The 2024 WNBA season was defined by the arrival of game-changing rookies who have already left their mark, both on and off the court. Boasting both star power and depth, Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and the rest of this stellar group will go down as one of the best rookie classes of all time.
Of course, the league didn't start in 2024, and Clark and Reese aren't the first rookies to tear up the record books. So with the regular season complete, it's worth taking a look back at some of the best rookie campaigns ever.
Before we start, it's worth noting that there were, technically speaking, no rookies in 1997, the first year of the league's existence. Rookie of the Year would not be handed out for the first time until 1998, when it went to Tracy Reid. Thus, Cynthia Cooper-Dyke has not been considered for this exercise.
With that, here are the five best rookie seasons in WNBA history:
1. Candace Parker (2008)
- 18.5 points, 9.5 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 2.3 blocks per game
- 52.3/42.3/73.3 shooting splits, 58.2% TS
- 7.7 WS
- ROY -- 1
- MVP -- 1
- DPOY -- 4
- First Team All-WNBA
- No All-Star Game due to Olympics
Parker entered the league off of back-to-back national championships with Tennessee, back-to-back NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player awards and the 2008 Naismith Player of the Year honor. She immediately translated that success to the professional level.
In her first game, which came five weeks after the Sparks selected her with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 WNBA Draft, Parker went off for 34 points, 12 rebounds, eight assists and two steals on 12 of 19 shooting. Her 34 points remain a league record for the most in a debut. A few days later, she recorded the first, and still only, 5x5 game the league has ever seen. By June, she was throwing down dunks, joining teammate Lisa Leslie as the only players, to that point, to accomplish that in a game. In July, she added a career-high 40-point effort, which, even now, is the highest scoring game by a true rookie.
Parker finished the season fourth in the league in scoring, first in rebounding and second in blocks. No other player was in the top-five in all three categories.
For her efforts, which included helping the Sparks make the playoffs with a 20-14 record, Parker was named MVP, and is the only rookie to ever win the league's most prestigious individual award.
2: Tamika Catchings (2002)
- 18.6 points, 8.6 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 2.9 steals, 1.3 blocks per game
- 42.0/39.6/81.5 shooting splits, 57.2% TS
- 9.2 WS
- ROY -- 1
- MVP -- 3
- DPOY -- 2
- All-Star
- First Team All-WNBA
Catchings' stellar collegiate career at Tennessee, which included a national championship in 1998 and the Naismith Player of the Year award in 2000, came to an early end during her senior season when she tore her ACL. As a result, she sat out of the entire 2001 WNBA season after being selected No. 3 overall in that year's draft by the Indiana Fever.
Once she got on the floor, she quickly made everyone wonder how she fell all the way to third. Catchings could truly do it all, and within her first five games, she had a 30-point night, a 14-rebound effort, a seven-assist performance and a seven-steal outing. She was particularly dominant on the defensive end, however, and in a sign of what was to come in her career, she had at least five steals in five of her first six games.
Catchings finished second in the league in scoring, fourth in rebounding, 10th in assists, first in steals, sixth in blocks and second in 3-pointers made. She was, to no surprise, the only player in the top 10 in all such categories.
While Catchings fell short in both the MVP and Defensive Player of the Year voting, she remains the only rookie to finish in the top three for Rookie of the Year, MVP and DPOY. Given her all-around excellence, you can make a strong case that Catchings actually had a slightly better individual season than Parker.
However, she didn't win MVP, so she comes up second. Is that fair? Maybe not.
After all, Parker was drafted to a perennial contender that was only in the lottery in 2008 because Lisa Leslie missed the 2007 season on maternity leave and Chamique Holdsclaw played five games, while Catchings joined an organization that was in its third year of existence and had never made the playoffs until she brought them there as a rookie. Catchings really never had a chance to win MVP, and the fact that she still finished third is remarkable.
There's also the fact that in 2008, the league allowed fans to have a say in the MVP decision. The fan vote accounted for 25% of the final vote that season, and Catchings didn't have the luxury of an online popularity contest to boost her chances of winning that award.
