By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsgurux
NEW YORK – In journalistic parlance, 30 used to appear at the end of copy to tell editors after reports had been handed over to be read that no more existed.
But here in a second annual return to The Shed opposite The Vessel in Hudson Yards Monday night, the site of the WNBA draft, 30 stood for a new beginning, the start of a special anniversary season for the women’s pro league.
Following the settling last month of the CBA bringing millions of dollars into players salaries, a busy catch-up offseason of free agency kicked in, an expansion draft was held for the two newest teams in Toronto and Portland following last season’s successful launch of Golden State in San Francisco featuring sellouts for every home game.
And finally, the time arrived to welcome a rookie class unlike any before in terms of initial contracts.
To sum it up before diving in, UConn racked up another star player becoming the overall No. 1 pick, with Azzi Fudd taken by the Dallas Wings in a back-to-back move that has her reunited with Paige Bueckers, last season’s rookie of the year.
The Big East presence is also marked on the roster by Villanova grad Maddy Siegrist, the third overall pick of the 2003 draft and the Wings new coach is Jose Fernandez, who was hired at the start of the recently concluded NCAA season out of South Florida, which was in the Big East with UConn and for a time the American before the Huskies returned to their former longtime home.
“Excited,” Siegrist texted back when asked for a reaction to the new Dallas news that in the past week included the re-signing of former Notre Dame star Arike Ogunbowale.
Former Penn star Jordan Obi, who played her graduate year at Kentucky, went to the WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces, one of four Wildcats taken.
“Jordan is a versatile guard/forward whose skillset can translate into the WNBA,” said Las Vegas president and general manager Nikki Fargas. “She is a high motor player who gives maximum effort every night and sets the tone with her energy and hustle.”
The Aces also picked Tennessee’s Janiah Barker at 47th overall while Lady Vol Zoe Spearman went to Dallas at the top of the first, the two being the first picks out of the Kim Caldwell coaching era.
The SEC had 15 players picked, the most in any year from a conference breaking the previous mark of 14 set in 1999.
Just over a week after UCLA won its first NCAA national title in dominating style over South Carolina to add to the one in 1978 under the AIAW, the Bruins monopolized the night setting records with five first-round picks and six overall.
On two points, foreign affairs were among the order of the night with 11 international players taken who were not sent forth from American colleges while commissioner Cathy Engelbert in her pre-draft press session stated that next year the league plans to play either an exhibition or regular-season game overseas and grow from there.
Three foreigners went in the first round: Fam Thiam went to Seattle as No. 3 overall, the highest pick ever going to a Spaniard, Portland’s first-ever pick made Iyana Martin Carrion out of Spain the second from her country, and Connecticut’s 12th overall pick was the selection of French player Nell Agloma.
TCU’s Marta Suarez, orginally with Cal, went to Seattle in the second round and was then dealt to Golden State.
The rookies wore a variety of styles for their big night, Suarez the first player since former Australian star Liz Cambage, the second overall pick in 2011 by the Tulsa Shock, to wear a feathered boa.
Suarez, a Spaniard, spoke with pride of the number of ethnic peers taken, saying, “Incredibly excited for our country and the global game. The WNBA is growing, attracting talent from all over the world.”
Engelbert somewhat dodged a question about her own future, a query stemming from the contentious early phase of the bargaining until a marathon eight-day string of negotiations finally came to a successful conclusion bringing the league into a whole new stratosphere.
Engelbert said it would be nice to not undergo the same kind of stress when the time comes for the next CBA to be determined.
It was reported during the stretch drive of the CBA negotiations the players reclaimed their warmth for their commissioner.
At some point the seasonal structure will have to be tweaked off with the new deal allowing for as many as 50 games plus with the board of governors recently signing off on the return of Cleveland (2028), and Detroit (2029) under NBA owners, and the addition of Philadelphia in 2030 under the 76ers, something will have to be done with the growth along the way to 18 teams in terms of playoff format.
Additionally, next season, the Connecticut Sun will be moving to new ownership in Houston, which won the first four WNBA titles after the league launched in the summer of 1997.
Unlike Bueckers, whose rookie salary was much smaller coming into the league, Fudd is walking into a $500,000 windfall.
She is also walking into a notable achievement paired with her mom, Katie Smrcka-Duffy Fudd, becoming the second mother-daughter draftee combo, the mom taken in the fourth round of the 2001 draft by the Sacramento Monarchs, though she never played in a formal game.
Pam McGee, part of the twin sister combo with Paula who were part of two Southern Cal NCAA champions featuring the legendary Cheryl Miller, went second overall in the first draft by Sacramento in 1997, though that was conducted differently, and her daughter Imani McGee-Stafford went 10th in 2016 to the Chicago Sky.
Fudd was somewhat at a loss for words over the excitement of being picked first. “I’m not really sure I have words to describe that feeling, what that meant,” she said. “I don’t think it’s fully sunk in. It’s nothing I could have imagined. The feeling of sitting with my family, with (UConn assistant coach) Morgan (Valley), hearing your name called, go up there. Such a surreal feeling.”
Bueckers and several Huskies were here to support Fudd, who is now a record seventh UConn player going No. 1 overall.
“Paige is an incredible player, everyone knows that,” Fudd said. “She’s someone that makes playing basketball with easy.”
