The 2025 WNBA draft was a high-voltage concentration of desire, nerves, and hope. Dreams came true on Monday, but shoulders were also emblazoned with chips and best-laid plans were likely blown to smithereens. You can find a win in every loss and vice versa. As a high schooler, Paige Bueckers predicted that she’d win a title her senior year of college before getting drafted no. 1 overall. She got her wish, but she’s also been tasked with revitalizing a fledgling franchise in Dallas. All of which is to say: I’m going to pick winners and losers, but these careers—and in the case of the Golden State Valkyries, this team—are in their infancy. The arc of their legacies—like the arc of teenage phenom Dominique Malonga’s rapidly developing jump shot—will be long and unpredictable.
Winner: The Dallas Wings
The Wings, a developing organization, drafted a force multiplier in Bueckers. In the afterglow of a national title, the energy behind Bueckers feels propulsive. She has long been one of women’s basketball’s biggest names. But with the sport gaining popularity and UConn winning the national title, her fame is ballooning. In the past two weeks, she’s been googled more than at any other time in the past five years, other than after her 2024 Final Four tiff with Caitlin Clark. The question now is whether the Wings, a Dallas franchise that wasn’t eager to trade the future of its franchise to L.A., can provide the proper tailwinds for Bueckers’s ascent.
This offseason, the Wings hired Curt Miller, one of the most respected names in the WNBA, to lead their front office and stabilize an organization that has featured multiple trade requests from stars and burned through five coaches in the past eight years. Hiring head coach Chris Koclanes, a highly regarded former assistant on teams in Los Angeles and Connecticut, was the first step. A new $54 million practice facility, opening in 2026, when they also move to a new arena, is the next.
The relocation highlights an interesting tension. The College Park Center in Arlington, where the Wings currently play in front of a maximum capacity of 7,000 people, sold out its Wings season tickets after they won the draft lottery. Bueckers will play her rookie year there before the Wings move to the Memorial Auditorium (currently undergoing $47 million worth of renovations) in downtown Dallas in 2026. The new venue will likely be able to host around 10,000 fans—an improvement, certainly, but it’s half the capacity of American Airlines Center (where the Mavericks play), which will host Bueckers’s first game against Clark. The Wings’ 15-year deal to play at Memorial Auditorium will likely run through Bueckers’s entire career, prompting a question: Yes, this is a franchise with burgeoning ambitions, but is it large enough in size and scope to maximize her potential?
Bueckers, who is leaving the most decorated program in women’s college basketball history, now faces the challenge of transferring five years of institutional wisdom to a new organization. Could her presence serve as a cultural accelerant? Koclanes certainly thinks so. “Leaning on her experiences at UConn,” he said in the Wings’ official post-draft statement, “I believe she can have an immediate impact in helping us cultivate and establish a strong foundation that will lead to success in Dallas for years to come.”
For what it’s worth, the Wings’ social media team is certainly meeting the moment.
Winner: The Seattle Storm
After a tumultuous season, the Storm turned a trade demand from Jewell Loyd into the most riveting prospect in recent memory: Dominique Malonga, who has been making scouts salivate since a video of her dunking at 16 years old went viral. Taken with the no. 2 pick, the French sensation, who has Cameroonian and Congolese roots, became the highest-drafted international player in WNBA history.
Her dimensions alone (6-foot-6, with a 7-foot-1 wingspan) are enough to conjure wild dreams. Throw in her guard-esque fluidity, spatial awareness, and shooting potential, and you’ve got a modern player who can adapt to the multivariate needs of the modern game on both ends. She can roll, pop, and initiate pick-and-rolls and guard multiple actions on the other end. If Clark is stretching the geometry of the court all the way back to the logo, Malonga is the answer: a massive unicorn whose emergence feels like a natural response to the evolution of the game.
In Seattle, she joins another geometry-altering, court-warping force in 25-year-old Ezi Magbegor, a partnership whose ceiling will be determined by just how versatile Malonga’s game ends up being. Her 3-pointer remains hypothetical, but she has touch, fluidity, and free throw accuracy—all good predictors of future success.
Malonga, the second-youngest player taken in this year’s draft, will likely need time to develop, and whether she’ll be able to make meaningful contributions alongside veterans Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins-Smith is still an open question. But some talent forces franchises to throw out their projections. Seattle, from here on out, is on Malonga time.
Loser: WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
On Monday morning, I got a text from a friend that looked like it came straight out of a labor rights negotiator's fever dream: “why tf is the pay so low in the w? how is a 10 week 3v3 league offering so much more?”
That, it turns out, was the collective response to the news about Bueckers’s new three-year deal to play with Unrivaled, a three-on-three basketball league that concluded its inaugural season in March. In one season, Bueckers will earn more in the start-up league than across her total rookie WNBA contract, which will add up to just over $348,000 over four years.