But even when you consider all of that, you come back around to the fact that, regardless of the circumstances, Parker did win MVP. To say Catchings had the best season, you would have to argue against the only player to earn that honor as a rookie. And ultimately, that just feels silly.
3: Caitlin Clark (2024)
- 19.2 points, 5.7 rebounds, 8.4 assists, 1.3 steals per game
- 41.7/34.4/90.6 shooting splits 58.3% TS, 3.0 WS
- All-Star
Few players, if any, have entered the league with as much hype as Clark, who almost single-handedly turned women's basketball into a mainstream sport over the past two years. First, via her exploits at Iowa, where she led the Hawkeyes to two Final Fours, became the all-time leading scorer in NCAA Division I basketball and won back-to-back Naismith Player of the Year awards.
Somehow, the No. 1 overall pick exceeded expectations.
She got off to an inconsistent start, due at least in part to a ridiculous opening schedule, but soon found her footing. By June, she was routinely dishing out double digit assists, and in July she set the league's single-game assist record with 19. After the Olympic break, she took off. Records started dropping like flies as Clark turned the Fever into one of the most dangerous offensive teams in the league and led them to their first playoff appearance since 2016.
Along the way, she set the single-season assist record, rookie scoring record and rookie 3-point record, became the first rookie to record a triple-double (and then got a second one) and became the first rookie to earn player of the month honors (award debuted in 2010). For the season, Clark finished seventh in the league in scoring, first in assists and first in 3-pointers.
We don't know how Clark will fare in award season, though Rookie of the Year is a certainty and she'll likely add a top-five MVP finish and All-WNBA First Team honors. Regardless, she put together the best offensive season ever by a rookie, even with her league-leading 5.6 turnovers per game.
4: Breanna Stewart (2016)
- 18.3 points, 9.3 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 1.9 blocks per game
- 45.7/33.8/83.3 shooting splits, 57.6% TS
- 5.7 WS
- ROY -- 1
- MVP -- 6
- DPOY -- 2
- Second Team All-WNBA
- All-Defensive Second Team
- No All-Star Game due to Olympics
Breanna Stewart is arguably the best college basketball player ever. In four years at UConn, she led the Huskies to four national championships, winning four NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player awards and three Naismith Player of the Year awards along the way. When she was selected No. 1 overall in the 2016 draft, it was one of the most consequential moments in league history.
The versatility that made Stewart such an exciting prospect was on display early and often. In her fourth professional game, she put up 25 points, seven rebounds, three assists, four steals and four blocks, nearly joining Parker in the 5x5 club. Later on, she did join Parker as the only rookies to have a 30/10/5 game when she went off for 32 points, 11 rebounds and five assists. There was also a 38-point game in the mix, which remains the third-highest scoring performance by a rookie.
Stewart finished sixth in the league in scoring, second in rebounding and third in blocks, and led the Storm to the playoffs for the first time since 2013.
She earned All-WNBA Second Team and All-Defensive Second Team honors, finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting and received MVP votes.
5: A'ja Wilson (2018)
- 20.7 points, 8.0 rebounds, 1.7 blocks per game
- 46.2/0.00/77.4 shooting splits, 53.4% TS
- 4.4 WS
- ROY -- 1
- MVP -- 7
- All-Star
Wilson didn't have quite the same amount of collegiate accolades as some of the other players on this list, but she did lead South Carolina to a national title in 2017, when she was named NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player, and won a Naismith Player of the Year award in 2018.
A ridiculous athlete for her size, and a game-changing presence on both sides of the ball, Wilson was the obvious choice for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 draft. She went off for 35 points in her ninth career game, and joined Parker in the process as the only rookies with a 35/10 game. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Wilson's rookie season was her consistency. She scored in double figures in all 33 games she played; only Caitlin Clark has more double figure scoring games as a rookie (35), but her season had six more games.
Wilson finished third in the league in scoring -- her 20.7 points per game are still second only to Seimone Augustus among rookies in WNBA history -- sixth in rebounding and sixth in blocks.
While Wilson failed to make either the All-WNBA or All-Defensive teams, she did receive some down-ballot MVP nods and finished seventh in the voting there.
