Swanny’s Stats

The official Minnesota Lynx Statistician Blog

Today, we signed unrestricted free agent Adrian Williams to a contract with the Minnesota Lynx. During December, we identified Adrian as our top priority to pursue as a free agent. With the loss of Stacey Lovelace to Chicago in the expansion draft, we had a hole to fill and we were determined to do so. Adrian was our first choice both because of what she can bring to the team and due to the fact that she was unrestricted so we could control our own destiny in our pursuit of her- we didn't want to do a trade which would weaken us at another position, and we didn't want to take the chance that someone else would match an offer to a restricted free agent. Adrian brings experience, size, rebounding, defense,and a high post presence to our team, which should complement the low post strengths of our current post players.

We identified our interest in Adrian to her agent immediately on January 15 let them know how much we wanted Adrian. A phone conversation between Adrian and Suzie took place and we learned that the things that Adrian feels she has to offer were the same things we were looking for so it started to look like a very good match in both directions. We scheduled one of our free agent visits with Adrian and she came to Minnesota on January 20. We spent the day visiting with her and showing her our facilities and team living accomodations and talking more about what each of us were looking for. At dinner that night, Adrian told us that she was going to become a Lynx, so that was very exciting. After that, we were all able to relax and get to know each other better.

We were also very impressed with Adrian as a person. She is very down to eary, intelligent, friendly, and open. That night at the Timberwolves game she was introduced to owner Glen Taylor and he also was very impressed with her as a person. While she was talking to Glen in a relatively remote corner of Target Center, five or six girls spied our group and came over. Suzie talked with them while Adrian finished her conversation with Glen. Immediately when she and Glen were done, Adrian went over and talked with the girls and signed autographs for them. So today, that group of girls gets to have the memory of a life time that they were the first one to meet the newest Lynx player and ger her autograph, even before she was a Lynx.

Since then we have just been waiting to be able to finalize the contract and make it official today.