Paige Bueckers is the clear top prospect in the 2025 WNBA Draft. But with the selections wide open behind her, we’re identifying who our model likes as the other top players.
There’s no rest for women’s basketball players transitioning from the NCAA to the WNBA.
Paige Bueckers won a national championship in her final NCAA Tournament game on April 6 and will find out where she starts her WNBA journey on April 14. The 2025 WNBA regular season is scheduled to begin just over a month later on May 16.
For Bueckers, there isn’t much suspense as it’s widely assumed she’ll be taken first overall by the Dallas Wings. This is a divisive draft after her, though. There are a number of players with wide ranges on where they could be picked.
To help sort through the noise, we’ve used DRIP to help develop a draft model that projects the WNBA careers of the top prospects who played NCAA basketball. Keep in mind this excludes anyone who only played internationally (like Dominique Malonga, who may go as high as second).
Generally speaking, the goal of the draft is to get players who are the best in their prime, so we ranked them by their projected DRIP at the end of their fourth WNBA season, which is when a standard rookie contract expires. This gives players who will need more developmental time to catch up to players who come into the league more ready to contribute.
We’ve also compared players in this draft to players who have been drafted previously by the similarity of their statistical profile. Note the comparisons are of college career statistics, not what these players turned out to be in the pros.
The comparisons take into account both similarity and impact at the collegiate level. There is a comp of a player in this draft to A’ja Wilson. Instead of assuming the model projects that player to be as good as Wilson, think about how that player is a productive scorer with versatility on both ends who had a significant impact on her team in college.
Here are the 10 best college players in this year’s draft according to our model, along with their top three player comparisons (Comp 1 is the closest):
No surprise at the top with Paige Bueckers leading the way. She has some lofty comparisons (if you forgot how good Odyssey Sims was, go back and look at her college stats), but there aren’t many players who compare to Bueckers in terms of production in college.
The big questions for Bueckers are injury concerns and whether she can be as productive at the WNBA level as someone like Clark or Ionescu when she was a medium-volume 3-point shooter who got to the foul line at an average rate. But these are nitpicks and Bueckers is clearly the best prospect in this draft.
Aneesah Morrow might be a surprise as the second-best prospect according to the model, but she was incredibly productive and put up incredible rebounding numbers.
The 6-foot-1 Morrow’s lack of outside shooting is a concern, but she has length, athleticism and a motor very few can match. She’s shorter than her player comps: Chiney Ogwumike (6-4), Diamond Miller (6-3) and Aliyah Boston (6-5). Can she be impactful as a non-shooter at that height?
Hailey Van Lith had an impressive rebound season at TCU, and showed she can be really effective with the ball in her hands. DRIP projects her as the best offensive player in the class other than Bueckers, but she likely won’t have the ball as much in the WNBA to start her career. Can she elevate her off-ball game?
JJ Quinerly is seen as more of a second-round pick because she’s a 5-8 shooting guard, but the model loves her production as a 20.4 points-per-game scorer as a senior at West Virginia. She didn’t shoot it well on 3-pointers (31.4% as a senior), but her free throw percentage (82.9% as a senior) suggests there could be untapped potential there.
On to the A’ja Wilson comparison! Notre Dame product Sonia Citron isn’t in Wilson’s league as a scorer and likely won’t be winning any MVPs, but her defensive versatility will be a boon to any team that drafts her, and she’s flashed as a three-level scorer, which gives her a high floor and ceiling. The Wilson comp is based more on her value as a player in college than in how they play, as Citron and Wilson play different positions but had similar offensive and defensive DRIP scores during their college careers. Citron could go as early as the second pick (which was acquired by the Seattle Storm in the three-team trade that sent Kelsey Plum to the Los Angeles Sparks and Jewell Lloyd to the Las Vegas Aces) and is likely to see her name called in the top five.
Traditional centers can grade higher on models than WNBA teams’ draft boards due to scoring efficiency but lack of flexibility, and Sedona Prince fits that description. She has a wide range of outcomes but could go late in the first round to a team in need of a center and is fine playing a drop defense.
Teams are always looking for the steal of the draft and that could be Harmoni Turner this year. Turner might end up undrafted, but the model loves her scoring ability. Turner was one of only three players in Division I this past season to make at least 2.5 3-pointers and 3.5 free throws per game. She shot only 35.6% on 3s but had a high degree of difficulty with a lot of self-created step backs. That percentage will likely go up with less of an offensive burden. She’s also showcased finesse when finishing on her drives to complement her quick first step, making her a true 3-level scorer.
Sania Feagin only averaged 8.1 points per game, but was extremely efficient, with an effective field goal percentage of 60.6. The model projects her as a good defender at the next level, following a long line of South Carolina bigs.
Defensive versatility is really important for wings in the WNBA, and that will likely get Saniya Rivers drafted in the first round. The 6-1 Rivers has great athleticism and is capable of guarding any perimeter threat thrown at her. A team in need of a defensive skeleton key will be glad to have her. She doesn’t project as a great shooter, but there aren’t a lot of players in this class that can play big minutes and shoot at a high level, so taking one with elite upside on the other side of the ball later in the first round makes sense.
Rayah Marshall rounds out the top 10 as another player who projects better on the defensive end. She offers plenty of size (6-4) and can guard on the perimeter and interior well enough to have some defensive versatility, but likely won’t be much of an offensive factor.
One name you’ll notice missing from the top 10 is Kiki Iriafen, who might go in the top five of this draft but isn’t rated highly by our model. Iriafen stepped up with 36 points when JuJu Watkins suffered a torn ACL in USC’s NCAA Tournament win over Mississippi State. She projects as a solid offensive player, but her defense is rated much lower as a tweener who doesn’t generate a ton of steals of blocks (below one per game on both).
Overall, this class doesn’t have the depth of the 2024 class, which had Angel Reese still available with the seventh pick. But with Bueckers offering star power, a lot of intriguing options behind her, and an expansion team participating in its first draft in the Golden State Valkyries (No. 5 pick), the WNBA Draft will be appointment television on April 14.
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2025 WNBA Draft Rankings: Who Are the Best Players Behind Paige Bueckers? Opta Analyst.
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