Welcome to The IX’s draft board, the most detailed 2026 WNBA draft resource available outside a team’s actual war room. We have full profiles, including physicals, roles, full scouting reports, and player comparisons!
Tiering off prospects is important, so we continue to use the baseball approach: “future value,” on a scale of 20-80. You can find a full breakdown of the scale here, but for this board, the important numbers translate to: 30 — reserve; 40 — mid-rotation player; 45 — second division starter/average rotation player; 50 — average first division starter/worst starter on a title team; 55 — above-average first division starter; 70 — perennial All-WNBA candidate. Having a 45 FV is nothing to scoff at — a median outcome as an average player is really good, given what a crapshoot most of the draft is.
Players’ tiers say nothing about their ceilings or floors, just what we think their average outcome is likely to be.
Some notes before we get to the list:
- The board is as long as there are players that we’d be willing to give solid minutes to, if we were WNBA general managers. You may be wondering why some notable names that show up in others’ mock drafts are missing here; that is why.
- We like players with clearly definable roles. Players who do a lot of things fairly well are a lot harder to give minutes to than those who are great at a handful of things.
- Positions listed aren’t what they play right now, but what we expect them to play in the pros. For example: Flau’jae Johnson played wing for LSU, but since she won’t have much playmaking utility at the next level, we have her as an off-ball guard in the W.
- Ages reflect what age the player will be classified as during the 2026 season.
- This class lacks the outright superstars of recent drafts, but the number of likely first division rotation players is deeper than last year’s, though there is a steep drop-off after: Our final 2025 board had five players at least 50 FV and 16 players above 30 FV; this year, we’ve got six at least 50 FV but just 10 players above a 30 grade.
So without further ado:
(Offensive and defensive roles are per Basketball Index)
70 FV
1. Awa Fam, big, Valencia (LF Endesa, Spain)
Offensive style: Versatile big
Defensive style: Mobile big
Similar to: A’ja Wilson without the mamba mentality, Jaren Jackson Jr.
Awa Fam is the most decorated international prospect since Lauren Jackson in 2001. Both the youngest MVP in U20 EuroBasket history and also the only teenager to score 20 points in a EuroBasket semi-final game since 1989, she recently looked like one of the best players on the court against Team USA in March.
Fam has always played her best in the biggest moments, thanks to a rare combination of skill, strength, athleticism and processing speed at her age. She’s an excellent interior scorer, with great touch, a deep bag of counters and innate feel for navigating tight spaces. Fam is already one of the most dynamic pick-and-roll (PnR) bigs in the sport — she sets good screens, times them well and has the burst and stride length to put pressure on the rim as a roller. To go with it, her short-roll playmaking is unlike anything we’ve ever seen from a center prospect. She’s in total control of everything around her at all times, using her otherworldly visual processing and creativity to find teammates from any angle and setup. She went over 40 minutes against the U.S. and France without a turnover.
Fam has also made real strides as a jump shooter over the last year, raising her 3-point percentage from 12.5% to 30.4%, and her 3-point attempt rate by 7.6 percentage points. She has smooth, compact mechanics with good footwork out of PnPs and spot-ups. There’s even more to like with Fam’s upside as a midrange creator: just watch her size-up Dearica Hamby and hit a deep step-back in her face. The jumper is still inconsistent, but it’s hard to imagine her not being an average shooter at worst.
On the defensive end, Fam is more flashes than consistent production. At times, she struggles mightily on the glass, and it’s fair to question whether her rebounding issues are more a result of poor technique (going for tap-outs) or a lack of urgency. Her positioning in drop coverage isn’t always consistent and her aggressiveness as a rim protector comes and goes. That said, it’s not all negative. When she’s locked in, her disruption at the rim or in space can be stellar. She’s made clear improvements defending in drop over the course of the season, along with real comfort at the level, hedging and switching. Fam is a special lateral athlete with great hip flexibility, allowing her to comfortably stick with wings and guards. She’s also constantly communicating on that end.
Why she’ll succeed: Fam continues improving as a shooter and actualizes her defensive tools while locking in more consistently to become a versatile two-way superstar.
Why she’ll fail: Fam’s defensive consistency never gets fixed, making it hard for her to hold up at the five, while her offensive game isn’t fully maximized at the four, leaving her more as a solid starter than a true star.
Variance: Medium
2. Olivia Miles, point guard, TCU
Offensive style: Primary ball-handler
Defensive style: Low activity
Similar to: Peak Deron Williams, early career Sabrina Ionescu
Three years ago, we wrote that “The only things [Olivia Miles] can’t do are defend Brittney Griner in the post and hit 30% of her threes.” At this point, Miles isn’t defending much of anyone anymore, but she’s certainly hitting threes. For the greatest playmaker of her generation, that’s probably a worthy tradeoff.
Miles’ offensive excellence starts with her elite processing and feel. That’s most apparent with her playmaking, where her visual processing, combined with mind-boggling passing velo and accuracy allow her to manipulate any defender on the court and make any of her teammates a threat at any moment. But it’s there in her feel for how quickly she flips from setting up the offense to hunting her shot and her solid shot-selection. It’s there in how smoothly she manipulates her defender both to get downhill and to draw fouls at the rim. It was also there in the cutting and overall off-ball movement she displayed before her spring 2023 ACL tear.
