Last big pre-draft trade was Tarpley for Loyden. Bet Lindsay feels great about being dealt for a backup keeper, even one who was anointed 'best backup' by Lauletta. Red Stars apparently decided they need an entirely new team. We'll see what the post-draft trades will bring. Draft rules: no chewing gum, no looking at other students' papers.

1. Atlanta Beat- Tobin Heath. Quelle surprise. In my opinion this is a little like trying to build a football team around a really steady linebacker. To each her own.
   
2. Boston Breakers- Lauren Cheney. Tony's making sure he gets a physical, multi-tooled player this time.
3. FC Gold Pride- Kelley O'Hara. Woot! A desperately-needed explosive offensive threat who can create her own chances.
4. Chicago Red Stars- Whitney Engen. Will wait for my co-conspirators to weigh in on this one. Whomever is Tweeting, it should be 'select,' not 'selects.' We heart subject/verb agreement.
5. Los Angeles Sol- Nikki Washington. They're going to have to go a long way to cool fans' ire over the Abily trade.
6. Sky Blue FC- Brittany Taylor. How much do you meddle with a team that won an unexpected championship? Do you presume it was fluky or that you should change little?
7. Washington Freedom- Nikki Marshall. And it shall be known as 'the year of the Nikkis.' The loss of Lori Lindsey, who is finally getting her chance with the national team, is still going to be huge for DC.
8. Los Angeles Sol- Casey Noguiera. The Sol are the one team that can afford to take a chance on which version of Nogueira emerges. Then again, their whole squad played like Bad Nogueira in the title game last year.
9. Los Angeles Sol- Kiersten Dallstream. The top regular season performers having three first-round picks is perhaps not fabulous for the league as a whole.

More discussion later. That will include, I hope, in-depth analysis from our occasional bloggers, who actually know what's going on with most of these players. WPS' use of Twitter is a major improvement over last year's no live draft update debacle. A video feed would be even better. If they can post Twitvid clips, they can set up a camera for the whole event. Things to think about for next year.

View Original Post at ftlouie.typepad.com/womensports

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