Welcome back! Been a while since I’ve written anything about the W. Feels good to be back. The goal is to get to every other Wednesday during the offseason and every Wednesday through the season. But I did just take an unexpected 1.5 years off so we shall see. Find me on Bluesky if you wish.
This is a first pass draft board of my top 10 players for the 2025 WNBA draft. Picks 3-10 will change as I watch more of these players, but helpful to have a snapshot of where I am now. This is a draft board, not a mock draft. This is focused on how likely the players are to contribute to winning basketball games in the WNBA. I am assuming each player named leaves for the W if they have more eligibility and they come over if not North American.
Why 10? That is roughly how many players from a given draft have meaningfully contributed to a W team in the past. When I looked at this I used the very rough marker of having played 15 minutes a game for 3 seasons as meaningful. With the addition of the Valkyries that number might end up at 11, but 10 is also a nice round number so I’m staying with it for now.
- Paige Bueckers
Assuming she comes out, Bueckers will be the number one pick. She is a premier shooter and great passer. Bueckers is a good defender, especially as a help defender. She can thrive on or off ball in the W at guard or wing. Would be nice if her first step was a bit quicker and if she were able to get to the rim more often. Not sure she can drive a top 5 offense like Caitlin Clark, but she will be able to fit next to any superstar + role players combination. She will give her team maximum flexibility to build around going forward.
The most interesting aspect of Buecker’s future is will she accept playing for the Dallas Wings, or will she push for a preferred destination. I am anti-draft and would like to see a prominent college player use what leverage they have to get to their preferred team. But Bueckers may reasonably decide Dallas is fine. Let’s hope Dallas with Curt Miller gets their act together in that case.
- Olivia Miles
Miles may not have the same upside of a couple of players after her, but she’s the most likely to be a starter level W player of the rest. She’s probably not a 48% 3 point shooter on 4.4 attempts per game like she has been this season so far, but I do buy that her shot has improved to the point she will be able to play off ball some of the time. This is a big deal as Miles has great size and should be able to guard bigger guards and even the odd wing. This expands the kind of player one can put next to her. A bigger Jordin Canada is a very good player, with upside to be more than that.
- Dominique Malonga
Malonga is 6’6’ center who has the outlines of a do everything offensive force. At only 19, she is adept attacking professional opponents off the dribble. She is a willing screener who will roll hard to the rim. The percentages on her outside shot are not outstanding, 25% in Eurocup, but the shot looks decent and will likely be a part of her game going forward.
On defense she shows flashes of being able to switch onto smaller players. Her help defense needs a lot of work, but it seems like a combination of learning where to be and maybe even how she is coached. She may never be defensive player of the year, but at 6’6” with good mobility and length she should be more than good enough.
Based on talent she has an argument to go as high as 2. Based on being French, she may not actually go until 7 or even later. French players have not traditionally shown up enough to be worth a high lottery pick, no matter how talented. Once you get to pick 8 and on though, a good player who shows up 2 seasons can be massively impactful, heck sometimes only one if they blossom like Leonnie Fiebich.
- Kiki Iriafen
Iriafen might end up lower than this for me in the end. Thought of by some folks as the second best player in this draft, she has not developed in ways that give me confidence in what her role on offense would be as a starter on a good team. Of course she could enter the W and begin shooting 3s and playmaking a la Napheesa Collier, but Collier is an outlier in how her game has developed. Many examples of dynamite 6’2-6’3” bigs who were not able to make that jump to the W who couldn’t space the floor as a 4 nor were long enough to play center.
If interested, look at Stephanie Mavunga’s stats at Ohio St and note she never averaged 10 minutes a game in her four seasons in the W. Mavunga was an excellent college player and has had a great career in Europe. The bar for making it in the W is just really high.
- Te-Hina Paopao
Similar to Olivia Miles in the high floor, but unlikely to becom an above average starter. A lack of first step and overall ability to get to the rim might hinder her ability to drive offense at the next level, but her shooting, decent size, and improved defense should help her find a role. The shooting is the main thing, as she is on year three of shooting over 40% from 3 on respectable volume. Her assist to turnover rato is good, if not great. A solid backup who can be a starter if paired with a ball dominant type.