Even as an excellent athlete, none of that would matter nearly as much if Miles’ jumper still functioned how it did in her underclassman years; as an early enrollee, freshman and sophomore, she shot 25.6% on catch-and-shoot and 23.6% on pull-up 3-pointers. After a mechanical change that keeps her weight forward while shooting instead of falling away every time, the threes have been falling the past couple of seasons, to the tune of 39.1% off the catch and 35.8% off the dribble. The risk in Miles’ offensive profile is that the accuracy stabilizes somewhere lower than that.
The cost of hitting those 3-pointers seems to have been the complete erosion of Miles’ defensive play: As an underclassman, she demonstrated the ability to capably defend drivers through ball screens and feel team rotations; as an upperclassman, she has largely been unconcerned with that entire half of the game. She’ll try to stick with her assignment and will go for the ball, but any kind of screen takes her out of the play entirely. And forget staying aware on the backside of the play — making timely switches and using up energy that way is for suckers.
It’s unlikely Miles completely forgot how to defend the way she used to. But whether the issue is related to her offensive usage or knee injury or the defensive regression that sometimes comes with bulking up, the severity of the backslide speaks to a less-than-stellar motor.
Why she’ll succeed: Miles’ 3-point shooting stabilizes around her upperclassman average, and she can still defend well with enough energy and effort, making her a top-three guard in the W for the next decade.
Why she’ll fail: Miles’ jumper hits closer to her collegiate average, making her a borderline efficient scorer and lessening how much help defenses have to send at her. With that hit to her playmaking, she’s merely a talented lead guard who can’t run a top offense and is a massive liability on defense.
Variance: Low
55 FV
3. Kiki Rice, point guard, UCLA
Offensive style: Primary ball-handler
Defensive style: Point of attack (POA)
Similar to: Dylan Harper, Veronica Burton
There may not be a better plug-and-play option at the guard spot in this draft than Kiki Rice. In her freshman season, she was one of the most impressive guard defenders and rim threats in the Pac-12, and since then she has developed her game into one of the most complete stars in the country.
Rice is a menace on the defensive end, showing the ability to consistently guard 1 through 3, hanging with drivers and pressuring their handle, contesting those who prefer to stop-and-pop and applying pressure across the positional spectrum in UCLA’s switch-heavy scheme. Her quick-twitch burst, core strength and rotational flexibility help her create separation on offense and stay attached and recover on defense. Very few defenders are better at staying connected through contact and recovering to block or contest the shot.
Raw athleticism and physicality can only get you so far on defense, but Rice is also a technician with great anticipation and hands in one-on-one situations, keeping the ball-handler from doing what they want to do and consistently forcing tough shots. She has also shown the footwork and processing to be a high-level defender off the ball as well, chasing players like Syla Swords around screens.
Offensively, Rice is a model of patience, actively reading and reacting to any openings to attack the rim or kick out to teammates. Her tremendous development as a shooter — from 27% on catch-and-shoot 3-pointers her first two years to 40% the last two, per Synergy — makes her even more of a problem attacking off the bounce, given her standout finishing at the rim and ability to get to the line, where she is an elite free-throw shooter, above 88% across the last three seasons on over 400 attempts.
Everything about Rice’s offensive game screams portability and scalability, or, in other words, the ability to play in many roles in almost any system. Every team needs rim pressure guards that are high-level passers and processors, and the addition of a jump shot that’s even passable makes Rice a dangerous offensive player — and her pull-up game has improved every season to the point that it’s now a top weapon. While Rice may never put up flashy raw numbers, her impact is absolutely undeniable on both ends.
Why she’ll succeed: Rice’s wide set of defensive skills establishes her as one of the premier defensive guards in the WNBA, while her improvements in the midrange and spotting-up from deep hold and her finishing stabilize, making her a second or third option on a good team.
Why she’ll fail: Rice is asked to fill a scoring role that she can’t when her jump shot ends up around her collegiate average, her scoring efficiency falls off, and she fails to match the quickness and physicality of defenders at the next level, reducing her to a defensive-specialist backup point role.
Variance: Medium
4. Azzi Fudd, off-ball guard, UConn
Offensive style: Off-screen shooter
Similar to: Desmond Bane, Allie Quigley, without creation juice
This is the highest we’ve ever ranked an off-ball guard by far — a major credit to Azzi Fudd’s development over her storied college career. She’s the best off-ball shooting prospect women’s basketball has seen and a reliable defender who makes smart decisions on both ends at all times.
The selling point on Fudd is her ability as a shooter. Over the last two seasons, she’s shot 45.3% on catch-and-shoot 3-pointers and 42.9% off screens, per Synergy. Fudd’s a flawless spot-up-shooting prospect, with her relocation skills, immaculate power transfer and virtually no-dip jumper. She capitalizes on her shooting gravity through instinctive cutting and attacking closeouts to create space for 2/3-dribble midrange jumpers. What makes Fudd special is the way she doesn’t waste movement: she takes efficient shots, makes quick reads and almost never turns it over.
The biggest question for Fudd is whether she has any upside as a self-creator. Forty-six draft picks in league history have recorded a free-throw rate below 15% in their senior season — just one made an All-Star team in their career (Betty Lennox, 2000). Fudd’s free-throw rate is far below that threshold at 8.2% — the third-lowest ever. She’s also not much of a 3-point creator either, with only 31 over her 263 attempts coming off the dribble, per Synergy. UConn’s scheme plays a factor in these numbers, but it’s rare for a prospect to make substantial handle, burst and vertical athleticism improvements from college to the pros.