The two founding members of Unrivaled, Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, are also vice presidents of the WNBPA. As collective bargaining agreement negotiations continue, Monday’s headlines were a major PR win for the players and another instance of the upstart league weaving itself into the fabric of the game, a trend that started when players discussed their WNBA free agency decisions in Unrivaled interviews. Then and now, you had ESPN reporters on ESPN airwaves inadvertently advertising a league that plays on a rival network, TNT. That has to sting, for both the WNBA and its TV partner.
Winner: WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
That said, Unrivaled is a form of healthy competition—not necessarily an existential threat—in an overall landscape where the excitement about women’s basketball has never seemed louder. CBA negotiations are ongoing, but the pie is growing for WNBA owners and players. The Golden State Valkyries just made their first draft pick, and the league is adding teams in Toronto and Portland before the 2027 season, with bidders lining up for the next spot. Engelbert also has plenty of good news to hawk in addition to Bueckers’s arrival, like the first Rivals Week, which will pit the Liberty and Lynx—last year’s Finals matchup—against each other, as well as Angel Reese against Caitlin Clark.
Engelbert also announced a new task force dedicated to enhancing player safety, combating online hate, detecting threats, and providing mental health services for players. In an interview with CNBC last September, Engelbert played up the financial and viewership benefits of the racist, homophobic, and sexist vitriol players were facing, resulting in massive blowback. The shift in tone—and action—suggests that the league is now better prepared to handle the onslaught of attention that has come its way.
Even the boos that poured down when Engelbert took the stage at Hudson Yards, customary for Adam Silver and the late David Stern before him, felt like a sign of progress.
Winner: The Golden State Valkyries
The Golden State Valkyries had no intentional designs on becoming an international hub, but identity can form organically, stemming from the values and skill sets of the people in charge. By tapping former Liberty assistant GM Ohemaa Nyanin and her first Valkyries hire, Vanja Cernivec—once the NBA’s first female international scout—to lead their front office, the Valkyries gave themselves the inside track on international players.
Even after the Valkyries struck out in free agency, owner Joe Lacob, who does not measure his plans in centuries, reiterated his expectation that they win a title within their first five years of existence. His team responded to the pressure by doubling down on its burgeoning philosophy, passing up on buzzy college stars like Aneesah Morrow, Hailey Van Lith, and Georgia Amoore to take Juste Jocyte, a 19-year-old Lithuanian who has been playing in the EuroLeague since she was 14. She is not, in their estimation, a project.
"We want to be competitive in year one,” Nyanin told reporters after the draft. “Someone who is going to come in and not be shy about the moment and someone who has seen the bright lights of Europe.”
Jocyte, who inspired Luka Doncic comparisons before a hip injury slowed down her development, has the Wonder Boy’s knack for playing the game at her own pace, especially in the pick-and-roll, where she can freeze the action and thread precision passes through traffic, pull up from beyond the arc, or pump-fake her way into fouls.
The WNBA hasn't had the same international boom as the NBA, but it's gotten better in recent years at luring women's players stateside. Nyanin was also part of the Liberty organization that brought Leonie Feibich to New York, which means that it shouldn’t come as a surprise that French guard Janelle Salaun—a highly sought-after free agent—also signed with the Valkyries, who now have a league-high 10 international players on their roster. It’ll be interesting to see who else they can coax into coming to America.
Winner: Makayla Timpson
In the four years Timpson played for Florida State, they toggled between the 95th and 99th percentile in pace, per HerHoopStats. She’s a high-octane, rim-running big with a 6-foot-10 wingspan that can turn defense into quick offense, and now she’s playing alongside Clark, who fed Temi Fagbenle for easy transition buckets all season. If Timpson, taken by the Indiana Fever in the second round with the 19th pick, can get on the floor, there’s a good chance she’ll be able to stick.
Losers: Everyone Drafted by the Sun
I’m a fan of all the individual players Connecticut selected.
Aneesah Morrow, the third-best rebounder in women’s college basketball history, has long been a source of intrigue. Her 6-foot-1 frame has never stopped her from owning the boards—a skill that often seamlessly translates to the W. Morrow’s swing skills—defending on the perimeter, playmaking, and shooting 3s—have come in fits and starts, but her motor is relentless, and her heart is unteachable.
Saniya Rivers, the second-most intriguing athlete in the draft, is a self-starter in transition who will help the Sun—who were dead last in pace last season—turn defense into offense. But she also shot 22.9 percent from 3 during her college career and struggles to finish inside the arc, too. If she cleans up even one of those facets, her defense will be enough of a game-changing force to keep her on the court, especially in small-ball settings.