TCU’s Oliva Miles, a native of Phillipsburg, New Jersey, went to Notre Dame originally, and then last season as a senior, chose to avoid the draft and transferred as a graduate to the Horned Frogs, leading them to a second straight Elite Eight appearance, and now set to earn $466,913 as the second overall pick, going to Minnesota, while Spain’s Thiam will make $436,016.
“I’m just a Jersey girl,” Miles gushed in opening remarks before taking questions. “Deep breath that’s why I got emotional. It’s finally here finally heard my name. This is what this was for.”
The Associated Press noted players in the second and third rounds will earn $270,000 – more than the max in the previous CBA.
Until Monday night, UConn in 2002 set a record with four first-round picks.
But that was shattered by UCLA, which had three in a row go next, Lauren Betts, who some mock drafts had going No. 1, went to the Washington Mystics, Gabriela Jaquez, a Mexican, went to the Chicago Sky, while Kiki Rice as sixth overall became Toronto’s first-ever pick.
Betts will be going to Washington with teammate Angela Dugalic, who was picked by ninth by the Mystics while Gianna Kneepkens, originally with Utah, went to Connecticut as the last pick of the opening round.
New Zealander Charlisse Leger-Walker, originally with Washington State, became the sixth UCLA player in the draft when Connecticut selected her the third pick of the second round.
Betts said the haul shouldn’t be a surprise.
“These are like my sisters and getting to watch your family do something like that is amazing. But I mean, this team is just so special. We knew the type of players we had on the team, and to really just have this night really showcase all of the things that we’ve worked on all season is just amazing.”
UCLA coach Cori Close was with the Bruins delegation.
The seniors scored all the points in UCLA’s rout of the Gamecocks as the Bruins finished 37-1, the loss in early November to Texas, which they avenged in the semifinals on April 3 at the Mortgage Matchup Center.
“Yeah, these girls mean the most to me,” Kneepkens said. “And good thing we live in this day and age and we have phones. So hopefully we’ll keep in touch, and obviously we’ll see each other around.”
Tennessee in 1997 and 2008, Notre Dame in 2019, and South Carolina in 2023 all had five players picked in the draft, but not all in the first round, while the 39-0 UConn team saw four taken among the first six – Sue Bird first, Swin Cash second, Asjha Jones fourth, and and Tamika Williams sixth.
“It’s really hard to sum up because there’s so much,” Jaquez said of the whirlwind experience since claiming the NCAA crown in Phoenix. “I think that we’re just on a high right now. We just won the national championship. A lot of us have also graduated college, which is a huge step and something to be super proud of, especially at UCLA.
“And then we got to go to Jimmy Kimmel, a Laker game, Clipper game, dance, have the celebration at Pauley Pavilion.
“We went on ‘Good Morning America’ this morning. Obviously, a lot of us are here at the draft tonight being drafted. It’s just been a special moment.”
Rice noted, “We knew we all wanted to go to the WNBA. We all wanted to be pros, but that wasn’t the only focus during the season.
“It was winning, it was giving to each other, it was how can we be the best team possible. In the process of doing that, we still got the results that we wanted to at the end of the day, and that’s something that is really special.”
LSU’s Flau,jae Johnson, picked by Golden State eighth and then dealt to Seattle, said of arriving as the league becomes its wealthiest in terms of TV deals, viewership and attendance, “I’m just blessed and grateful to come at this time. The 30th season. My goal is to leave it better than I found it. It’s a gratitude thing, but also a responsibility thing. I’m taking that with full of force.”
South Carolina’s Raven Johnson went 10th to Indiana, re-uniting her with center Aliyah Boston, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2023 draft.
Indiana will play a preseason game against New York in Brooklyn on April 25th, one of several WNBA games that day, but this one marking the return of Caitlin Clark, who missed most of her second season with injuries.
Washington took Ole Miss’ Cotie McMahon, originally with Ohio State, 11th, South Carolina’s Madina Okot went 13th to Atlanta and Duke’s Taina Mair went 14th to Seattle.
A subtle warning in all this euphoria, however, emerged when it became apparent only one player, Davidson’s Charlisse Dunn, was taken from a mid-major school and she previously was at Power 4 Virginia Tech of the Atlantic Coast Conference and is a foreigner.
Baring changes in all the NIL/portal regulations, one can envision agents getting in the ears of talented mid-major players urging them to transfer to have a better shot at getting drafted.
Players who can blank out the noise might stay but it will be more of the exception.
If former Saint Joseph’s star Laura Ziegler, who transferred to Louisville, saw the move as a better chance to make the league, she was not taken, though if other things bearing fruit was motivating then she succeeded.
Richmond’s Maggie Doogan, the Atlantic 10 player of the year who spent her whole career with the Spiders, also was not taken.
But mid-major collegiate coaches with ties or friendships with those at WNBA team level might enable their top talent to sign training camp contracts to open a door.
Hall of Famer Becky Hammon, now coach of the three-time champion Las Vegas, made it as an undrafted signee with the New York Liberty.
The large influx of foreigners brings a pro experience already in place and the next closest are the Power 4 squads, though there are exceptions.
Perhaps the total backgrounds of this group was an aberration.
Time will tell, likely sooner than later.