On defense, Fudd consistently positions herself in the right spots on the floor. She’s at her best off the ball, where her quick hands and instincts allow her to make impactful plays in help. Fudd is great at chasing shooters and always does the little things like boxing out and contesting with verticality. On the ball, she projects closer to average. Fudd uses her core strength to absorb contact and force her assignment into contested jumpers, but she does have a tendency to get caught on screens at the POA, especially against quicker guards.
Why she’ll succeed: Fudd makes strides as a pull-up scorer outside of UConn’s scheme and becomes the best shooter in WNBA history, coupled with solid defensive value to slot in as a third option on a contending team.
Why she’ll fail: The lower-body injuries from Fudd’s underclassmen seasons may recur during her W career. But barring injuries, Fudd’s limitations on both ends cap her ability to create in lineups without star scorers and defend in high-leverage situations, leaving her as a role player in need of stars to operate alongside.
Variance: Low
5. Lauren Betts, center, UCLA
Offensive style: Post scorer
Defensive style: Anchor big
Similar to: 6’7 Elizabeth Williams, Jakob Pöltl
Lauren Betts’ game is a land of contrasts. She’s shot over 70% at the rim in the halfcourt1 over her three years at UCLA, but the finishing can underwhelm against players with pro-level size and length, and her ability to both draw and convert free throws is mediocre. She’s one of the best playmaking centers in recent history but struggles mightily against late help. She defends space well in the PnR but can get in trouble with her footwork on switches. She is also, crucially, 6’7, so how much does any of that really matter?
What separates Betts from other supersized prospects is her mobility. Teaira McCowans and Kalani Browns and Liz Cambages aren’t exactly a dime a dozen, but there’s usually a tradeoff between size and both lateral quickness and rotational flexibility. That’s not a concern with Betts, who uses that athleticism to make very good rotations in the paint, defend drivers in drop and close out space to the ball-handler from any ball screen coverage.
She’s particularly advanced for a college center at her positioning in the PnR, effectively managing to both affect the handler while staying close enough to recover to the roller. That doesn’t translate as much to full switches, where she is often competitive but can struggle to mirror. She can also get in trouble defending legitimate post-up threats due to her technique: Betts generally either defends using her arms and not her chest and hips, in which case she can slide well but can’t easily deter her assignment from getting to their spot, or she defends with her chest and hips but does so flat-footed, preventing her from effectively sliding with her assignment.
Betts’ mobility is the main reason to be optimistic about her offensive growth at the WNBA level, where she’ll need to be a capable screen-and-roller to be a plus offensive presence. Right now, she lacks the feel for disrupting POA defenders’ paths against the ball-handler, although her size forces them over a good deal regardless, and she often rolls too soon and gets downhill too quickly to stay within a passing window for the ball-handler. There have been flashes of better timing from her, which usually result in great looks because of her coordination off the catch. Screening is one of the easier skills to learn, so there’s every reason to think a good player development coach can get her there, even if the issue appears to be more feel than technique.
The other offensive issues of Betts are highly unlikely to change. Short of a shot doctor, her jumper form is inconsistent and the accuracy is poor. Her repeated issues with late blindside doubles should be less impactful with better offensive movement from her teammates in the pros, but it’s a problem of visual processing, and therefore one of the most difficult to improve. The occasional finishing problems also stem from an inability to adjust late, so they likely share the same outlook. She doesn’t exactly have a deep bag of post moves, but she’s decisive and able to finish at enough of a variety of angles that it won’t be a problem if she’s not being asked to create her own shot.
Why she’ll succeed: Betts is a dominant defensive force in the paint and a heavy deterrent in any action, the rare plus rim protector who can hold her own in space, which, combined with her passing, rolling and ability around the rim, makes her one of the most impactful two-way players in the W.
Why she’ll fail: Against stronger and longer athletes in the post on both ends, Betts’ ability to control the rims is significantly dampened, and her offensive game only succeeds against mismatches, limiting her to being a defensive anchor on a second division team or a change-of-pace big on a first division team.
Variance: Medium
50 FV
6. Flau’jae Johnson, off-ball guard, LSU
Offensive style: Movement shooter/shot-creator
Defensive style: Wing stopper
Similar to: Devin Vassell, Allisha Gray
In her hit single “AMF” featuring platinum-selling rapper NLE Choppa, Flau’jae Johnson said, “Get out your feelings, get a bag.” Unfortunately, the LSU project was not “feeling” it much this season, and is looking at a smaller “bag” as a result. In fact, her whole career is a bit of a paper tiger.2
Johnson is undeniably a great wing defender, a top athlete in any direction — horizontal or vertical — who mirrors in space, pressures the ball well both at the POA and on the drive, and is a standout navigating screens. The offense, on the other hand, is extremely deniable: In the three years since her sophomore breakout, Johnson has scored at only a 46.3% true-shooting in the halfcourt against top competition. She’s shot just 44.3% at the rim against those teams in the halfcourt, per Synergy, and 33.1% on pull-up middys. Her 3-point mark in SEC play across that span was 32.5%, and the intensity of her defense seemed to drop off when the shots weren’t falling.
A lot of this stems from Johnson’s processing, which is markedly poor for a player as skilled as her. It’s why the midrange numbers are so much worse against top opponents when she can’t lean on her athleticism to get cleaner looks. It’s why she’s not a live-ball playmaker and has had issues managing active help against her drives. It’s what limits her as a help defender to “sometimes impactful, sometimes late to recognize angles and fills,” and makes her inconsistent at maintaining a two-way go while closing out. The poor finishing mostly stems from her inability to consistently use her left hand around the rim, which neuters what is an elite last step.