Rayah Marshall was the anchor of USC’s swarming defense, with a proclivity for protecting the rim and guarding the perimeter at times. Her short-roll playmaking and midrange jumper were coming around, too. Her ability as a communicator kept USC connected on defense and in the locker room.
All of them are good players. I just wish they could each exist in a context that provided more spacing for their quirky, intriguing games. Even guard Leila Lacan, the 20-year-old French wunderkind who’s joining first-year coach Rachid Meziane from across the Atlantic, has a below-average jumper. As of now, the Sun’s best shooter, Marina Mabrey, has an active trade demand, and their practices could still be upended by toddlers’ birthday parties.
Winner: Hailey Van Lith
A year ago, Van Lith was the subject of one of the most viral memes in women’s college basketball history, after Caitlin Clark ripped apart a defensive game plan that felt more like a setup to embarrass Van Lith. Van Lith, who was playing out of position in LSU’s forward-centric system, finished the season shooting a career-low 37.8 percent from the field. Her draft stock plummeted, and she transferred to TCU, where Mark Campbell’s pro-style pick-and-roll-heavy system rejuvenated her career.
Now, she’s reuniting with Angel Reese on a Chicago Sky roster that fits her skill set perfectly. As the understudy to Courtney Vandersloot—one of the most experienced point guards in the game—Van Lith can create off the bench and space the floor for Reese and Kamilla Cardoso. Tyler Marsh, Chicago’s first-year head coach, who was instrumental in the development of Jackie Young with the Aces, should do wonders for Van Lith’s game, as well as that of Ajsa Sivka and Maddy Westbeld—two floor-spacing forwards who will complement Van Lith without threatening to take her minutes. The size of Reese, Cardoso, trade acquisition Ariel Atkins, and Rebecca Allen could also protect her on the defensive end.
TBD: The Washington Mystics
The Mystics, who had five picks in this draft—including three in the top six—were a major source of predraft intrigue.
There was a time, before Olivia Miles announced she was staying in college, when they seemed like a shoo-in to take Malonga. Ahead of the draft, they also traded Karlie Samuelson for a 2026 first-round draft pick, suggesting they were moving full speed toward stockpiling draft assets and committing to a long-term rebuild, à la their NBA contemporaries.
But then the Mystics ended up plucking away some of the most pro-ready, low-variance players in the draft, starting with Sonia Citron, a 3-and-D wing who will replace Ariel Atkins. KiKi Iriafen, who was taken with the fourth pick, isn’t projected to be a good enough rim protector to play the 5, but her quickness as a face-up player, midrange shooting, and perimeter defense suggest a promising future as a 3-4 hybrid.
Their riskiest swing came with fifth-year senior Amoore, who was projected to go closer to the end of the first round in most mocks. As I’ve written before, Amoore was the most advanced playmaker in college basketball, running Kenny Brooks’s pick-and-roll-heavy system with creativity and aplomb. The only question mark is her height, which will make her a target on defense and potentially occlude her passing angles. Now, she swaps out Wildcat teammates Clara Strack and Teonni Key for Iriafen, Aaliyah Edwards, Shakira Austin, and Stefanie Dolson. There’s a lot of stylistic variability in the frontcourt, as well as a bit of a logjam, which suggests that the Mystics might not be done wheeling and dealing.
Washington also added Iowa’s Lucy Olsen, a potential microwave scorer off the bench, and Zaay Green, a 25-year-old guard out of Alabama. Time will tell whether this draft marks the beginning of the Mystics’ reboot or delays it another year.
Loser: Shyanne Sellers
Shyanne Sellers’s night started with a humbling omen when she was introduced on ESPN’s orange carpet as Aneesah Morrow. Ouch. Rickea Jackson then corrected her cohost, only to refer to Sellers as Saniya:
When the draft started, Sellers—who was projected to go as high as fifth overall—fell all the way to 17th—though she ultimately landed with the Valkyries anyway.
A balky knee limited her during the NCAA tournament and likely triggered concerns about her long-term health. She’s also a bit hard to pin down as a player. She provides positional size and defensive versatility at the wing on some nights but struggles to move laterally on others. She’s a dazzling playmaker who has the size and feel to slow the game down and play at her own pace, but she was also prone to reckless passes, finishing her senior year with a quease-inducing 1.23 assist-to-turnover ratio.
Still, it’s surprising that Sellers fell as far as she did, given how many of the questions surrounding her game she has already answered. After a torn ligament impeded her ability as a shooter last season, she averaged 40 percent shooting from beyond the arc this year. She can operate from just about anywhere on the floor—initiating pick-and-rolls on one possession and posting up smaller guards next.
In any event, she’s heading to an organization with state-of-the-art facilities where she’ll likely be able to get plenty of reps to plot her revenge.
