This piece does not reflect the views of the Minnesota Lynx front office.

April 6 was supposed to be a day of reflection for women’s college basketball and its fans.

The majority of teams would have been eliminated from the NCAA Division I Tournament before the originally-scheduled April 5 championship game, but April 6 should have been the day finality of the season began to sink in.

With no more games to watch, attend or play in, players, coaches and fans should have used April 6 to either celebrate a championship or a Cinderella story or mull over an early exit or a missed opportunity.

Instead, the deprivation of basketball on April 6 doesn’t come with much closure this year.

These athletes didn’t have the chance to celebrate their “lasts” or prove their WNBA-readiness in jaw-dropping performances and shocking upsets because the NCAA decided to cancel their March Madness tournament due to the threats posed by COVID-19.

Of course, the NCAA made the right decision by not putting its players, coaches, officials, game staff and fans in harm’s way, but the way the 2019-20 season concluded was unideal — to say the least.

Now, seniors and juniors choosing to forgo their final seasons of college basketball are tasked with preparing for the upcoming WNBA season, which as of April 3 has been postponed for the time being.

The one thing that hasn’t been taken away from these WNBA-bound players is the 2020 draft — though it will also be different this year.

Here’s what Lynx fans should be considering for their favorite team as they await the day some WNBA normalcy is restored during the April 17 virtual draft.

The Lynx currently list six guards on their roster, and that’s if you’re including forward-guard Karima-Christmas Kelly. Only three of those guards (again, including Christmas-Kelly) are returners.

As the roster stands, Rachel Banham and Lexie Brown are expected to be the team’s primary ballhandlers while Shenise Johnson’s veteran experience might earn her some run at the point, too.

Banham and Brown have six years of experience between them, but neither has carried out a consistent ballhandling role in the pros. Rather, they were chiefly used as shooting guards for the Connecticut Sun and Lynx.

The upcoming season will provide both Banham and Brown opportunities to return to the combo guard roles they carried out in college, but the Lynx may want to consider adding another ballhandler into the mix by drafting a guard on April 17.

There are always concerns about using the draft to stock up on point guards, considering the risks of asking a player who’s never logged WNBA minutes to run a team’s offense. But with this year’s draft class, the benefits of drafting a young point guard may outweigh the risks.

Kyle Ratke and I profiled eight draft-eligible guards in March. The Lynx hold the No. 6 pick in the first round of the 2020 draft, and even if all five proceeding teams were to select guards (that won’t happen thanks to Lauren Cox and Satou Sabally), the Lynx would still have worthy backcourt players to choose from.

I will have to call the authorities if Sabrina Ionescu drops to No. 6 in the draft, so we won’t include her, but let’s take a closer look at the Lynx’s needs and what the top prospects have to offer.

Best Options

First, there’s Chennedy Carter. It’s also very unlikely that Carter is still available after the Wings select the No. 5 overall pick, but we’ll take a gander anyway.

Carter reminds me of Odyssey Sims in some ways. She’s a hard-nosed guard who plays with swagger and isn’t afraid to make big-time plays for her team or take game-deciding shots.

She averaged over 20 points per game all three seasons of her college career while recording a slightly better field goal percentage than Sims’ WNBA efficiency mark.

Carter was often the main target of Texas A&M’s offense and coincidingly averaged fewer assists per game (3.5) than some of the other guards in the 2020 draft class during her junior season. Yet, the Lynx should waste no time deciding whether or not to select her if she somehow falls to the No. 6 pick.

Tyasha Harris is another guard I’d expect the Lynx to spend little time deliberating on. She’s a true point guard who averaged 5.7 assists per game for the 32-1 South Carolina Gamecocks this season. She boasts a desirable 5’10 frame and being coached by Dawn Staley throughout her college career doesn’t hurt her WNBA resume.

Harris finished her college career with a 41.7% career field goal percentage, but her maturity and guidance make her one of the best fits for the Lynx, in my eyes.

Dangerfield The Sleeper Pick

It feels strange to refer to a UConn prospect as a “sleeper pick,” but given how far she’s dropped in some recent mock drafts, I’m giving the label to Crystal Dangerfield.

Dangerfield’s 5’5 height seems to be the biggest blemish on her WNBA resume, but she checks a lot of boxes on the Lynx’s “To Add” list.

Dangerfield may be shorter than the average WNBA player, but she provides the quickness and physical strength demanded of guards at the professional level. She plays so much bigger than 5’5 yet still recorded less than two turnovers per game as a senior even after her usage rate increased.

With Banham and Brown around, shooting isn’t the Lynx’s greatest need, but Dangerfield still provides premiere perimeter shooting on top of her ballhandling and distributing talents. Win-win. Dangerfield attempted 173 3-pointers her senior year and made 41.0% of them. Dangerfield is similar to Danielle Robinson in many ways, but her shooting capabilities would provide the Lynx with the type of outside presence they were hoping they could derive from Robinson in 2019.

Not to mention, the Lynx have a pretty decent success rate with former Huskies.

Remaining Combo Guards

Even with Ionescu, Carter, Harris and Dangerfield off the board, competent guards remain.

Although I would expect the Lynx to lean toward selecting a more traditional point guard given Banham and Brown’s skillsets, they’d be in good shape adding shooting guards such as Baylor’s Te’a Cooper or Oregon’s Mikayla Pivec to their roster, too.

Cooper served as a shooting guard throughout her college career but showed she could also serve as the Bears’ floor general when called upon. She averaged 4.6 assists per game in her first and only season at Baylor while shooting an impressive 41.5% from beyond the arc.

Who knows how her skill set will transfer to the pros — especially since she was just a 28.9% 3-point shooter while playing with the Gamecocks her junior year — but the profile she built for herself in Baylor should make Cooper a player teams are willing to take a chance on come draft night.

Pivec is a solid guard who contributes to the game in multiple ways, but there’s little to no chance she’s selected in the first round.

The 5’10 shooting guard averaged 9.3 rebounds and 4.5 assists on top of her 14.8 points per game during her final season at Oregon State and was named to the Pac-12’s All-Defensive team. Yet, she’s not a standout ballhandler or 3-point shooter, which dampens her draft stock.

The Lynx won’t select Pivec in the first round, but her multifaceted game and team-first mentality would make her a favorable second-round pick for Minnesota.

There’s no question that the April 17 WNBA draft will be different than those of year’s past. But considering the talent presented by the 2020 draft class, there’s still plenty to look forward to.