Johnson is at least an excellent spot-up shooter, which leaves pathways for her to be a productive offensive player in a narrower role.
Why she’ll succeed: Johnson’s combination of defensive impact both at the POA and in help, combined with her 3-point shooting, makes her a premier 3-&-D+ player, someone who can slot into any team or system while adding a little juice inside the arc as a change of pace.
Why she’ll fail: Inconsistency is the death knell for role players, and Johnson’s unreliability as a scorer and helper make her a talented player who can’t be relied on for much more than one-on-one wing defense and volatile scoring.
Variance: Medium
45 FV
7. Raven Johnson, point guard, South Carolina
Offensive style: Primary ball-handler
Defensive style: Point of attack
Similar to: Nate McMillan, Lindsey Harding
Do you like defense? Have you found yourself lamenting the lack of True Point Guards in basketball today? Believe that passing, leadership and picking up the other team’s best player regardless of position are dying arts? Raven Johnson is the player for you.
Since she entered the rotation for the Gamecocks as a redshirt freshman, Johnson has been a destructive force for opposing guards, wings and at times even forwards; against the Huskies in the Final Four this year, she chased Fudd through ball screens and denied Sarah Strong in the post. Her combination of length, quickness and elite processing shows her constant threat to blow up offensive actions before they can begin, both in ball-denial and in preventing assignments from establishing position. On the ball, her combination of ball-pressure both in space and on the drive, mirroring ball-handlers’ footwork and fighting through screens, is superb. Her wingspan makes the impact there unmatched, and combined with her overall disruption, makes her a threat anywhere within 20 feet of the ball. That help in particular has developed significantly since she was an underclassman.
Johnson has shown a new level of confidence on offense in her final season in Columbia, averaging career-highs of 10.0 points and 5.2 assists, while shooting a career-best from every spot on the court. Her passing velocity is still excellent and she is a top playmaker from the key and going downhill. She’s running more ball screens than ever before and using her physical advantages to get to her spots with ease. Her high release point and slow, looping jump shot can look a little goofy when taking spot-up threes, but she’s at 33.3% on those shots, including comfortably good accuracy on open looks each of the past three years, and the form helps her get off tough midrange shots over defenders. Johnson has grown more comfortable using her strength to drive through opposing guards and work more in the deep paint.
Taken all together, Johnson consistently makes winning plays on both ends of the floor, does everything you could ask of a point guard and almost never commits fouls or turns the ball over.
Why she’ll succeed: Johnson continues to be an elite defender across multiple positions, hounding point guards and switching 1-3 and sometimes 4, while doing enough on the offensive end as a table-setter and competent shooter off the catch to keep the team offense humming as long as there are high-scoring teammates while she wreaks havoc on the other end.
Why she’ll fail: Johnson’s offensive leap as a senior was smoke and mirrors, more about her physical advantages over younger players than real skill improvement, and the shot doesn’t go in against better closeouts, turning her into a glorified defensive specialist.
Variance: Medium
40 FV
8. Nell Angloma, wing, BLMA (Wonderligue, France)
Defensive style: Wing stopper
Similar to: Dahntay Jones, slightly taller Tiffany Mitchell
Nell Angloma continues our rich tradition of propping up French prospects, of which there has been at least one in our top 10 every year we’ve done this. This may also continue our tradition of overrating one off-ball guard every other class.
If we’re right about Angloma, it will be because of her ability to command attention on both ends of the court. She is a very good athlete who is difficult to stop from getting downhill, with a good bag and the ability to read and react to her defender with counters. She also flashes plus deceleration and good touch with either hand. Defensively, she makes good decisions defending through ball screens and can both fight through them or switch, and she has light feet in space when she’s locked in. Her mirroring in iso is poor at the moment, but her reaction time and lateral quickness both make up for that, and it’s an issue many teenagers have that can sometimes be resolved within a few years.
If we’re wrong about Angloma, it will be because her weaknesses turn out to be intractable poison pills. For players who pressure defenses off the catch, it’s imperative to move well without the ball, so as to maximize both the quantity and quality of their opportunities. Angloma, unfortunately, struggles with this, never knowing when to lift or drift and not knowing how to move around the midrange to keep herself open, which also hurts her ability to sell fakes off the catch. Defensively, she has good instincts for backline positioning and rotations but an incredibly poor feel for how far she needs to commit and when she needs to bail, constantly getting caught too far from her assignment and recovering to them late, only to find that they’ve moved from where she expected them to be.
Both of these problems are based on feel, but to varying degrees, they’re both issues players have improved on before. The overhelp tendency has been more corrected more often by past prospects, but the off-ball movement may develop as Angloma gets more used to reading pro defenses. Being a poor shooter with no in-between game doesn’t help her case, though the significant increase in free-throw accuracy this year creates some hope for the former. She’s also flashed some ancillary playmaking potential, but that part of her game remains wonky at best right now.
Why she’ll succeed: Angloma develops a standstill 3-pointer and/or a midrange jumper as well as an understanding of offensive keys for cutting while improving her feel for defensively rotations, becoming a fully fledged two-way weapon with some limitations to the offensive schemes she can fit in.
Why she’ll fail: Feel is maybe the hardest skill category to improve on, and Angloma is no exception, a talented scorer and athlete without enough soft skills to leverage that talent into a W role.
