With regard to Houston getting Chapman in exchange for a 2019 first rounder, my philosophy would be that "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Chapman is good. Against Chicago I though she was best player on the field. Next year's draft choice? Who knows? Only about one-fourth of the 2018 draftees made a team.
All u have to do is look at this trade from the NC perspective. Houston should have a fairly high set of picks barring a major turn around so depending on expansion NC gets one of the top 6 players. On the other side of the coin Dash get the second round picks of NC & Seattle, 2 top teams so those picks will be at the end of the 2nd round. Assuming the Dash still have their 2nd round pick and I don't really know, that would have been fair value for Chapman. That NC insisted on working a bigger deal to get the Dash #1 tells me either the Dash have squandered their #2 pick or NC didn't have high regard for even the high 2nd rounder the Dash will likely have let alone a pair of picks at the bottom of that round. Houston on the other hand is dealing from desperation because of the awful job they did building a defense. This can be best illustrated by the fact that Kristie Mewis is still the teams third CB.
If one was to judge this trade on the surface, I say this was a good trade for the Dash. Whether you are the Dash, NC, Portland or whomever, you are not gonna get Chapman for anything less than a first round pick. She's a starting LB in this league who also happens to be free. Now if we were to factor in all the born headed decisions the Dash made to get to this point, then yeah this does not look like a really good trade. But then if we apply that standard to every trade, they won't look too good either.
There r a lot of extraneous factors in this deal that make me shake my head. Obviously Chapman will be 30 next January so she is a short term solution at best. In fact she may even be shorter term. Everyone seems to think the league will expand so do the Dash protect Chapman? Probably not so they risk getting less than a season out of her. On the spilt milk side of things, just what might have been available for the Dash to help their defense had they held onto the pick. Among the top defenders coming out u have Hailie Mace (UCLA) & Tegan McGrady (Stanford) who both got capped by the US against Mexico last month. Then there is Alana Cook who is Davidson CB partner at Stanford. Any of these three seem to be a better long term solution to Dash defensive woes than Chapman.
Well then u just stuck another ice pick in the chest of the Dash FO as they traded Chapman to Boston for a middle second round pick and an INT slot they aren't using.
A 30 year old in this league still have more than 4-5 good years left in league play. So I won't say she's a short term solution. If that is the case then the entire Utah squad and more than half the starting lineups of most teams are short term solutions. Why would you think they will not protect Chapman? she's allocated, she's a starter, Dash don't have a deep squad. As for rookie defenders, teams are giving away next year picks for free and the Dash still have the rights to Press to leverage for picks if they so chose.
Lets say they can protect 9 in a 2 team expansion draft Ohai, Daly, Mewis, Campbell, Brooks, Prince, Hanson & Simon r 8 no brainers. After that u have Chapman, Henninger, Motlhalo (who the coach adores). On the other side of the coin u have a #1 pick who will be drafted after expansion so doesn't need protection.
Not a player, but we don't have a thread for coach moves: I can confirm that the Washington Spirit have hired Lisa Cole to join Jim Gabarra's coaching staff. Announcement should come in the next few days #NWSL— Dan Lauletta (@TheDanLauletta) May 22, 2018
Apparently HAO and Arsenal have parted ways. She's coming back to the States for some "time off"... but we're also entering NWSL's secondary transfer window.
Would HAO play for any NWSL team other than NCC? At 33 she's still a positive for a team but she may not want to continue to live apart from her husband for months at a time.
Morgan Brian reportedly to end her contract with Lyon early for a return to the #NWSL. @KiersTheivam reports: https://t.co/hn3wkmoHSs #USWNT pic.twitter.com/2XGqxFHkmu— The Equalizer (@EqualizerSoccer) May 30, 2018
Kinda have to evaluate trades on a week to week basis. Last week Mewis was the Dash's best player and Brian was in Lyon for another year. Now Mewis is out for the year and Brian is returning to Chicago
................or over a 2-3 year span... When Lyon did not take her to Kyiv and said she was injured all the time, I should have figured Brian was done there; but this news is still a surprise!
Courage activate Yuri Kawamura and sign 4 National Team Replacement Players https://www.nccourage.com/news_article/show/923056?referrer_id=3553534 The North Carolina Courage has signed four players as national team replacements in advance of the match against the Houston Dash on Sunday, June 3. Defenders Morgan Reid and Ryan Williams, midfielder Sarah Teegarden and forward Frannie Crouse, will all be added to the active roster. ........Dahlkemper, Dunn, Mathias, Mewis and Zerboni (United States), as well as O’Sullivan (Ireland) are away on international duty........ Additionally, the club has announced that defender Yuri Kawamura has been added to the active roster as she returns from injury. The Courage had originally placed Crouse on waivers on May 28 to make room for the Japanese international.
Great news for NC, but also in particular for Japanese supporters! I wonder if she will get some significant playing time in the rest of the league, so coach Takakura can consider calling her in NT for Tournament of Nation and having her at least as an option for WWC (Sakaguchi will be out for a 6 to 8 months injury, so we need all of the possible help for defensive midfield positions ).
The Houston Dash have added Australian defender Clare Polkinghorne to their roster.📰 https://t.co/KHQwoEB1ow pic.twitter.com/rAigqWibbD— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) June 7, 2018 Hey, an actual defender. Good move.
I remember Polkinghorne pressed into duty as a temp RB for Portland in 2015. That probably wasn't her best fit, as she lacks the footspeed of a high outlet RB (at least the way Portland wanted to play). As a CB(?), she has 97 Australia caps and 100 W-League caps, and some titles. So she surely has the calm mind of a master defender. Maybe start her at CB and free up Brooks to be DM again.
She also played for INAC Kobe Leonessa in Japan in 2014: she wasn't actually bad, a quite reliable CB, but incidentally that year was the first time INAC lost the national league after three consecutive titles. Polkinghorne wasn't re-signed in the subsequent season. Even this year at AFC Asian Cup, a pair months ago, it looked to me like the usual more than decent self, but without anything extraordinary.
Polkinghorne was actually quite fast and began in NT career as a forward. Im sure time has taken it's toll a bit but I wouldn't be surprised if she still had the best foot speed among Dash CBs.
So the rumor seems to be Huerta and Comeau go to Houston for Press' rights and they get moved to Utah along with Johnson for Elby, Kelley and the protected top pick in the 2019 draft. Possible the Dash r including another player to the Red Stars as they also waived Kaskie to free up roster space.
If DiBernardo wasn't on the roster due to her being on the injured list the spot may have been for her. If they r trading Huerta, Comeau & Johnson and only adding Elby and Kelley, Brian gets that extra spot. If that's the plan then I guess Ertz plays CB for the rest of the season
I don't know, it may have been just for yesterday's game, but the tandem of Naughton and Johnson wasn't getting the job done and it wasn't Naughton's fault, IMO although Johnson did make some great slide tackles in the box. I still would like to see Ertz at DM but as you can see from yesterday's game she is very effective at CB. Rory has to play her where its best for the Red Stars. We still have to see what the whole trade is about hopefully tomorrow.