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THE LAST SH T There was a time when JAC K I G E M E LOS was thought to be the first high school player who could potentially go straight to the WNBA. But after enduring five devastating ACL reconstructions in the last six years, Jacki Gemelos improbably still has one last shot of making her WNBA dreams come true. W O R D S . M I R I N F A D E R P H O T O S . K I R B Y L E E Jacki Gemelos sat in her apartment by herself, hands clasped on her lap in front of the T.V., hearing the faint clack of her shoe nervously tapping the ground as she watched the ���rst and second rounds of the 2012 WNBA Draft go by last April. Selected were women who as girls Jacki remembered lighting up in high school games. Some were the recipients of her spectacular no-look passes and some could never catch them. Others were part of triple teams that Jacki effortlessly split. Over twenty names were called of women who were ranked behind Jacki at St. Mary���s (Stockton) High School, where her ���are passing the ball in transition triggered comparisons to ���Pistol��� Pete Maravich. The third round approached. Over a decade of her life hinged upon the league president���s words and yet one night nightmarishly kept coming back to her: December 18, 2011, when she tore her ACL for the ���fth time in six years as a second-year graduate student at USC in a game against Texas A&M.; The draft���her moment���played out much differently in her head when she was younger. At ���fteen years old, the dominant 6-foot point guard became the youngest girl ever to commit to UConn. In 2006, the McDonald���s All-American averaged 39.2 points, 8.9 assists, and 6.5 rebounds a game. Jacki once scored 52 points in a high school game, able to get her shot whenever she wanted. She was dominant. Some professional scouts even thought Jacki could do what girl���s didn���t do: bypass college altogether and become a ���rst-round pick in the WNBA. Now, more than ���ve years later, she just prayed to be one of the 36 names called. After playing just one full season for the Trojans in 2010-11, she averaged 12.4 points and 4.6 rebounds a game and received AllPac-10 Honorable Mention, leading the conference in 3-point percentage with 42.4 percent. Nice numbers, but hardly where Jacki and everyone else had always assumed she���d be. And with the 31st pick in the 2012 WNBA Draft, the Minnesota Lynx select���Jacki Gemelos, USC. There were no streamers, no hugs from family standing around a big table for ESPN cameras to record, no league president���s hand to shake, and certainly no jersey to hold up before a podium. There was just silence���loud enough to contain six years of struggle, surgeries and setbacks���and one long exhale of joy. ���The second my name came up on the screen I called my parents and everyone was crying,��� Gemelos says. ���I may not have been a ���rst-round draft pick like I always thought I would be before all of this happened, but I got there. ���It was all worth it.��� Will it be? Being a third-rounder is as unstable as the fragmented ligaments in Jacki���s knees, especially in a league where rosters max at 11 players and teams struggle to garner long-term pro���ts. The Lynx hold Jacki���s rights, but she must compete for a spot on the team in training 31 camp this April, her last shot at the professional career she���d dreamed about since she was seven. ���I sometimes think of not playing basketball,��� she says, stopping a moment, as if taking in the fact that she���s almost 24 and no longer seven and wide-eyed. ���It just gives me a nervous feeling in my stomach. It���s something I can���t do yet. There���s just something that���s holding on to still play.��� G rowing up in Stockton, Jacki attended almost every Sacramento Monarchs game with her dad, Steve Gemelos, who ���rst put the ball in her hands after having played professionally in Greece. Summers weren���t summers without basketball. Running around from AAU tournament to practice to league games with her dad and mother, Linda, Jacki had tunnel vision: she was among the ���rst generation of girl basketball players to grow up with a professional league already in place, and was determined to make her mark on it someday. After the reign of Cheryl Miller (Riverside), Cynthia Cooper (South Central), and Lisa Leslie (Inglewood), Southern California became even more of a hotbed for girl���s basketball when Diana Taurasi (Chino) took over for the next generation. Next in line, Jacki would be the most heralded player from NorCal. She never thought about a plan B, especially since it seemed she was