When the WNBA was born in 1997, coaches ran schemes with traditional post players who would mostly play in a box, kept confined from the free-throw line to near the basket. The point guard brought the ball up, the wings were on the wings, and everybody had a role to play.
Coaches double-stacked VCRs to study game film, which meant they'd shuffle through VHS tapes, hoping their assistants didn't record over something that hadn't been covered in film session yet.
It was quite a time.
As the game evolved, so did the caliber of play when rookies entered the league.
"Now, with technology, players can watch themselves immediately after a game," explains Las Vegas Aces president Nikki Fargas. "It can be downloaded immediately into whatever platform they're using; the statistical data and the analytics of the game have evolved as well, because now you can look at shot charts, and it can cumulate and start to form a pattern and show you where the hot spots are, where you should be running your offensive action, who you should be running it to, and where you should be running it to."
"You weren't talking about basketball analytics back then, so I think that also has helped the basketball IQ of the players today. ... These players are coming with different levels of skill sets."
Longtime broadcaster and WNBA historian Cindy Brunson—whose knowledge renders her capable of breaking down a game from 1997 between the Houston Comets and Los Angeles Sparks that saw Lisa Leslie score 21 points and grab 16 rebounds in a loss—remembers that for the first 10-15 years, rookies had to work extremely hard to transition from college to the pros.
"It was just a completely different game with grown women," Brunson said. "What has changed, particularly year 15 to year 20, is Division I women's college basketball just simply got better."
To Brunson's point, Tennessee set the standard, UConn began its dominant run in the mid-90s, and Notre Dame has made frequent runs at the title. All three were and have been churning out basketball players who were progressively ready for the pros each season.
"By the time you get 20 years into the league, you're looking at an Angel McCoughtry, who just needed a few games of seasoning to adjust, and then she's ready to plug and play," Brunson added. "That really speaks to how beautifully the WNBA and Division I women's college basketball, in particular have worked in concert to grow the game at a granular level, so that it can be enjoyed in the macro."
Fast forward to the 2020s, players are leaving college—take your pick of which one—and they're ready with immediacy. Forget about needing a couple of months to get the jitters out.
"You put your most talented player on the floor and in the starting lineup and coaches do it now without hesitation," Brunson also said. "That's the biggest difference in year 20 to 30, and especially in year 25 to 30. We see these phenomenal talents leave the college campus, literally get drafted, have a week of training camp, and boom, they are in WNBA starting lineups, and that is just incredible."
As Ballislife's "Greatest Rookie" series concludes, we've asked some of the most prominent voices to grace the league, including Fargas and Brunson, to describe nuances that helped revolutionize women's basketball, and discuss our choices for the top five of all time.
1. Candace Parker, Los Angeles Sparks (2008)
Fargas was a coach at UCLA when Parker made her WNBA debut. Being in Southern California and in proximity to the Sparks, she knew she was witnessing something special when the veterans of the league laid out the not-so-welcome doormat to welcome her to the league.
"That toughness, that grit, that's why Candace Parker is in a different category, because she can be skilled," Fargas said. "But can you handle all the pressures of being that player that all eyes are on, and that you know that there's vets that are going to be coming for you?"
"What she did was she went out and proved that the game doesn't know your age. She played at the elite level, and she went in and against every great that came before her, all the other Olympians, all the other All-Stars, and she just established herself as one of the greatest players to play this game."
To this day, Parker is the only player to win Rookie of the Year and MVP in the same season. The three-time WNBA champion and two-time MVP averaged 18.5 points and 9.5 rebounds in 2008, her debut campaign.
"Everything that she did her rookie season, it wasn't given to her," Fargas continued. "She had to earn her street cred, if you will. Yes, she had a prolific college career, two national championships, but that starts over. So she had to come in and face the athleticism, the quickness, the physicality of this league, because it is different."
"It's like when you make that jump from high school to college, it's more physical. College to the pros, it's even more physical. She was getting beat up, and you know what she would do? Get right back up. Obviously, I have a special place in my heart for Candace Parker, but what I do know is that kid is a winner. Every aspect of her career, on and off the court, just says winner, champion, competitor, and that also separates her."