Ceiling comps: Gerald Wallace, if DiJonai Carrington finished more often
Variance: High
9. Ta’Niya Latson, combo guard, South Carolina
Offensive style: Secondary ball-handler
Similar to: Monica Wright, Brandon Jennings
The game is about a bucket, and Ta’Niya Latson has done that better than anyone else over the last four years. She’s the best transition scorer in the country and easily the most athletic guard prospect in years. But the ancillary skills matter, too, and there are major questions about what she does outside of scoring.
At her best, Latson is an electric on-ball creator who can get to the rim at will, hit tough pull-up jumpers and make impressive jump passes. But after transferring to South Carolina and taking on a more off-ball role, those weaknesses became harder to ignore. The shooting is the biggest concern: she hit just 31.9% of her catch-and-shoot threes and often passed up open looks altogether. That’s compounded by inconsistent mid-range shooting, where she’s shot just 30.6% over the past two seasons. As a result, Latson relies heavily on getting downhill, but at 5’8, her drives are often predicated on drawing fouls; developing a floater could help in this department. She’s dynamic in transition, but when the game slows down in the halfcourt, making a consistent impact becomes a challenge, both on and off the ball. Those concerns would be easier to overlook if she projected clearly as a lead guard, but with her middling processing speed and score-first instincts, that’s not the case.
On the other end, Latson transferred to Columbia with the goal of improving on defense, and that’s come to fruition. She’s become a great defensive playmaker, using her athleticism and quick hands to create havoc (3.3% steal rate, 1.1% block rate this season). Latson holds her own at the POA, is active in passing lanes and does a solid job tracking shooters. The downside is she’s often too aggressive on defense. On the ball, she’ll gamble for steals and take herself out of position; off the ball, she can get caught ball-watching, leading to late recoveries. Both were notable issues at Florida State, but all in all, the steps she’s taken on defense are very promising.
Why she’ll succeed: Latson is one of the league’s premier scoring guards thanks to growth as a 3-point shooter and working to diversify her offensive game with a floater and better WNBA spacing, and she continues to take strides defensively, a quality starter in most systems.
Why she’ll fail: Latson remains heavily reliant on transition scoring and, at her size, she doesn’t consistently do enough without the ball, as a passer or defender, to stay on the floor for any team.
Variance: High
10. Charlisse Leger-Walker, point guard, UCLA
Offensive style: Primary ball-handler
Similar to: Shelvin Mack, Erica Wheeler
When projecting offensive engines with efficiency concerns, the first question we need to ask includes: What does this player look like on a better team, with less responsibility? Does their shot-selection and efficiency improve? Can they be impactful in a smaller role? The good thing about Charlisse Leger-Walker is that we didn’t even have to wait for her to get to the professional level to get an answer to all these questions — they are: still fun, yes, and yes!
Leger-Walker first captured the attention of the nation (and Shania Twain) when she led an upstart Washington State team to the Pac-12 tournament title in 2023 while averaging nearly 18 points and over four assists as the heliocentric driver of all things offense for the Cougars. She was never a stellar athlete in Pullman, but her highly advanced handle and manipulation of defenders to get to her spots played up her speed. Her processing speed, passing versatility and flair for manipulating defenders off a live dribble and off-ball movement meant everyone on the court could be dangerous with only a second’s notice.
Leger-Walker missed the back half of 2023-24 and all of 2024-25 with a torn ACL, but she came back this year to again cement her place as one of the best and most creative passers in the country, tearing apart every PnR coverage she saw with pocket passes, skips to the corner and all manner of flair around the defense to create layups and open 3-pointers. With the reduction in usage (from 28% across her four seasons at Wazzu to 16% at UCLA), Leger-Walker’s efficiency delivered new career highs in shooting at every level by significant margins. Her spot-up 3-pointer was as solid as it was as a Cougar, but with a much higher proportion of those looks uncontested, per Synergy. Her midrange looks were far easier and she converted them way more often, and she maintained her junior season jump in finishing while still getting to the rim.
On the defensive end, Leger-Walker remained solid. Her strength has always allowed her to defend up the positional spectrum, which did a lot to unlock the Bruins’ switching. Her preternatural court vision and quick processing have made her a very useful team defender who can organize teammates and provide positive value without being a lockdown defender in space. Leger-Walker doesn’t necessarily project as a stalwart, but it is hard to see her being targeted enough to make her a problem on that end, either. Her screen navigation and lack of disruption on the ball have not improved, though. If you can figure out how to make those skills into a consistent positive contribution to team defense, you deserve an award.
Why she’ll succeed: Leger-Walker continues to make jump shots at an average or better clip, her passing and intelligence on the court should give everyone around her a boost on both ends and she can toggle between higher- and lower-usage roles to seamlessly raise the floor of any team in need of a point guard.
Why she’ll fail: Injuries catch up to Leger-Walker, with the half-step lost never returning and making her a greater target for forcing to switch onto the POA defensively, and her both her three and rim accuracy remain as volatile as they were in college, leaving her without ways to consistently separate or score.
Variance: Medium
30 FV
11. Gianna Kneepkens, off-ball guard, UCLA
Offensive style: Off-screen shooter
Defensive style: Low activity
Similar to: Corey Kispert, if Marine Johannès was Dutch
Gianna Kneepkens might be the best and most versatile shooter in this draft. Might.
