Would Paige Bueckers nonetheless be No. 1 if all school gamers had been WNBA Draft-eligible?

As Sarah Sturdy dominated the South Carolina frontcourt throughout UConn’s nationwide championship victory, gobbling up rebounds, defending the rim and scoring from in every single place on the courtroom, it was straightforward to think about her additionally doing so on the subsequent degree. WNBA executives needed to be drooling over the thought of drafting the subsequent Huskies star.

However they’ll have to attend one other three years. Below the collective bargaining settlement, which expires on the finish of the 2025 season, American-born gamers are eligible to be drafted after finishing 4 years of school. The one exception is that gamers can declare after their junior seasons in the event that they flip 22 throughout the calendar 12 months of the WNBA Draft. Since Sturdy has a February birthday, that received’t be an possibility.

As girls’s basketball booms, gamers have extra selections in shaping their careers, whether or not that’s in school through the switch portal or professionally with new leagues. Nonetheless, that is one choice that continues to be out of their management.

“I positively assume we must always have the choice,” USC star JuJu Watkins mentioned on the “Good Recreation with Sarah Spain” podcast. “There’s simply been such a development in school basketball, the place it’s like, why would you need to depart? Since you’re capable of have that have and construct your model right here in school as properly. I might say we must always positively have the choice, however I believe school is a solution to put together us for the professionals as properly. … It’s a sensitive topic, however I’m for it.”

Though a change to permit gamers to declare early is unlikely, sufficient underclassmen are tempting professional prospects proper now, headlined by Sturdy. Watkins, who has two remaining years of eligibility, could be a no brainer lottery choose, even with a torn ACL that will hold her sidelined for this upcoming WNBA season. Madison Booker of Texas has a WNBA physique and pull-up recreation, and her fellow SEC gamers Ashlyn Watkins (South Carolina) and Talaysia Cooper (Tennessee) additionally could possibly be pro-ready.

There’s a world the place JuJu Watkins decides to sit down out the upcoming season, utilizing each of her ultimate years of eligibility, and enters the 2028 WNBA Draft that options Sarah Sturdy.

In case you had been a GM with the No. 1 general choose, who would you select? pic.twitter.com/AUixhKz3oc

— I speak hoops 🏀 (@trendyhoopstars) April 11, 2025

The thought of the age restrict has traditionally benefited most events, even when it diminished particular person participant company. The WNBA is already the toughest league on the planet to make and earn a second contract in, and it doesn’t behoove the present participant pool so as to add extra opponents for the restricted roster spots.

Till lately, participant expertise was higher in school than within the WNBA. It usually didn’t make sense for athletes to sacrifice the power to earn a university diploma to pre-emptively be part of a league that didn’t pay that properly. Sure gamers however took benefit of the chance to go professional after three seasons, together with No. 1 picks Jewell Loyd and Jackie Younger. Satou Sabally, the No. 2 choose in 2020, cited funds as the explanation she left Oregon early, as she was in school earlier than athletes might earn a living.

Overseas-born athletes don’t need to cope with the identical age-related constraints as their American counterparts. Gamers born exterior the U.S. can declare for the draft the 12 months they flip 20, offered they don’t attend school within the NCAA system, presumably as a solution to incentivize expertise around the globe to play within the WNBA. These concessions have by no means been made for American gamers, who already develop up dreaming of enjoying within the league.

Now the WNBA has higher lodging, extra profitable salaries and the next profile, however school sports activities additionally supply cash from collectives and the power to revenue from NIL offers. Athletes are now not lacking out on their incomes potential by being denied early entry into the skilled ranks.

The league advantages from the age restrict as properly. Along with rookies being extra bodily suited to the professional recreation, the NCAA is a improbable advertising device for the WNBA. Gamers come into the league with 4 years of nationwide publicity and oodles of identify recognition. Although informal NBA followers battle to establish one-and-dones, most WNBA followers are intimately accustomed to the likes of Paige Bueckers, Aneesah Morrow and Hailey Van Lith earlier than they even play their first skilled recreation.

Consequently, despite the fact that a brand new CBA is being negotiated, don’t count on the age restrict to be some extent of rivalry.

“It has been talked about; I don’t assume it’s a excessive precedence,” Seattle Storm guard Lexie Brown mentioned on “The Ringer WNBA Present” final month. “Going out into the world at 18, 19 years outdated as a younger girl with no diploma to go play a sport with nonguaranteed contracts, it’s form of a recipe for catastrophe.”

There’s a cheap dialogue available about whether or not Bueckers could be the No. 1 choose if each participant in school this season had been draft-eligible. Sturdy’s general recreation, mixed along with her youth, in a league that also runs by means of the put up, makes her a tantalizing choice. Watkins’ prodigious talent and star energy put her in that hypothetical dialog as properly.

For now, this train stays theoretical. School basketball continues to be a extra in style product, and the WNBA can afford to stay unique and shut its doorways to youthful gamers with the entire expertise that already exists inside its ranks. The subset of gamers who might realistically make the bounce early is proscribed — too small to rewrite a complete algorithm for.

(Pictures of Madison Booker and Sarah Sturdy:  Alex Slitz / Getty Photographs, Joe Buglewicz / Getty Photographs)