WNBA Draft: Tourney Stars Face Tough Choices Amid CBA Uncertainty

With all eyes focused on the women’s Final Four in Tampa this weekend, it’s easy to forget some of the NCAA’s top stars will turn pro in just two weeks. The 2025 WNBA draft is April 14, eight days after the national championship game.

The WNBA’s draft eligibility rules indicate that domestic players must be 22 years old in the year of the draft to declare. This means that, generally, college players would finish their four years of eligibility and then enter the draft, as is the case for projected 2025 first-round picks Kiki Iriafen and Aneesah Morrow. 

But there are several exceptions. Some players turn 22 in their junior year and could return to college, while others may have an extra year of eligibility after missing a season due to injury, or have gained a waiver during the pandemic-hampered 2020 season.

Draft Uncertainty

This year’s WNBA draft is particularly fascinating—not only because it follows a seminal season for the league in terms of viewership and attendance—but because it’s the last draft under the league’s current collective bargaining agreement. The Women’s National Basketball Players Association opted out of the current CBA in October.

Players are expected to ask for significant salary increases in the next CBA. Next season, the minimum salary for a WNBA player is $66,079, per Spotrac, while the max is only about $250,000. The expected salary increase in 2026 is why every single WNBA player who is not on a rookie contract will be a free agent next offseason.

While it’s possible the CBA negotiations include an adjustment for players under contract, there is no assurance. That could be a deciding factor in NCAA prospects returning to college instead of going to the WNBA and locking into a multi-year rookie deal in 2025.

There have already been indications that the WNBPA would be willing to reach a work stoppage with the WNBA if both sides can’t agree on a new CBA. “No one wants a lockout, but I think we have to stand firm in what we think we deserve,” Napheesa Collier, VP of the WNBPA, said last week on ESPN’s First Take.

Who’s Going Pro?

Here’s the status of some of the most prominent NCAA prospects who have the option to return to college:

• Lauren Betts, UCLA: The Wooden Award candidate said in February that she will return to the Bruins next year for her senior season. 
• Paige Bueckers, UConn: The projected No. 1 overall pick will enter this year’s WNBA draft, ESPN’s Rebecca Lobo reported Friday. She had a sixth year of college eligibility due to a combination of the COVID-19 waiver and missing the 2022–2023 season with a torn ACL.
• Azzi Fudd, UConn: Bueckers’s teammate announced last week that she will play for the Huskies next season. She missed all of last season due to a torn ACL and meniscus.
• Flau’Jae Johnson, LSU: Like Betts, Johnson is only a junior, but can declare for this year’s draft because she turns 22 in November. Following the Tigers’ loss Sunday in the Elite Eight, Johnson, who won a national title with LSU in 2023 alongside Angel Reese, said she has yet to make a decision on her future.
• Olivia Miles, Notre Dame: Miles, who missed last season due to a torn ACL, was the projected No. 2 pick if she opted for the draft. ESPN reported Monday night that she’s hitting the transfer portal instead.