In the latest episode of Locked On Women’s Basketball, Hunter Cruse, Em Adler and Lincoln Shafer continue their WNBA Retrospect series. This season of WNBA Retrospect focuses on players who were undervalued as pro prospects for various reasons.
This episode looks at former Duke guard Jasmine Thomas, who was a two-time AP All-American before graduating in 2011. Over her four-year career, she averaged 12.4 points, 3.4 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2.1 steals in 30.0 minutes per game.
Adler sums up Thomas’ game as a Blue Devil:
“Jasmine Thomas might be the easiest scout I think we have — I think I’ve ever seen, in terms of all the players we’ve done here. … They’ve all had sort of idiosyncrasies. Jasmine Thomas is the platonic ideal of just like, what if you could pass, shoot and defend and nothing else?”
Adler goes into more detail about what separates Thomas from other prospects on defense:
“She might be the best point-of-attack defender I’ve scouted in quite some time, maybe ever. She’s up there. … Her combination of hands, lateral quickness, burst is incredible. Her ability to get over ball screens and apply ball pressure from the weirdest angles on the drive is so crazy good that there are times when she basically gets a block jumping over the person’s head from behind. …
“Her help instincts are very good, even from one pass away or on the emergency closeout. She really competes against post matches. … And she’s just really physical, even against bigger players, and [keeps] them off their driving lines without getting called for too many fouls.”
Thomas was picked 12th in the 2011 WNBA Draft, behind two players who only stayed in the league for one or two seasons. But she ended up playing 13 seasons in the WNBA for the Washington Mystics, Atlanta Dream, Connecticut Sun and Los Angeles Sparks before retiring in January 2024. She is now the director of player programs and development coach for the Dallas Wings.
Make sure to subscribe to the Locked On Women’s Basketball podcast to keep learning about the WNBA, women’s college basketball, basketball history and much more! And if you want to read about a former college teammate of Thomas’ who also outperformed her draft spot as a pro, don’t miss today’s “Sunday Notes,” Adler’s weekly column.