Despite her unorthodox high release, Kneepkens’ track record as a 3-point shooter is virtually unmatched at the college level. Only Taylor Robertson, the most hilariously prolific shooter in the history of college basketball, has more seasons shooting above 42% from beyond the arc while taking at least 160 3-pointers, per HerHoopStats. Kneepkens is far from a standstill shooting specialist as well, showing the ability to take and make difficult shots off movement and off the dribble, making her a serious danger anywhere she can get to the ball. Kneepkens thrived in the pace and space system implemented by Lynne Roberts (and continued by Gavin Peterson) at Utah. Specifically, two-player actions between Kneepkens and Alissa Pili were nigh unguardable, especially given the former’s adeptness at setting up her defense into ball screens and scoring from the midrange. Alongside the absurdly high-level shooting, Kneepkens has been a capable PnR player and a good cutter, utilizing the threat of her shooting to create opportunities at the rim.
There’s all the good stuff out of the way — now, on to the defensive side of the ball. Kneepkens was not a very good defender in college. She’s not the most athletic, she can be overpowered by even some point guards and shooting guards, and she isn’t a great defensive playmaker. The point of projecting this end for her is more about figuring out just how much you’re willing to live with to keep her shooting on the court. If she can get to a point where she is playable in the W, that’s probably something you can live with. The worry is that she’s going to be walking around with a target on her back, hunted on every trip down the floor and put in actions where she has almost no chance to succeed.
Why she’ll succeed: Kneepkens lands with a team with great defensive infrastructure and talent that is able to maximize the number of looks she can get. Her defense remains only mediocre, but that volume of shots buoys her impact as a flawed but valuable role player.
Why she’ll fail: Kneepkens can’t hang athletically on either end at the next level, where everyone is even stronger, faster, and longer. No longer able to create looks in space the same way, she has little to make up for being relentlessly targeted on the defensive end, burning out of the league fairly quickly.
Variance: Low
12. Shay Ciezki, off-ball guard, Indiana
Offensive style: Secondary ball-handler
Similar to: Tan White, Quinn Cook
If you plugged most of Shay Ciezki’s profile into a draft model — consistently plus accuracy on all jumper types, 3-point versatility, offensive role and scoring output that have grown every year, creative handle, defensive effort — it would label her a high-value second-tier target. If you included her height, the model would tell you to kick rocks.
So let’s ignore Ciezki’s height for a moment. The Hoosier has had an uncommon collegiate career arc, spending her underclassman years as a movement shooter on bad teams under a beleaguered coach before transferring to Indiana. She worked on the ball as a freshman to solid effect, before slipping to a primarily off-ball role as a sophomore and junior, but the massive backslide for the Hoosiers’ roster after that pushed her into the fourth-highest-usage rate in the Big Ten this season. She had been a standout as a Nittany Lion for her movement shooting, and her excellent accuracy on pull-up middies every year suggested she could take on a wider role.
That was borne out this year. Ciezki had one of the more impressive jump shooting seasons in recent memory, hitting 52.1% of 164 pull-up twos, 42.6% of 61 pull-up threes, and 45.3% of 117 catch-&-shoot threes, per Synergy, a shot diet that included a significant amount of deep looks and off-screen setups. That brings her up to an elite 48.1%, 36.7% and 41.2%, respectively, across her undergrad tenure. She plays that shooting skill up with an excellent ability to use screens to create separation on and off the ball, a great handle that she can improvise with and chain moves together on the fly, and a super quick rise into a compact release that enables her to look off defenders to open even bigger windows for her shot.
There is the matter of Ciezki’s height, though. She is 5’7, and an off-ball guard whose playmaking is mostly limited to hitting teammates opened by her own scoring gravity. At worst, she had a tendency this year to take long twos in PnRs at times when her defender got caught over the screen and waiting a beat would have left a wide-open lane for the roller off a pocket pass. The list of players at that position at that height who’ve been good rotation pieces can be counted on two hands. They are so reliant on the jumper falling that their offensive game is naturally more volatile and they are good defensively if they ever have to switch.
Points in Ciezki’s favor: She is arguably the most talented 3-point threat of any of those players, almost always creates an advantage from a switch or drawing a blitz in PnR, and is solid at sticking through screens on and off the ball while applying some defensive pressure on the drive. Her development arc is also worth considering, with there still being the possibility of room for growth in her game thanks to her advancing into bigger roles every year.
Points against Ciezki: She has trouble finishing through traffic, is quite turnover-prone due to getting flustered by sideline traps and having a somewhat loose dribble despite her bag, and the fact that she gets clipped by good screeners makes having to switch more likely.
Why she’ll succeed: Ciezki’s ability to score at heavy volume and high efficiency against the top guard defenders in her conference translates across a variety of roles in the pros, where playing in far better lineups gives her more space to work with and more options when she’s bottled up, a microwave scorer who does just enough defensively to stick in the classic Lou Williams role.
Why she’ll fail: No matter how good Ciezki’s shot is, she can only get it off so often against faster rotations and longer POA defenders, and having better teammates means she gets exposed more frequently on defense, leaving her few ways to stay on a WNBA court.
Variance: Medium
13. Janiah Barker, big wing, Tennessee
Offensive style: Shot-creator/versatile big
Defensive style: Mobile big
Similar to: Jabari Parker, Crystal Bradford
Look, we don’t feel good about this one either. Janiah Barker is the biggest boom-or-bust prospect we’ve evaluated: If you watch her 10 best plays, she looks like a future superstar; Watch a couple of the wrong games, and the inconsistency is just too hard to ignore. Plus, Barker played for three schools over the last three years without making any real growth.
