2025 Valkyries draft prospects, a series
whom to watch in college and overseas basketball
2025 DRAFT DAY
GSV GM Ohemaa Nyanin on upcoming draft; GSV Draft Party details; WNBA invitees to Draft night (the draft day thread)
Valkyries and WNBA Upcoming Dates
2025-01-11 Restricted Free Agency qualifying offers deadline
2025-01-21 Restricted Free Agents can negotiate with other teams
2025-02-01 WNBA Free Agency begins
2025-04-14 WNBA Draft
2025-05-16 Regular Season Starts
Latest Draft Overviews
(Apr 11 2025) GSV GM Ohemaa Nyanin on upcoming draft; GSV Draft Party details; WNBA invitees to Draft night
(Apr 7 2025) 2025 Valkyries draft preview; how to watch on Apr 14, 4:30p Pacific.
No consensus in mocks; predictions of Kiki Iriafen, Dominique Malonga, Aneesah Morrow, Shyanne Sellers, Justė Jocytė
Prospect Reviews
Kiki Iriafen or ultra-hyped Juste Jocyte?, a pre-March Madness updateGSV draft prospects 1, 2 & 3: Paige Bueckers, Kiki Iriafen, Olivia Miles. Probably out of reach.
GSV draft prospects 8 & 9: Dominique Malonga and Sonia Citron
GSV draft prospects 10 & 11: Georgia Amoore and Shyanne Sellers
Updated Draft Overview, Mar 17 2025
Original Overview, Dec 19 2024
Whom should GSV select at #5?
Below is a (sortable, searchable) roundup of WNBA Mock Drafts.
Naturally the draft is very unpredictable and these rankings will change dramatically over the next few months. There are definite clusters though.
Out of Reach (Consensus Top 3)
These three are super unlikely to fall to GSV.
Paige Bueckers
Kiki Iriafen
Olivia Miles
The Next 10 Prospects by Median Ranking
These next ten have varying rankings but do form a cluster.
Lauren Betts
Aneesah Morrow
Azzi Fudd
Sedona Prince
Dominique Malonga
Sonia Citron
Georgia Amoore
Shyanne Sellers
Te-Hina Paopao
Ajsa Sivka
Therefore, as a first pass, we are going to do a series reviewing these contenders for the #5 pick. I’ll spread the series out to cover a couple of prospects every other day, but we’ll consolidate all the comments for the series here at this index post.
from the Athletic, "Will Paige Bueckers use her unprecedented leverage?":
"If Bueckers elects to leave UConn after this season, which has been her public stance, the primary tool at her disposal is demanding a trade from Dallas. Golden State seems like an ideal destination in terms of market size and organizational strength, plus the Valkyries are motivated to get a star quickly, though Bueckers is best suited to provide a list of suitors to encourage negotiations."
Hard to see an incoming rookie making a trade demand, but the note about how the new CBA gives her some pretty strong reasons to not want to be drafted this year (and locked into the current rookie scale for 4 years) was pretty interesting.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6004695/2024/12/19/uconn-paige-bueckers-wnba-draft-leverage/
Paige is outrageously good. Not on the level Clark was, I guess, because the 3pt volume and overall usage are just so unique and transformative for Caitlin… but PB's efficiency has been so consistently great that I personally think she belongs at the very top of the next tier. I’m not even going to entertain the fantasy of trading up—don’t want to risk getting my hopes up.