Support women's sports and SHARE this story with your friends!

After the long off-season, we're finally on the cusp of WNBA training camps opening.

And with teams carrying anywhere between 14 and 18 players into training camp, there are obviously cuts to come with the 11-player roster limit.

To get a preliminary sense of how teams are taking shape, what follows is a look at "depth charts" by player style rather than position.

Player styles

These aren't traditional depth charts in that they're neither organized by position nor quality; instead, they're a look at player styles or roles on the court, which gives us a better look at how a team might function instead of how they might fill the positional blanks in their starting lineup. In preparation for analyses of each team after final cuts are made (deadline: Thursday, May 17 at 2 p.m. EDT), I've organized each team in the league in terms of the SPI playing styles spectrum that I've used over the last few years.

The basic premise of looking at rosters in this way is that simply loading up on all-star talent is not a formula for success, nor can a team win merely by being one-dimensional – building a successful team requires bringing together the right combination of players, not necessarily just finding the most productive players. NBA fans will recognize that this thinking falls in line with that whole "positional revolution" thing, which hasn't quite caught on as a meme in the WNBA because traditional positions in the women's pro game have tended to be more fluid than in the men's.

Over the course of the preseason as some of the larger rosters get closer to being finalized, I'll add numbers to examine how well each team is constructed in terms of balance, strengths, and weaknesses.

A few preliminary notes

• Player styles for 2012 rookies were projected based on similarity to current players based on senior season statistics in NCAA Division I competition. That made projecting foreign players (or players from the NAIA or who didn't complete four years) a bit more difficult, but this will suffice until we see them play.
• I left out two categories I've normally used: utility players and scorers. The primary reason is that they're two of the more difficult styles to project for rookies. In the case of scorers, it was just as easy to project players into distributor, interior, or perimeter roles. In the case of utility players, it was reasonable in most cases to fold them into the "mixed" category, the set of players that are versatile and are either multi-dimensional or less interior- or perimeter- oriented than most players.
• These roster lists were assembled based on the rosters posted at WNBA.com as of today with additions from the WNBA's transactions page. Since there isn't a singular complete training camp roster for some teams, a few of these are likely incomplete. Feel free to drop edits in the comments.

Eastern Conference Rosters

Players in alphabetical order organized by player styles. Player names linked to WNBA.com profiles.

Rookies eligible for the 2012 WNBA Draft are indicated with an asterisk.

Atlanta Dream

Distributor	Perimeter	Interior	Mixed/Utility
Lindsey Harding	Romina Ciappina	Erika de Souza	Cathrine Kraayeveld
Ketia Swanier	Tiffany Hayes *	Aneika Henry	Sancho Lyttle
Armintie Price	Laurie Koehn	Yelena Leuchanka
	Angel McCoughtry	Courtney Paris
	Coco Miller

 

Chicago Sky

Distributor	Perimeter	Interior	Mixed/Utility
Ticha Penicheiro	Sydney Carter *	Felicia Chester	Swin Cash
Courtney Vandersloot	Shey Peddy *	Sylvia Fowles	Eshaya Murphy
	Epiphanny Prince	Lykendra Johnson *	Tamera Young
		Sonja Petrovic
		Ruth Riley
		Le'coe Willingham
		Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton

 

Connecticut Sun

Distributor	Perimeter	Interior	Mixed/Utility
Renee Montgomery	Brittany Carter *	Mistie Bass	Kalana Greene
	Dawn Evans	Jessica Breland	Kelsey Griffin
	Allison Hightower	Tina Charles
	Kara Lawson	Astan Dabo *
	Danielle McCray	Asjha Jones
	Sidney Spencer	Jessica Moore
	Tan White	Chay Shegog *

 

Indiana Fever

Distributor	Perimeter	Interior	Mixed/Utility
Shannon Bobbitt	Tamika Catchings	Jessica Davenport	La'Tangela Atkinson
Briann January	Katie Douglas	Shyra Ely	Jenna Smith
Erin Phillips	Roneeka Hodges	Sasha Goodlett *	Shavonte Zellous
	Jeanette Pohlen	Courtney Hurt *
		Erlana Larkins
		Tammy Sutton-Brown

 

New York Liberty

Distributor	Perimeter	Interior	Mixed/Utility
Kelly Miller	Essence Carson	Kara Braxton	Alex Montgomery
Leilani Mitchell	Sydney Colson	Laura Broomfield *
	Iasia Hemingway	Kelley Cain *
	Raffaella Masciadri	Quanitra Hollingsworth
	Cappie Pondexter	Plenette Pierson
	Nicole Powell	Kia Vaughn
	Katelan Redmon *	DeMya Walker

 

Washington Mystics

Distributor	Perimeter	Interior	Mixed/Utility
Anjale Barrett *	Matee Ajavon	Kerri Gardin	LaSondra Barrett *
Dominique Canty	Monique Currie	Laura Harper	Ashley Walker
Noelle Quinn	Briana Gilbreath *	Crystal Langhorne
	Natasha Lacy	LaToya Pringle
	Natalie Novosel *	Ashley Robinson
	Jasmine Thomas	Michelle Snow

 

What are your initial thoughts on each team's roster? Which teams do you think will have the most difficult decisions to make?

Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Support women's sports and SHARE this story with your friends!

Filed Under:  

• Basketball
• Sports
• WNBA

This post is related to an ongoing story:

• 2012 WNBA Season

View Original Post at swishappeal.com

View Q McCall's Full Profile