June 23, 2024 at 10:00 AM ET
A’ja Wilson swept the National Player of the Year awards as a senior. The South Carolina Gamecocks star won an NCAA championship as a junior.
But the No. 1 pick in the 2018 WNBA Draft found herself completely unprepared for her rookie season with the Minnesota Lynx, where she faced off against two of the league’s best rebounders of all time.
“Watching these guys win championships together, I was the rookie Aja hoping to get past Rebecca Brunson and Sylvia Fowles and get the rebound. I felt like they were playing a pinball machine and I was bouncing around between them,” the Las Vegas Aces’ Wilson said with a laugh. “Sharing the court with these Hall of Famers was a ‘welcome to the league’ moment, for better or worse.”
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Much of the 2024 WNBA season has been focused on welcoming one of the most anticipated rookie classes in the league’s history. Led by No. 1 pick Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever, this year’s rookies entered their first season with unprecedented attention and high expectations. Clark and the Fever initially stumbled at 1-8, but are now 6-10 and she leads all rookies in points, assists and minutes played.
Chicago Sky’s Angel Reese has also been getting a lot of attention. She was selected seventh overall because WNBA coaches and general managers were unsure how her game would translate to the pro league, but she has proven herself a Sky favorite so far, ranking first among rookies in rebounds and steals.
Ahead of the Fever-Sky matchup for the third time this season on Sunday (4 p.m. ET, ESPN), we spoke to some of the WNBA’s top rookies of all time — all No. 1 picks — about the ups and downs of their first seasons and the moment they knew they could make it.
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Kaitlyn Clark gets smashed on screen by Breanna Stewart
An unsuspecting Kaitlyn Clark lunged at a hard screen from Breanna Stewart, sending Clark to the floor for a moment.
What was the hardest adjustment to make as a rookie?
New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart won four consecutive NCAA titles at the University of Connecticut and went 151-5 in her collegiate career. In her first WNBA season, 2016, the Seattle Storm went 16-18.
Stewart: “I didn’t lose that much in college, but now I’m losing so much. It’s also a matter of physical fitness. Everyone is bigger, faster and stronger than me, and you know you’re going up against one of the best players in the world every night.”
Wilson, a two-time MVP who led Las Vegas to consecutive WNBA championships, was the Aces’ No. 1 overall pick for the second straight year. The Aces moved from San Antonio to Las Vegas prior to Wilson’s first season with the team, after Wilson had helped her hometown school win its first NCAA title at South Carolina and was looking to establish herself in a new home after missing the playoffs the previous three seasons.
Wilson: “The games go by so quickly. There’s no time to linger. I didn’t have the best season my rookie year, but I didn’t even have time to think about it because I was moving on to the next game. Just the pace of the schedule was just eye-opening.”
“And then I’m competing against grown women who have been training for months to do this, and I’m just a college graduate.”
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Storm guard Nneka Ogwumike played in the Women’s Final Four in all four seasons while at Stanford University. Her pro career began in 2012 with the Los Angeles Sparks, about 360 miles to the south.
Ogwumike: “The speed, the strength. Playing every other day. Traveling. Everything. Very little is the same from the collegiate level. It’s also important to be responsible and disciplined as a player because no one tells you what to do. You’re a professional, so you have to behave like a professional.”
Jewell Loyd was eligible for the draft as a junior and chose to leave Notre Dame after his junior season in 2015. Seattle’s teams won championships in 2004 and 2010 but missed the playoffs the year before Loyd joined the team.
Lloyd: “When you’re a high scorer in college, it’s easy; [whose] Your job is to not score.”
Jackie Young was also eligible for the draft as a junior and chose to leave Notre Dame after her junior year. In 2019, she became the Aces’ third consecutive No. 1 pick, joining Kelsey Plum and Wilson.
Young: “I was playing point guard, which is not my natural position, so I had to step into a new role and basically run the team out of my natural position. That was definitely tough for me.”
“When you’re a high-level scorer in college, it’s easy. When you come here and get into the league, there are people whose job it is to stop you from scoring,” Jewell Loyd said.
Sabrina Ionescu’s first season in New York was extremely short, ending with an ankle injury in the third game of 2020. Even in that short stint, and then her first full season in 2021, she realized just how different things have become.
Ionescu: “Probably the biggest thing was the physicality and the game IQ. Guys have been playing for a really long time, and there’s a big age difference. I’m not surprised by anybody with what I can do. I was getting picked off by some of the best defenders in the league, double-teamed, picked off all over the court. It wasn’t as easy to just deal with and get through it like it was in college.”
Aliyah Boston won a national championship at the University of South Carolina and went to two more Final Fours. In 2023, she joined a Fever team that hadn’t been to the playoffs since 2016.
Boston: “I think it’s just patience, being patient with yourself. I think that’s been the hardest part. You go in with expectations for yourself and your team, so if they don’t come out exactly, you want them to come out right now. Not everything’s going to come out perfectly in Game 1, so it’s just a matter of being able to figure that out.”
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2:07
Breanna Stewart talks about WNBA rookie experience with McAfee
Breanna Stewart explains to Pat McAfee the adjustment period for rookies from college to the WNBA.
