It's always exciting to see young players be selected by WNBA teams on draft night, and all their hard work pay off. Yet, in the days after the draft, the adrenaline wanes and the reality sets in — a lot of the players who heard their name called at the draft won't make WNBA rosters.
Drafts in different sports work in different ways. In the NHL, draftees don't often come to their teams for a few years. In the NFL, someone drafted in the seventh round could end up being a star. The NWSL does not even hold a draft anymore, and every eligible player enters the league as a free agent. In the WNBA, there just are not enough roster spots to allow all 38 draftees this year to have a secure place in the league.
There aren't enough roster spots in the WNBA for every rookie to make a team
In the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, WNBA teams can have up to 12 players on their rosters for the season. Due to the salary cap, many teams will opt to instead have 11 players on their opening day rosters. Once the season starts and teams start experiencing injuries and other absences, they are allowed to sign players to hardship contracts if their number of healthy/available players dips below 10.
With 12 roster spots per team and 13 current WNBA teams, there will be 156 spots up for grabs ahead of the season. That's increased because of Golden State officially entering the league, but obviously 11-12 more spots in the league doesn't solve the problem overnight. It will help next season, when both Portland and the Toronto Tempo enter the league as well, but it's still not even to the number of players declaring for the draft every year.
Players drafted in the first round usually have a decent chance of making rosters, especially when you have players like Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers and other generationally talented players. As you get into the second round, some players will make it onto rosters, but it more depends on the situation of the team they got drafted to. Players in the third round are even less likely to make the roster.
So why is there even that many draft spots anyway, if there is little shot of these players actually making a team? Teams will sign about 18–20 players to training camp, in order to have a wide talent pool to choose from. Other than the handful of players signed to guaranteed contracts, anyone else at camp can be kept or waived. So if a later round draft prospect or even undrafted player impresses the team at camp, and they have room to sign them, they will. There's always a little bit of a chance.
Another solution would be to create "development" roster spots for young players. Almost like the two-way contract in the NBA. A deal where players would have a limit to how many games they could play in, but could still be with the team in order to practice and develop. That way teams could still internally develop talent, players could have a steady place to train, and there isn't this huge problem of players being waived.
With the CBA expiring after the 2025 season, maybe this is an area that real change can be created in the new deal.