For the good, there’s no denying Barker’s talent. There have only been a handful of players ever with her blend of size, strength, athleticism and shot creation. Barker can lead the break in transition, run a PnR and hit step-back jumpers from anywhere. This season, she shot 55.6% on pull-up midrange jumpers and 47.1% on pull-up 3-pointers on 44 total attempts, per Synergy. She is also a respectable shooter off the catch and draws fouls better than any frontcourt player in the class.
The issue is, well, everything else. Barker’s feel for the game has not improved. She’s tunnel-visioned on far too many drives, routinely pounding the ball into the ground before driving right into help and turning it over; it’s cool for a player to have a dynamic handle, but it’s meaningless if you don’t have enough dribble control to get to your spots efficiently. She also doesn’t have any deceleration to finish under control around the rim and her propensity for taking tough shots is puzzling.
On the other end, her effort often comes down to whether she’s in a groove on offense. If she’s hitting shots, you see how disruptive and switchable a player at 6’4 with her movement skills can be. If she’s not, her impact completely fades: she’ll fall asleep off the ball, start racking up fouls and her body language becomes an issue. Barker obviously has clear tools, but her defense is far too theoretical for a player with over 100 games of college experience.
In a class without the same depth as last year, it’s worth taking a swing on a player as talented as this — there’s always a chance Barker figures it out.
Why she’ll succeed: Barker lands in the right development environment, where she finally figures out some consistency on both ends. She makes an impact as an athletic, high-energy forward with some ball skills that make her a matchup nightmare with high defensive impact.
Why she’ll fail: The same issues continue — inconsistent feel, poor shot selection and defensive lapses — leaving her as a talented player who never fully puts it together enough to get in any coach’s good graces.
Variance: High
14. Frieda Bühner, combo forward, Estudiantes (LF Endesa, Spain)
Offensive style: Versatile big
Defensive style: Mobile big
Similar to: Jalen Wilson, Maddy Siegrist lite
It’s rare that an Olympian is draft-eligible, but Frieda Bühner represents the rare (soon-to-be) 22-year-old such player with real potential. You may notice a small problem with that sentence if you’re familiar with the WNBA draft eligibility rules; despite being born in 2004, Bühner is eligible for the 2026 draft through a quirk where her eligibility was put on the same timeline as Americans when she enrolled at Florida, even though she only played a handful of minutes there. And here she is now, an international prospect who, for age reasons, isn’t a real draft-and-stash option.
Bühner is a scoring forward through and through, able to finish plays in a variety of ways, showing across Spanish league play, Eurocup, World Cup qualifiers, and the Olympics that she’s a tremendous scorer inside the arc with great touch. She moves well off the ball with a natural talent for finding soft spots in the defense, screening her teammates open and getting to her spots to score. Bühner’s strongest moments come when she’s operating as a hub at the top of the key, whether she’s handing the ball off and screening for a teammate or attacking off the bounce and getting into the paint. Her screening angles and quick dives to the hoop mean that she frequently has an inside position for quick finishes, seals, or offensive rebounds against defenders that were forced to switch or trail behind the roll. Bühner is somewhat limited as an on-ball creator, but she can attack closeouts and defenders that are out of position, particularly with her strong hand, where she can make plays, including some very nice interior passes.
The swing skill for Bühner will be her 3-point shooting. All that inside-the-arc stuff is nice and all, but she’s still an undersized power forward that will need her jump shot to be a real threat to be a WNBA player, and it’s been streaky to say the least. She has a very smooth jumper, and her touch indicators lend themselves to an optimistic projection, but the production hasn’t been where you want it to be, especially in domestic Spanish league play.
On the defensive end, Bühner is perfectly capable as a team defender. She sees the play in front of her, makes rotations if they need to be made, has solid help instincts and has the occasional moment of really superb one-on-one defense. But sometimes she gets beaten even when she’s in the right place, either because of her physical and athletic limitations as an undersized 4. Particularly troublesome are her footwork and physically deterring dribble penetration. Bühner is a clear plus on the glass on both ends, boxing out hard and fighting for boards whenever she ends up near the paint when a shot goes up.
Bühner is a pretty safe option for any team that’s looking for some offensive pop off the bench in the forward room, and if her 3-pointer can become a bit more consistent, she could be a massively impactful offensive piece for a good team.
Why she’ll succeed: Bühner makes 3-point jumpers at a decent clip, creating more driving lanes and opportunities for her to show off her impressive 2-point scoring arsenal, and better help defense from her teammates negates some of her issues in space, allowing her to slot in as a high-level complementary scorer for a good team.
Why she’ll fail: Bühner fails to reach the athletic threshold required from undersized forwards in the WNBA in the post and can’t stick enough in space to moonlight at the 3, doesn’t materially improve as a 3-point shooter, and struggles to stay on the court as anything more than a reserve scorer.
Variance: Medium
15. Gabriela Jaquez, off-ball guard, UCLA
Offensive style: Athletic finisher
Similar to: Pelle Larsson, Bree Hall
Gabriela Jaquez is your quintessential hypothetical 3-&-D wing. She’s a solid spot-up shooter (at times), cuts hard and passes quickly, defends and rebounds while playing with a nonstop motor. In many ways, she just is what she is, but what she is is a useful archetype every team could use.
