Winners and losers of the 2022 WNBA Draft

The WNBA Draft provided plenty of surprises and a serious infusion of talent. Which teams and players found the best fits on draft night?

The 2022 WNBA Draft was held on Monday, with the Atlanta Dream using the No. 1 pick on Kentucky wing Rhyne Howard. The first three picks went exactly as most analysts predicted, with Baylor’s NaLyssa Smith going second to Indiana and Ole Miss’ Shakira Austin third to Washington.

Things began to diverge from expectations after that. There were some surprising picks during the first round, while a few players who were projected to go in the first round dropped to the later rounds.

With the draft behind us, let’s take a look at some winners and losers from Monday’s event.

WNBA Draft Winner: Rhyne Howard

Howard’s name has been penciled in as the 2022 No. 1 pick since…I don’t know, maybe halfway through her freshman year at Kentucky? It’s hard to find a wing who has the skills to be an elite offensive weapon who can score from anywhere and run the offense, but Howard is that player.

And after it looked for months like she’d wind up coming off the bench in Washington, a trade last week gave the Atlanta Dream the No. 1 pick. Now, Howard will get to start for an Atlanta team that’s rebuilding, but also has enough pieces that you can already sense the rebuild won’t take too long.

Winner: Baylor Bigs

NaLyssa Smith went second to Indiana. She should instantly start at the 4 and gives the Fever a high-energy player who can run the floor in transition and defend multiple positions. Smith has some nice shooting touch for a big and should continue to develop that as her career progresses. She has as high a ceiling as anyone in this draft class. Smith’s been a consensus top-two pick all year, so no surprise here.

What was a surprise was her college teammate Queen Egbo going in the first round as well. Egbo was a first-round pick in some of ESPN’s mock drafts over the course of the season, but virtually no one else was as high on her. She was a good defensive big in college who tended to get into foul trouble. You can see the makings of a backup WNBA big here.

Winner…Sort of?: Indiana Fever

The Fever made the no-brainer choice at No. 2 with Smith. At No. 4, they took Louisville’s Emily Engstler, who projects to be a really nice 3-and-D wing. She shot 37.2 percent from 3 this past season, the second year in a row that she shot that well from deep.

Then, the Fever went a little off the board. Stanford’s Lexie Hull was their pick at No. 6, a bit of a perplexing move since Hull was viewed as a mid-to-late second-rounder. Then they took Egbo 10th. By this point, Twitter was starting to sour on the Fever draft, which makes sense — in recent years, Indiana hasn’t done a good job drafting, and these picks were a throwback to that era.

But the Fever redeemed themselves later. At No. 20, they took South Carolina point guard Destanni Henderson. She’s undersized, but she can shoot and defend. You wish she could finish better inside the arc, but for a late second-rounder, she’s a steal. Then to open the third round, the team took Jackson State’s Ameshya Williams-Holiday, the first HBCU player taken in the draft in 20 years. Williams-Holiday will face a tough road to making the roster, but she’s a strong defender who averaged 2.7 blocks and 1.1 steals per game while grabbing 11.4 rebounds per contest. She was 15th in the country in offensive boards per game.

Loser: Sika Koné

The Malian prospect was projected to be a first-round pick by virtually everyone, but she dropped all the way down to 29, where the Liberty took her. I like the fit, in theory, but New York doesn’t really have the room for Koné right now. An athletic big who definitely has things to refine, Koné dropping this far seems to suggest that WNBA teams view her as even more of a project than the media did. And in a league where every team seems to be perpetually in win-now mode, there’s just no room for Koné at this stage. Maybe she’ll show up on the Liberty roster in a year or two and will contribute. Maybe she’ll end up like Han Xu, who played one year for New York and since then has been an afterthought.

Loser: International Players

Koné is really just one example of what was a bad draft for international players. Nyara Sabally went fifth, but she played in college at Oregon, so I don’t really count her as an international player. In terms of players who didn’t play college ball in the U.S., Koné was the first one taken at pick 29, while Jade Melbourne — whose name had been discussed at various times as someone who could go early in the second — went at pick 33 to the Storm.

Winner: Las Vegas Aces

The more I look back on it, the more I love what the Aces did.

Mya Hollingshed felt like a reach at first, but digging into her numbers, she’s someone who can score at multiple levels and can give the Aces a nice stretchy big who can give them some interesting lineup options. A’ja Wilson at the 5 sometimes, with either Dearica Hamby or Hollingshed beside her? Sign me up.

The team then got a steal with Kierstan Bell, who I had fourth on my draft board. She’s a big wing who can create and should excel in a lower-usage role in the W, especially if Vegas plays her more at the 3, which they should be able to based on roster construction.

The Aces also added Khayla Pointer, Aisha Sheppard and Faustine Aifuwa. Aifuwa is a surprise, but the other two should compete for roster spots.

Loser: UConn

The UConn Huskies spent two decades as THE team in women’s college basketball. So when none of their three draftees went in the first round this year, that was definitely going to raise some eyebrows. To be fair to the Huskies, all three players went in the second round, but this is now two drafts in a row without a UConn first-rounder.

In terms of landing spots, Christyn Williams has a good shot to make the Mystics roster as a backup point guard, while Olivia Nelson-Ododa joins a crowded Sparks frontcourt. Evina Westbrook winds up in Seattle, where I’m not sure there will be much room for her.

Winner: New York Liberty

The Liberty came into this draft needing frontcourt help after changing coaches this offseason and presumably putting the Walt Hopkins-era offense — which was essentially just full-time small ball — behind them. They left the draft with one of the most intriguing prospects in Nyara Sabally, who spent a lot of her career injured but is a skilled post big when healthy, and then traded for Lorela Cubaj after she was taken in the second round by Seattle. Cubaj has to work on her finishing, but she’s a really good passing big who can be dangerous in the short roll. She’s also going to provide a nice boost to this defense, provided she makes the roster.

The team also added Sika Koné, as I mentioned above. A really good bet on the future there. Hopefully, we’ll see her in a New York uniform in a couple of years.