2. Maya Moore, Minnesota Lynx (2011)
Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon had a front-row seat when Moore entered the league in 2011. In fact, Moore had 16 games under her belt by the time Hammon, who was in her 13th season in the W and fifth with the San Antonio Silver Stars, got to see her up close.
Hammon won the battle: after scoring double digits in 12 of her first 16 games, Moore scored only four points while Hammon finished with 15 points and six assists. But the Lynx won the war, 70-69, as Hammon's nine-foot running jump shot with time expiring was off target.
Nevertheless, Hammon knew what she was witnessing on a loaded team that was embarking on dynasty years.
"The skill and athleticism [stood out]," Hammon said. "She's big, strong, agile, [can] finish at the rim, can shoot, pull up, post you up. She just had all three level scorer with that size and that athleticism. I mean, there's some plays where she goes up on one side of the rim and finishes on the other."
"Maya, when she first came in, she wasn't the best player on her team. She was the best rookie, but she wasn't the best player on her team, which tells you how loaded her team was ... so she walked into a really good situation. Now by year two, she probably was their best player. But you could tell the potential out the gate. I mean, she was going to be special."
Moore was named the Rookie of the Year after finishing with 13.2 points and 4.6 rebounds per game. Those weren't glaring numbers but they didn't need to be with the stars Minnesota had on its team.
She'd go on to win four WNBA titles, including the one at the end of her first season, the Finals MVP in 2013, regular-season MVP in 2014 and was nominated to six All-Star games, where she won three more MVP trophies.
If there's one thing Hammon said we were all deprived of, it was more of Moore's greatness: Moore took a hiatus from the WNBA to focus on reform in the American justice system and never returned. She officially retired in 2023, ending what could have turned into the greatest career ever.
"We'll never really know how good she could have been because she walked away so early," Hammon said. "She just had different life goals, different life purposes. She's probably the greatest tease in the history of the WNBA. She just left you wanting more. She left the game at the absolute peak. Not very many people or athletes do that."
3. Diana Taurasi, Phoenix Mercury (2004)
The first time A'ja Wilson played opposite the woman still oft-referred to as the WNBA's greatest of all time, it was just the eighth game of her professional career, as the Las Vegas Aces visited Phoenix on June 10, 2018. Taurasi was in the 15th year of her historic career, and promptly welcomed Wilson to the WNBA with a 25-point performance to lead the Mercury to a 72-66 win.
Three months later, Wilson would join Taurasi and some of the other greatest players ever for her first trip with the senior national team, winning gold at the World Cup. It was then that Wilson came to comprehend why Taurasi was known as the GOAT.
"DT is someone that I'm so grateful to be able to share a locker room with," Wilson said. "Her leadership and leading by example is so key and something that stuck out to me, and how she really carries herself as a pro.
"D's just like, 'I'm not going to ask a lot out of you, I just want you to come to work ready to work.' That right there is all that I ever needed, and I was so grateful for her to have an opportunity to play alongside of her."
Taurasi won Rookie of the Year in 2004 after averaging 17.0 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game, propelling a Hall of Fame career that saw her win three WNBA titles, two WNBA Finals MVP trophies, and 11 All-Star nominations. It seemed only fitting that the woman whom many believe could supplant Taurasi as the next GOAT indirectly described the current titleholder as such.
"The energy that she carries is very badass," Wilson said. "You can tell it trickles down to her teammates, so I think that just goes to show how powerful the aura DT has, and she never changes. She was the first one to remind me who I am in the Olympics. So I'm always grateful to be able to share a locker room with her."
4. Tina Thompson, Houston Comets (1997)
If an initial standard was to be set, it had to be in the league's inaugural campaign. There was nobody like Thompson, who shot the lights out from three-point range as a post and laid the foundation for the stretch fours we see today.