Jaquez’s WNBA success will depend on how consistent she is as a shooter. She shot 54.2% from three in nonconference play this season, but that dropped to 29.3% over her final 26 games. This streakiness isn’t anything new for Jaquez; last year, she shot 34.8% overall, but just 28.6% in Big Ten play. If she can consistently hit catch-and-shoot 3-pointers, that, paired with elite cutting, gives her real value as a connector. Without the shooting, though, her limited driving ability, shot creation and playmaking could make it tough for her to be effective offensively.
Defensively, Jaquez is at her best chasing shooters and making plays off the ball. She’s a smart defender who understands positioning and consistently knows where to be. However, she will likely struggle at the POA, as she can play too upright and doesn’t move the quickest laterally, causing struggles getting over ball screens. This often leaves her a step behind and vulnerable to easy dribble penetration. She also needs to get much stronger; there’s not much resistance when she’s switched onto bigger players in the post. Opponents shot 67.5% on the 40 post-ups she defended in her college career — the worst in the class, per Synergy.
Why she’ll succeed: Jaquez gets stronger and finds consistency with her 3-pointers at a solid level, becoming one of the best backup wings in the league who can fit in any scheme.
Why she’ll fail: Jaquez’s shooting is too inconsistent, and she doesn’t provide enough in other areas on either end to stick in a rotation.
Variance: Low
16. Madina Okot, center, South Carolina
Offensive style: Stretch big
Defensive style: Anchor big
Similar to: Bruno Caboclo, Jillian Alleyne
If you watched South Carolina in the NCAA Tournament, there’s a good chance you heard Madina Okot’s story. She first picked up a basketball at the age of 16, played for two years at a university in her native Kenya, then played at Mississippi State last season before joining the Gamecocks for 2025-26. Okot’s raw size and flashes of skill make her one of the more intriguing long-term prospects in college basketball, though the short-term is at best troubling.
Okot’s strengths and weaknesses are immediately clear on first watch. She’s a massive interior presence with elite hands and some of the best rebounding numbers in the world, and very fluid as a mover, looking natural in the open court and sometimes making jaw-dropping plays for a player that’s 6’6. The most interesting development for Okot at South Carolina was the development of a standstill 3-point shot, shooting an absurd 10-for-19 from three since February 19.
While this is rather low volume, it is a tremendous indicator as a shooter going forward — remember, we’d rather you make the low volume of 3-point shots you take than miss them. Okot generally has a very good touch around the rim and made a reasonable 71% of her free-throw attempts this season, both also good indicators of that shooting potential. But she’s not yet a real threat as a post-up scorer; most of her rim attempts the result of dump-offs from teammate penetration or her prodigious skill as an offensive rebounder. Her ability to work around or through opposing players when they attempt to box her out makes her a constant threat to score on putbacks, though.
Defensively, Okot’s lack of real high-level floor game reps rears its head. She struggles with positioning while defending in the PnR, struggles to contain dribble penetration from anywhere and is not as dominant an interior defender and rim protector as you would expect from someone with her movement skills. Okot has all the tools to be a great defender, but she occasionally has difficulty diagnosing actions that are occurring right in front of her, reacts late and commits avoidable fouls. She especially struggled with that against teams with high-level post scorers like Oklahoma and UCLA, who attacked her down low and ultimately played her off the court.
Why she’ll succeed: Okot lands in a situation where she’s able to develop slowly, working on her defensive recognition and embracing physicality when she doesn’t have a significant size advantage, and getting more comfortable with the spot-up three, allowing her to eventually provide rebounding, screening, and a defensive boost in valuable minutes.
Why she’ll fail: Okot ends up being unable to overcome her late start and lack of reps, can’t ever put it all together as a pro and flames out of the league fairly quickly.
Variance: High
Potential draft-and-stash
Every draft class contains a number of young international players who are draft-eligible but still require another season or two before they’re ready for the W. Though they have a better shot of turning into a top-10 player in the class than your average second- or third-round pick, teams select these players with the intention of not yet signing them to a WNBA contract while waiting to see if they continue developing towards their potential. All such players are naturally high variance.
Nell Angloma is technically in this mold as well, but she is ranked on the overall board because of how much closer her game is to being playable in the W.
Iyana Martín, point guard, Avenida (LF Endesa, Spain)
Offensive style: Primary ball-handler
Defensive style: Low activity
Similar to: Coco Miller, Sergio Rodríguez
You know that European guard, the flashy playmaker with great 3-point creation who doesn’t really drive and can’t defend? No, not that one, the other one. No, not that one, the other one. No, not that one, either, the— well anyway, we have another one of those.
What separates Iyana Martín from that archetype, at least for now, is the signs of growth she has shown lately. The pull-up 3-pointer became a higher-volume weapon as the season wore on, and she got farther downhill more often. But the shot flashes more than it actually hits and the finishing remains more theoretical than impactful, which, combined with her in-between game still being limited to a floater, reduces her ability to consistently direct productive offense at her height. The ability to handle pressure at the POA and create advantages at the level in PnR has continued to develop the way you’d expect for someone in their age-19/20 season, and the floor game has been excellent since she first popped in 2022.
But that’s just the foundation of a good point guard. The shot needs to make a leap and she has to be able to actually threaten at the rim, while her live-dribble passing velocity needs to improve. It would also help if Martín learned any sort of POA footwork or ball screen navigation, because right now she is good at pressuring ball-handlers, but if they can handle that, then she usually ends up completely out of the play.
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