For the franchise’s hardcore fans, the Minnesota Lynx transformation from WNBA dregs to two-time champions (and counting) has been beautiful to watch. The process began with the 2006 draft, when the team landed Louisiana State All American Seimone Augustus with the No. 1 overall pick. Over the next five seasons, through shrewd, opportunistic moves and a little luck, GM Roger Griffith collected the elements -- Lindsay Whalen, Rebekkah Brunson, Maya Moore -- that bonded to form a potential dynasty.

In hindsight it may seem preordained, but it wasn’t. Years of frustration, doubt and desperation preceded the glory days. Seimone Augustus suffered through all the growing pains. Only she can fully appreciate the journey.

The 32-year-old superstar and I chatted as she geared up for the 2015 season.

DZ: (This is) your 10^th season in the WNBA. When you think back to 2006 at this time, what stands out to you?

AUGUSTUS: Back in 2006, I absolutely knew nothing about Minnesota. I was kind of educating myself on the “Land of 10,000 Lakes”. Fortunately for me, I was surrounded by some great veterans that helped me both on and off the floor. As a team we struggled mightily with trying to get wins…We started to see a change in maybe 2009, 2010 - we started to acquire some players via trade, via the dispersal draft. Now we’ve got the team that everybody wants to beat, every coach would love to have. It means a lot; we’ve been through a lot. Obviously, these past five years have given us the success we’ve been looking for.

DZ: Overall, I imagine you’d have to be pretty happy about how your career has played out.

AUGUSTUS: Yeah, of course. Initially the individual stuff was really kind of annoying. “You’re an All Star, but your team is losing“; “You’re an Olympian, but your team” - you know. People were like “Mone’s good, but her team is not.’” I kind of sucked for me because I’ve always been a team player; I’ve always wanted to win. Back in those days people would rarely even warm up to play the Lynx because they knew they would possibly beat us by 20. Now, people fear when we step into the arena - “Aw snap, we are playing the Lynx tonight.” We kind of have that target, that bulls-eye on our backs.

It means a lot, to first be here for 10 years - to stay around - to have the team have me here after I tore my ACL (in June 2009). They could have decided to go separate ways, but they decided to resign me. With free agency, everybody kind of feared that I would maybe leave and go closer to home or something like that. That never crossed my mind to leave a place that has embraced me and supported me throughout my career.

DZ: You mentioned the torn ACL, was that the lowest point in your career?

AUGUSTUS: The lowest. I had never had any serious injury up until that point - maybe ankle sprains or something like that. That was a blow. That was probably one of the best starts I had in my basketball seasons. I don’t know what I was averaging at the time (21.0 points per game; shooting .570), but the team was actually doing fairly well (4-1) and I went out with that injury.

Mentally, it plays on you; you never know if you are going to come back fully. I had teammates in college that just never recovered from an injury like that. To sit out and watch my team fight through a season and not really know if I was going to come back strong or stronger than I was before. It messed with me a little bit, but here I am. It worked out.

DZ: Being a veteran and having won a couple of championships, does that change your mindset at all heading into a season, just knowing that your ultimate goal is to win (a championship); having done that and been through that process?

AUGUSTUS: The hunger is still there. After you win one, it’s like OK - you’ve accomplished your goal of finally winning one. Then you start to focus on other things like maybe beating the Houston Comets record (four championships)…so now you look at how many times can we win a championship in a certain span of time - three to five years. As a player, me, Whalen, Brunson; all of us are getting older, so our window is kind of closing. What all do we want to accomplish? How many times do we want to be an All Star? How may times do we want to be an Olympian? How many times do we want to win a championship before it’s all said and done? Some of that is wanting to put yourself in the history books with Cynthia Cooper, Lisa Leslie, Cheryl Swoopes and all those players.

DZ: Last year the season ended with a loss to Phoenix in the deciding game (of the Western Conference Finals); how long did it take you to get over that?

AUGUSTUS: About a month, month and a half for me. Immediately after the game, your thoughts are like ‘What happened?’ ‘How could I have done something better individually?’ Then you start to focus on the team, ‘What was missing?’, ‘Why didn’t we get this defensive stop or make this play at the end of the game?’ Ultimately, when you look back at it, I feel like we played well, especially that last game. I think it was tied up going into the 4^th quarter and they went on a little bit of a run and we just kind of never recovered. Brunson had just gotten back a few games before that, so she really wasn’t at 100% (and) I had been in and out. It’s a lot of things that added into that particular series not going the way we wanted to. There’s nothing to hang our head about.

DZ: Is the key to this team just staying healthy?

AUGUSTUS: Yeah, always. As we get older, it’s just focusing on your body and making sure you can stay and on the court because we are of no use if we are not on the floor. I was a great teammate last year sitting on the bench clapping, but everybody would rather have me on the floor shooting jumpers and helping out.

DZ: As an athlete, what is easier for you now (than it was 10 years ago) and what is harder?

AUGUSTUS: Aw snap, that’s a great question (laughs). Easier: the game has slowed down a lot; I can read the floor a little bit more. When you are younger, you are just like a ball of energy - I am gonna cross over, I am gonna get to the rack; you are gonna make something happen. As you get older, you start to see the game in a different way - kind of like from a coaches perspective. You see how the defense rotates before it even rotates; you see what play you need to make before you make it. That’s a lot easier for me being able to read to floor where I can be effective both offensively and defensively. And what’s hard is getting here and warming up and getting going. When you were younger, you could come in here and barely stretch and get started with practice. Now it’s like “Awww lord, I gotta stretch these bones, these muscles.”

DZ: More maintenance?

AUGUSTUS: More maintenance. I gotta get a couple of those jogs up and down the floor before we get going. That’s a bit of a grind for us as we get older. A lot of that has to do with playing year round. Our bodies never get a rest. It’s starting to wear on us a little bit.

-June 3, 2015