WNBA Draft 2026 winners and losers, including Storm, Sky, Tempo, and Valkyries

The 2026 WNBA Draft had uncertainty at the top until the last moment. The Dallas Wings could have gone in different directions with the first overall pick, but the team ultimately decided to reunite former UConn teammates Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd in the backcourt. Fudd’s No. 1 pick from Dallas set the tone for the rest of the draft, which included several big surprises throughout the first round.

Find a Full recap of every pick made during the 2026 WNBA Draft here. Now let’s dive into some winners and losers of the night.

Yes, you need a couple of years at minimum before you can really judge a team’s performance in the draft. So why do this exercise? It’s a fun way to see what we were thinking immediately after the draft. Teams make mistakes all the time and so do writers. Feel free to go back to the future to see what we did right and where we went wrong.

Awa Fam was the best prospect in the class and I thought he should have been the Wings’ pick at No. 1 overall over Fudd. Seattle got her with the No. 3 pick, which is just a great deal. The Storm weren’t done: They also made a shocking trade for former LSU star Flau’Jae Johnson. Seattle landed the two best athletes in the draft, and that arguably gives them the best young core in the league going forward.

Fam, a 6’4 Spanish giant, is everything the league expects from a modern forward player with a tremendous combination of height and mobility. He should thrive as a pick-and-roll target offensively and have defensive coverage versatility. Fam joins Seattle’s first-round pick last year, French great Dominique Malonga, to form the league’s scariest young forward. Malonga has been blessed with world-class height (7’1 wingspan) and athleticism, and already proved to be a productive player in the W at just 20 years old last season. Fam and Malonga is simply an unfair combination if they both reach their ceiling. Adding Johnson to the wing, where he can block defensively, thrive in transition, and knock down some open 3-pointers, makes the entire package even more appealing.

The Storm will need a couple of years before the two young bigs really hit their stride, but the upside here is scary.

It’s not that Gabriela Jáquez is a bad player. She was one of my favorite role players in this class because of her Swiss Army Knife motor skill on the wing. It’s just that Jaquez felt more like a late first-round pick than a top-five pick, and Chicago left better players on the board by taking her No. 5 overall.

It felt like the Sky was poised to adapt rather than rise. It’s a strange move for a team that has gone a combined 23-61 the past two years. General manager Jeff Pagliocca has a reputation for making short-sighted decisions that jeopardize the team’s future to try to save his job, and he did it again. The Sky signed Skylar Diggins in free agency, traded for Jacy Sheldon and also have Courtney Vandersloot, so maybe that’s why they passed on senior guard Kiki Rice at No. 5 overall. Well, Diggins is 35, Vandersloot is 37 and the Sky simply aren’t good enough to pass up Rice’s long-term upside for a player who fits better in the current lineup right now in Jaquez.

My main issue with Jaquez is that she operated with such low usage at UCLA with only an 18 percent usage rate. Drafting low-usage college players is always a risky move, even if teams project them for similar roles in the pros. It is always easier to reduce than increase. Jaquez also had almost as many turnovers (70) as assists (78) this season with the Bruins. Her outside shooting development was encouraging, but she doesn’t have anywhere near the same track record as a shooter as someone like Sonia Citron, who Pagliocca foolishly traded for draft rights to last season.

Jaquez will likely be a solid role player, but Sky needed to look for more than that without a true franchise player on the roster. I think they’ll regret leaving Rice.

The Bruins won the women’s college basketball national championship and then saw six players be chosen among the top 18 picks in this draft, including four of the first nine picks. That’s a great recruiting pitch in the future. Head coach Cori Close is developing a power program in Los Angeles.

Do you want to get the steal of the draft? All you have to do is choose behind the Chicago sky. Kiki Rice’s drop to No. 6 is almost unfathomable. The former No. 1 overall recruit took a few years to develop her outside shot, but this season she looked like the player she was promised she would be out of high school. Rice is more of a combo guard than a pure point guard, but still combines a fantastic first step with advanced driving ability and an understanding of how to get to the cup and finish. His shooting touch is developing nicely: He made 90 percent of his free throws and 38.5 percent of his 3-pointers this season, a big improvement from the 21 percent three-point shooting he showed as a freshman.

While the other expansion team, the Portland Fire, is playing the long game in its first season, Toronto could be pretty good right away. Marina Mabrey was a good pick in the expansion draft and will be a good starter from day one, and signing Brittney Sykes in free agency was an inspired move. Isabelle Harrison and Nyara Sabally are a solid, veteran forward. Rice feels she could be one of the top three players to come out of this draft in five years, giving Toronto a future face of the franchise if they can continue to develop her.

Winner: The Mystics selected Lauren Betts

There has been some criticism of Washington’s other picks in the 2026 draft, but it doesn’t really matter if Betts is as good as I think she can be. The 6’7 center was absolutely dominant in the post during UCLA’s national championship run, and She has a multi-year history of being an on-again, off-again monster.. I know that nowadays everyone wants bigger mobiles with floor space potential, but there is still no substitute for a physically dominant large interior with a soft touch. Betts and Sonia Citron will be an excellent combination. Yes, the Mystics need to add a lot more shooting. Yeah, it’s strange that they didn’t try to shoot with any of their other picks. I just think Betts is a home run at No. 4 overall, and Washington will have a long runway to surround her with better-fitting pieces.

Loser: Valkyries of the Golden State

I just don’t understand the value behind the Flae’Jae Johnson trade. Golden State said the trade was completed before the draft, which is fine, but it still seems like a bad value to me even without taking into account that Johnson was available. I would prefer to have the No. 8 overall pick than two second-round picks in the WNBA Draft. Historically, the talent in these drafts tends to decline after the start of the second round, and adding three expansion teams in the last two years will only detract from the late round. I was excited about Flae’Jae Johnson on the Valkyries after his incredible debut season last year. It just wasn’t meant to be that way.

The Minnesota Lynx had the best record in the WNBA last year at 34-10, but their dream season came crashing down in the playoffs against the Phoenix Mercury when Napheesa Collier suffered an ankle injury. The Lynx received the second overall pick thanks to a pick swap with the Sky from the original Angel Reese trade, and they used it to add an elite point guard prospect in Miles. The 5’10 ball handler left Notre Dame for TCU for her senior season and put up fantastic overall numbers with a 36.4 percent assist rate, excellent rim finishing and 35 percent three-point shooting. Miles is very quick off the dribble and made 62 percent of her shots at the rim and only 17 percent of them were assisted. She is also very good at getting into passing lanes on defense.

It’s not often that an elite team adds a top prospect with a top pick, but the Lynx did it. This remains one of the best managed franchises in W.