenix Mercury because of a sprained right foot.) Whitmore has played in 169 straight regular-season games.

ALL-STAR PRACTICES OPEN TO PUBLIC
Mohegan Sun Arena will host open practices for the East and West All Stars on Friday, July 24th, the day before the 2009 WNBA All-Star Game.

The East All Stars are scheduled to practice from 3-3:45 p.m. The West All
Stars will follow, practicing from 4:15-5 p.m. Arena doors will open at
2:30 p.m. and there will be no admission charged.

The All-Star lineups will be announced on Tuesday during the nationally-televised game between Connecticut and Los Angeles.

The good news is that the elbow injury suffered by Connecticut Sun center Chante Black does not appear to be a season-ending one. The bad news is that the Sun will be without its tallest player when the Atlanta Dream, which headed into today's game against Chicago second in the WNBA in rebounding and rebounding margin, comes to the Mohegan Sun on Saturday.

According to team officials, Black suffered a moderate sprain of her left elbow during Sunday's victory over San Antonio. She is not expected to play on Saturday against Atlanta. Her condition will be evaluated following that game by team
physician Ammar Anbari.

Black was injured in the third quarter of a 71-58 Connecticut victory when
she tried to brace herself while falling after colliding with a San Antonio player. She scored a career-high 11 points and her eight rebounds was one shy of her career high. Black started the first six games of the season. She was averaging 4.2 points, 4.3 rebounds and 0.5 blocks for the 3-3 Sun. Veteran Tamika Whitmore, who started 33 games for Connecticut last season, is a likely choice to replace Black in the starting lineup.

With Amber Holt still sidelined with a hand injury, the Sun will only have nine healthy players until either Black or Holt are cleared to play. Following Saturday's game two players will need to be let go as Anete Jekabsone-Zogota and Sandrine Gruda are expected to report to the team before the Sun plays its next game on July 2 at Indiana. It is safe to say that neither Black nor Holt are being considered as possibilities to hit the waiver wire.

Just got off the phone with Connecticut Sun general manager Chris Sienko who said the final bit of paperwork on Barbara Turner's contract came through and she is signed up for the upcoming season.

Turner's signing means that the Sun have its top six scorers returning. Turner, who averaged 8 points and 3.2 rebounds for the Sun in 2008, becomes the 10th player under contract for the coming season joining Lindsay Whalen, Ashja Jones, Tamika Whitmore, Amber Holt, Kerri Gardin, Sandrine Gruda, Erin Phillips, Ketia Swanier and Danielle Page on the roster. They accounted for 87 percent of Connecticut's points, 82 percent of the rebounds and 84 percent of the assists.

The Sun have offers out to unrestricted free agents Tamika Raymond and Svetlana Abrosimova and restricted free agent Jamie Carey. The team is continuing to negotiate with Anete Jekabsone, the fourth-leading scorer in the 2008 Olympics. Sienko said "we are not worried" about coming to terms with the 25-year-old guard. Lauren Ervin, the Sun's third-round pick, is also expected to be in training camp according to Sienko.

Although the roster limits have been cut from a maximum of 13 to 11, the training camp roster rules have not been altered. No WNBA team can have more than 15 players at camp at any time. With so many of the Sun players having European commitments, that should not be an issue or prohibit them from signing all the players from last year's team they want to.