- Sonia Citron
Drafting role players in the college to be role players in the W is a tricky game, as generally if you are not good enough to be one of your team’s primary offense drivers, you aren’t good enough to slot into a smaller role at the next level. Citron, however, I believe is worthy of drafting in the middle of the first round because she has shown in flashes the ability to provide more offense than a typical college 3 and D player, and she is flanked by two all-American guards who might each go in the lottery in their respective drafts in Olivia Miles and Hannah Hidalgo.
Citron is the exact archetype of a player W teams need and struggle to find. A wing who can defend 2s,3s and some 4s, and can shoot 3s. She is an acceptable shooter, not a deadeye shooter, but that is fine with the other skills she provides. A positive assist to turnover ratio and good block and steal rates show the well rounded player she is.
- Janiah Barker
Barker could explode and justify a top 3 pick at some point. But while her flashes as an elite athlete who can handle and pass well for her size have been there since her freshman season, the actual production has not shown up. She’s been good for UCLA this year, but does not start every game and is far from the driving force behind that team’s success.
Barker could stay another year but she has talked in the past about wanting to leave for the W when possible. This would be a development pick, bet on future development pick of the type the W doesn’t generally do, but she is so talented it could happen.
- Georgia Amoore
Size is the thing keeping Amoore from going higher, and may cause her to slip into the middle or even end of the second round. And I understand that as there are a bevy of wings still available and if any of them learn to shoot, I’d likely take them over Amoore. But it is a crapshoot figuring out which of them will develop enough offense to play, whereas the pathway to Amoore being a competent backup and spot starter in the W is obvious. She is an amazing offensive player who will help prop up second units in scoring.
Hard to see her being good enough to overcome her limitations on defense as a full time starter, but with expansion coming I am hopeful more mostly offense players will get a chance and not as often guards who can’t shoot but can defend as mostly get roster spots now. The hiring of Karl Smesko and Lynn Roberts lean that way too, as Amoore seems like a perfect backup guard to have for a coach like Smesko.
- Aneesah Morrow
Given time, I think Morrow might figure out the W enough to be a good backup big. Rebounding tends to translate, so she’ll be able to do that even at her size from the get go. Ridiculous steal rate and ok block rate gives hope.
I don’t think she’ll be able to translate to the wing permanently, which seems likely to be her path to starting. But I do think there’s a good chance she’ll be good enough at perimeter stuff to play off the bench in the W. Though the volume will have to be brought up at the next level, her shot looks good and does sometimes go in.
- Bree Hall
A more extreme version of the concerns I mentioned about Citron, but like Citron, Hall is a wing who can guard at a WNBA level and hit open shots. Hall is the best shooter of possible three and D wings in this draft after Citron, but she has such a low usage rate. For now she is tenth on my board, since her low usage rate is a function of being on a very deep South Carolina team. She likely could dribble and do stuff on a different team that needed her to do more. Lexie Hull was a surprising pick, but has proven to be a fine pick. Hall could be similar.
Who might make a future edition?
Your wing of choice who hasn’t shown the ability to shoot 3s well enough yet mentioned in the Amoore section. One of these wings will likely make it: Shyanne Sellers, Sania Rivers, Lelia Phelia, Anastasiia Kosu (well unfortunately, not Kosuu1). But I have no idea which one will figure out her shooting enough to stick so I wouldn’t use a top 10 pick on any of them. Rori Harmon is the guard version of this group, with better passing and handling, but less positional value.
Ajša Sivka, the Slovenian wing, is so talented on offense and it might be worth taking a chance that her defense can be good enough to survive. But for now her defense keeps her firmly in the second round for me. Azzi Fudd seems likely to stay another year and I want to see a decent stretch of health, but if she declares she’d be somewhere on this list.
Others to watch: Angela Dugalić, Raven Johnson, Sarah Andrews, JJ Quinerley.
- Anastasiia Kosu has been playing up for years and holding her own. I first watched her when she was 15 and I believe a teammate of Arike Ogunbowale. She has played against more current W players than anyone else mentioned on this list. But with everything going on in Russia, we will unfortunately likely never get the chance to see of Kosuu can combine her athleticism and size with enough skill to thrive in the W. ↩︎
Five Out Basketball 