What was your “welcome to the WNBA” moment?
Wilson wasn’t the only player to cite playing against the Lynx dynasty as a big influence in her first season, with Minnesota winning four championships and two WNBA Finals appearances from 2011-2017.
Lloyd: “I have to protect Maya. [Moore] and Seimone [Augustus]That was when Minnesota was the next level. I had to learn how to defend and it was an experience to learn how hard it is to score and defend in this league. Anytime we played against Minnesota, it was tough.”
Ogwumike recalled the first time the two teams met in 2012, when the Indiana Fever tried to stop another legend who scored 27 points against the Sparks.
Ogwumike: “Definitely guarding Tamika Catchings. I’m a rookie so I knew I had to guard her and I just accepted the role.”
The 6-foot-tall Young recalled a different kind of “bump” — a physical one as he ran into a screen set by 6-foot-9 Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner.
Young: “It’s like, ‘Watch out for those!’ I don’t remember if anybody called it that… but when you’re a rookie, you don’t hear it that much, because there’s so much going on and you’re trying to do everything right.”
When did you feel like things were going well?
Young and Rhyne Howard, the Atlanta Dream’s top pick in 2022, said they never doubted things would work out, even with the challenges they faced as rookies.
Young: “I think I knew it a long time ago, just because of my work ethic and my willingness to learn and improve every year. When I came into the league, I was a really good mid-range shot, and then when I finally branched out to the three-point shot and was able to make it consistently, that’s when it really changed for me.”
Howard: “I think after training camp I felt good. After the first game, maybe I just played against guys that weren’t my teammates. But after that, I think my coaches and teammates held me to a certain standard from the get-go, and that set me up for success.”
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Ogwumike, Ionescu and Boston were more self-critical. Ogwumike was the MVP and WNBA champion in 2016 and knows she is one of the greats, but it took her a while to gain that confidence. Ionescu gained confidence last season after winning the Commissioner’s Cup Final and reaching the WNBA Finals. Boston is still building her confidence in her second year in the WNBA.
Ogwumike: “Probably for the length of his rookie contract, which is about three or four years.”
Ionescu: “It was tough because I was still battling the injury. [in 2021] And there have been so many hurdles to overcome. I don’t know what was due to injuries, what was just… the level of attention I was getting.
“Right now I’m very happy because I’ve been through so much already that nothing is surprising to me. I know the level I have to strive to maintain in order to get through the good and bad times.”
Boston: “It’s hard for me because I just want success and I really want it. I’m trying to understand that I need to be more lenient with myself, but I don’t know if I can really do that. But I think that’s what makes the top elite guys so great. It’s that competitive spirit that’s in us.”
“Everyone is bigger, faster, stronger, and I’m playing against some of the best players in the world every night.” Breanna Stewart on adjusting to the WNBA as a rookie
Stewart went from winning an NCAA title at the University of Connecticut to the long-distance move to Seattle, the Rio de Janeiro Olympics and the WNBA playoffs in the space of just a few months. In some ways, the fact that she had little time to think worked to her advantage.
Stewart: “As we go through the games, I don’t know if there’s a specific number, but between the games and the practices, [it being an] In an Olympic year, things move really fast. [I was] I just accept it calmly.”
Wilson doesn’t remember it as an “aha!” moment, but rather as a growing realization that he could succeed, which became apparent after he played in the 2018 All-Star Game as a rookie.
Wilson: “It was awe-inspiring, playing against guys that I looked up to and watched on TV and now I’m on TV with them. But after the All-Star game, it settled for me. I was like, ‘This is my job. I’ve got to come to work just like them and be myself.’ That’s when I started to grow.”
Lloyd credits Storm veterans like Sue Bird for helping her transition to the WNBA.
Lloyd: “I was pretty spoiled because they had some really good veterans coming in. I feel like I started to figure out what I wanted to do by the second half of my rookie season. I made sure I surrounded myself with the best team on and off the court to make sure I was in the best situation and not get overwhelmed.”
What advice would you give to newbies?
Stewart has won two WNBA titles, two MVP awards and will be playing in her third Olympic Games as a member of Team USA.
Stewart: “Continue to learn from every moment. It’s not always going to go your way and some days will be better than others, but make sure you follow what your veterans say and continue to learn from everything that’s going on.”
Ace guard Kelsey Plum was the No. 1 draft pick in 2017 when the franchise was still in San Antonio, but struggled in her first year with a team that seemed to lose its direction. It was hard not to let that affect how she viewed herself as a young player. The two-time WNBA champion and second-time Olympic athlete wants the rookies to know that they can get better with time.
Plum: “It felt like quicksand. I wondered when I would see the light at the end of the tunnel. I remember thinking, ‘Maybe this isn’t for me.’ I wished someone would just come and hold me. That’s exactly what I needed – strength, encouragement, love.”
“I went from college to the pros and people don’t know how amazing the WNBA is. I didn’t know how amazing the WNBA was at the time. I could barely breathe, and before I could breathe, I felt like I was underwater again. But without that experience, I wouldn’t be the player I am today. My style of play, my tenacity, my drive. That experience shaped who I am today.”
ESPN’s Kevin Pelton and Alexa Filippou contributed to this report.