Sky deal disgruntled Slyvia Fowles in three-team deal

De Souza is averaging 8.6 points and 7.5 rebounds this season for the Dream.

It is the third big move Griffith has made.

Augustus, a guard, has missed the Lynx’s last three games, as well as Saturday’s All-Star Game, after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery July 17. Damaris Dantas, Reshanda Gray, and Minnesota’s first round pick in 2016 are headed to Atlanta. And the Lynx get a potentially dominant center they have been chasing for months. Chicago also will send a 2016 second-round pick to the Lynx as part of the deal.

“Words can’t describe how excited I am to be a part of the Minnesota Lynx family”, Fowles wrote in an email to The Associated Press. The Sky managed well without Fowles, going 11-6 and sitting second in the Eastern Conference. Fowles had not played for Chicago this year.

Fowles had demanded a trade from Chicago during the offseason and sat out the first half of the year.

Fowles helped LSU to a 125-21 overall mark, extended LSU’s streak to five straight NCAA Final Fours and was the WBCA National Defensive Player of the Year in 2008.

Fowles, 29, has played her entire seven-year career with the Lynx, who selected her with the second pick of the 2008 WNBA draft. She played one season each with the Sparks (2002) and the Connecticut Sun (2007) before joining the Dream via the 2008 expansion draft. She played at Louisiana State University, where she was a teammate of Augustus for two seasons. She will be the fifth Olympian on Minnesota’s roster. De Souza is a three-time WNBA All-Star (2009, 2013, 2014) with career averages of 10.5 points and 7.5 rebounds per game.

The addition of a proven center will make Chicago tough to beat in the East. The Lynx, meanwhile, acquired perhaps the best center in franchise history, one that can defend in the paint and also score.