To ensure that a WNBA prospect to declare for the draft, the participant has to graduate school or flip 22 years previous in the identical calendar yr because the draft. This has restricted ladies’s school basketball gamers for years as they typically can not declare for the WNBA draft till their senior seasons.
USC star and sophomore JuJu Watkins was requested about this controversial subject whereas showing on Good Game With Sarah Spain alongside her coach Lindsay Gottlieb this week. Watkins sees each side of the scenario, the place some folks need the draft age to be lowered and others need it to remain the identical due to the ever-growing school basketball panorama and NIL alternatives.
“I wish to say personally I’m having fun with my expertise, Coach [Gottlieb],” Watkins mentioned. “I undoubtedly assume we must always have the choice. There’s simply been such a progress in school basketball the place it is like, why would you wish to depart? Since you’re in a position to have that have and construct your model right here in school as nicely. I’d undoubtedly say we must always have the choice however I believe school is a method to put together us for the professionals as nicely. So, I do not know. It is a sensitive topic, however I am for it.”
Gottlieb adopted up Watkins’s reply by explaining how the monetary advantages in school basketball now with NIL offers would assist many gamers nonetheless stay in school and never declare early if given the choice. She used Caitlin Clark for example.
“When you have a look at somebody like Caitlin Clark, the platform of girls’s school basketball stays larger, the eyes on the sport stay larger,” Gottlieb mentioned. “So the offers that she will get coming into the W and the monetary energy she has is bigger due to the platform she had these final two years in school. If she had left after her sophomore yr, she would have been prepared, basketball smart, however she would not have introduced what she brings.”
Along with turning 22 years previous in the identical yr because the draft, gamers may also declare earlier by graduating school in three years.
If the draft rule have been to vary, it is seemingly Watkins might’ve been declaring for the 2025 draft. As a substitute, she will not be eligible till 2027. She has the chance to continue to grow her platform on the school stage whereas additionally nonetheless enhancing her basketball recreation.