There wasn't a Rookie of the Year named in 1997 since it was the league's first season. But with many players coming from overseas or the ABL, there was something to be said about Thompson, who arrived in the pros after an extensive college career at USC. The first-overall pick helped lead the Houston Comets to the first of four consecutive championships, and was named All-WNBA First Team as a rookie.
"Not only [was she] shouldering the weight of being the first draft pick, because everybody at that juncture was hoping and praying that (the WNBA) would be sustainable," Brunson recalled. "It was a leap of faith to not go to Europe where money was better, it was a leap of faith to buy into the process in the city of Houston.
"But how Tina separated for me personally, was her work ethic. We see A'ja Wilson rim run like nobody's business now. Tina Thompson did that; she was the first, she set the bar. She would not be beat on defense, and she knew she was the last line of defense."
With the Comets being a run-and-gun team, and Cynthia Cooper saving herself for the offensive end when the game moved in transition, Thompson was often responsible for guarding her person and a half of another player, as was Sheryl Swoopes.
"Those two women took care of three people on the floor defensively," Brunson said. "Tina Thompson was the anchor of it all."
Thompson finished her first season with 13.2 points, 6.6 rebounds, 1.1 assists, and a block per game. She shot .421 from the field, including .374 from 3-point range. As the league's first-ever No. 1 pick in the rookie draft, Thompson became one of the faces of the brand-new league and proved she belonged by producing like a star immediately.
The Inglewood native could score inside, stretch the floor with her three-point shot, rebound, and defend multiple positions. It was her versatility that was uncommon for forwards at the time, but helped shape how the position evolved. While tunnel walks have become increasingly popular during the social-media era, Brunson said Thompson was ahead of the times.
"You can't have a conversation about Tina without the red lipstick, the signature look for every game, reminding everybody that you can be feminine all day long and be a killer on the court," Brunson said. "She really was the first to tap into the fashion piece. Think about if MAC Cosmetics could have done a lipstick deal with her back in the day, that would have been sensational. What Tina was doing day one really created gravitational pull."
5. Caitlin Clark, Indiana Fever (2024)
All records aside, there may never be another generational talent like Clark, simply because of what she's done to help bring throngs of new fans to the WNBA.
Clark was named Rookie of the Year after turning in averages of 19.2 points, 8.4 assists and 5.7 rebounds per game. Most notably, Clark obliterated Ticha Penicheiro's long-standing record of 226 assists in a single season, set in the league's second year of existence, by 111 helpers (albeit in 40 games rather than the 30 in Penicheiro's record-setting year).
Clark's mere existence in the league meant changes on and off the court, and will always be a staple in the most recent collective bargaining agreement that will forever change the WNBA.
ESPN basketball analyst Carolyn Peck has witnessed every person ever regarded as a generational talent during the WNBA's existence. After all, if Tennessee was an original heartbeat of women's basketball, then Peck might have been an aorta.
Born in Jefferson City, the former Vanderbilt center started her coaching career as an assistant at Tennessee in 1993 before moving on to Kentucky (1995-96) and Purdue (1996-97). She won a title as head coach of Purdue in 1999, becoming the first African-American to coach a women's Division I basketball national championship team.
She moved on to the WNBA to become the first head coach and general manager of the Orlando Miracle (now the Connecticut Sun), who became one of the first expansion teams to reach the playoffs so quickly after their formation, and the first non-charter club to win a playoff game.
"When I look back of when I first started coaching in the league in '99, and looking at the rosters and the great players like the Lisa Leslies, the Tina Thompsons, the Sheryl Swoopes, it did cross my mind: 'How do you follow that up?'" Peck said. "Well, lo and behold, that next generation of influx of talent came in, and they were ready to take this league to another level."
"Which brings us to where we are now, and the influx of young players and international players that have come into the league, whether they have experience or not, they've come in, and every year, every decade, it seems like you see the level of talent in this league take another step."
W.G. Ramirez is a veteran sports writer from Las Vegas and a Senior Staff Writer at Ballislife.com. Follow him on X at @WillieGRamirez.
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