How first-round draft pick Aneesah Morrow can help Connecticut Sun replace superstar Alyssa Thomas

UNCASVILLE, Conn. — For more than a decade, superstar forward Alyssa Thomas was synonymous with the Connecticut Sun.

Nicknamed ‘The Engine’ by fans, Thomas was the centerpiece of the franchise almost as soon as she was drafted with the No. 4 overall pick in the 2014 WNBA draft out of Maryland. But after 11 years, five All-Star selections and two appearances in the WNBA Finals, Thomas left the Sun this offseason to join the Phoenix Mercury via a sign-and-trade deal.

While losing Thomas is devastating both on the court and for the team’s brand, the Sun got a chance to reset with back-to-back first-round draft picks in 2025. Connecticut hasn’t been a prime destination for rookies over the last decade as it fielded veteran-heavy rosters, so the front office was optimistic about the opportunity to find instant contributors via the draft.

On Monday night with the No. 7 overall pick, the Sun selected LSU forward Aneesah Morrow to help fill the void Thomas leaves behind. If Morrow’s own vision for her career is any indication, Connecticut made a perfect choice.

“I always watch AT,” Morrow said on draft night when asked which WNBA players influence her game. “She’s undersized, but … she doesn’t take no (expletive) from nobody. She comes in there and she holds her own every night. She can defend almost every position, and that’s hard.”

Like Thomas, who is listed at 6 feet 2, Morrow is small for a WNBA power forward at 6-1, and the former LSU star said she has long looked to Thomas’ game as a blueprint for her own professional path. Thomas ranks No. 19 all time in career rebounds and fifth among active players, averaging at least seven per game in every complete season she has played since 2018. Thomas led the league in rebounding in 2023 — the year she finished runner-up in MVP voting — and has 82 career double-doubles to rank No. 10 in WNBA history.

Morrow is an elite rebounder in her own right, leaving LSU after just two seasons ranked No. 10 in program history in career rebounds. She had the third-best rebounding season ever by an LSU player with 485 in her senior season, averaging a double-double with 18.7 points and 13.5 boards per game. Including her freshman and sophomore seasons at DePaul, Morrow finished her college basketball career ranked third all time in career rebounds and second in career double-doubles, joining Oklahoma legend Courtney Paris as the only players to log more than 100 double-doubles.

“(Thomas) holds her own on the inside, and that grit, that determination is something I try to mold my game around,” Morrow said. “I know that when you’re undersized, people might look at that as a disadvantage, but I don’t. I feel like I played a lot bigger than my size, and I’m able to hold my own against people that are 6-6, 6-8 that I played against this year as well. AT is not somebody to be played with, and that’s how I want to be looked at as player.”

The biggest difference between Morrow and Thomas is on the offensive end. Thomas is uniquely impactful as a facilitator averaging at least six assists per game over her last three years with the Sun, and she is the only player besides Hall of Famer Tamika Catchings to rank top 20 all time in both rebounds and assists.

The star forward’s passing developed partly out of necessity after suffering labrum tears in both shoulders, the right in 2015 and the left in 2017. The left labrum tear also significantly impacted Thomas’ range of motion, so she had to switch her shooting hand to the right and alter her form to attempt anything further out than a layup. Thomas hasn’t made a 3-pointer since her rookie year in 2014 and has a career average of just 64.6% at the free-throw line.

Morrow isn’t a high-volume passer, but the rookie was a dominant scorer throughout her college career. She shot a career-best 49% from the field and 28.9% on 3-pointers in 2024-25, averaging 18.7 points to lead an LSU offense that ranked fourth in the country in points per game. Morrow is already excellent in the mid-range, and if she’s able to develop a more consistent outside shot, she will offer the Sun flexibility to space the floor in ways they never could have when Thomas was running the show.

Sun general manager Morgan Tuck spent four seasons in Connecticut as a player from 2016-2019, so she got a first-hand view of Thomas’s development into the triple-double machine she is today. In Morrow, Tuck sees a similar ability to thrive even without all the physical tools of a bigger player.

“(Thomas) was maybe an unorthodox player that didn’t come in with the biggest noise — she was a high pick, but she didn’t come in as the AT we know her as now,” Tuck said. “But she found a way … So to me it’s promising when we see someone like AT with the mindset she has, how she approaches things and then seeing Aneesah and how she approaches her game. AT showed you can be a little unorthodox and maybe not be the perfect fit for that position and be really effective. It makes me very, very excited for Aneesah’s potential.”