PHOENIX — The Phoenix Mercury continued to bolster their roster by trading for guard Skylar Diggins-Smith, the team announced Wednesday.
Phoenix sent the fifth and seventh picks in the 2020 draft and a 2021 first-round pick to the Dallas Wings in exchange for the four-time All-Star.
Dallas announced it traded that 2021 first-round pick to the Chicago Sky to acquire Astou Ndour.
Diggins-Smith did not play in the WNBA in 2019 after giving birth to her son in April. She last played for Dallas in 2018, when she averaged 17.9 points and 6.2 assists per game while leading the Wings to the playoffs, where they lost to the Mercury in a first-round game.
She has been playing on the U.S. women’s national team, where she most recently started next to Sue Bird in the backcourt during the FIBA Olympic qualifying tournament earlier this month.
Diggins-Smith said in late January that she didn’t want to play for the Wings next season after an acrimonious relationship between the two sides during her pregnancy. Diggins-Smith tweeted in October that she experienced a lack of support from the team.
The Wings gave Diggins-Smith a core designation, team president and CEO Greg Bibb told The Associated Press late last month. She was one of three players in the league, along with Phoenix’s Brittney Griner and New York’s Tina Charles, to receive the label. With that, the Wings controlled Diggins-Smith’s rights for 2020, meaning that Dallas had to re-sign Diggins-Smith before trading her.
The Mercury have been active in reshaping their roster this week.
They traded forward DeWanna Bonner to the Connecticut Sun on Tuesday in exchange for three first-round picks: Nos. 7 and 10 in 2020 and a 2021 first-round pick. They subsequently moved the No. 7 pick and the 2021 first-rounder, while keeping the 10th.
Phoenix finished 15-19 in 2019 and lost in the single-elimination first round of the playoffs to the Sky.