Every WNBA Rookie of the Year Winner

The WNBA has named a Rookie of the Year every season since 1998, starting with Tracy Reid of the Charlotte Sting and running through Paige Bueckers of the Dallas Wings in 2025. There was no 1997 winner, because every player in the league's first season was a rookie. Twenty-eight players have won it, and sixteen of them were No. 1 overall draft picks.

Below is the full list with each winner's position, team and draft slot. The 2026 season is still in progress — the regular season ends September 24, 2026 — so the list stops at 2025 and will be updated when the 2026 award is announced.

The Complete WNBA Rookie of the Year List, 1998–2025

How Many Were No. 1 Overall Picks?

Sixteen of the 28 winners went first overall: Holdsclaw, Taurasi, Augustus, Parker, McCoughtry, Charles, Moore, Nneka Ogwumike, Chiney Ogwumike, Loyd, Stewart, Wilson, Howard, Boston, Clark and Bueckers.

That is a rate of about 57% — high, but not automatic. The 2001 draft produced a No. 1 pick (Lauren Jackson) who did not win the award; Jackie Stiles, taken fourth, did. And in eight of the last twelve seasons the top pick has taken it, which says as much about how the WNBA draft concentrates elite talent at the top as it does about the players themselves. With a three-round draft and rosters capped in the low teens, a top selection gets minutes almost immediately, while a late-first-rounder can be cut in training camp. The mechanics are laid out in How Does the WNBA Draft Work - Eligibility Rules Explained.

The best draft-slot outlier is Crystal Dangerfield, who won in 2020 as the No. 16 pick — a second-rounder, and the only Rookie of the Year not chosen in the first round. She averaged 16.2 points and 3.6 assists for Minnesota in the 22-game bubble season.

Tamika Catchings is the schedule outlier. Indiana drafted her third overall in 2001, but she tore her ACL in her senior season at Tennessee and did not play a professional game that year. She debuted in 2002, averaged 18.6 points, and won the award a full calendar year after being drafted.

The Rookies of the Year Who Went On to Win MVP

Nine Rookie of the Year winners have also won league MVP:

Parker's 2008 is the one that has never been repeated: she won Rookie of the Year and MVP in the same season, the only player in WNBA history to do it, on 18.5 points and 9.5 rebounds a game for the Los Angeles Sparks. The NBA has managed the same double just once, with Wilt Chamberlain in 1959–60.

Wilson's path is the most decorated. She won Rookie of the Year in 2018 with Las Vegas and has since collected four MVPs, three Defensive Player of the Year awards (2022, 2023 and a shared 2025) and two Finals MVPs. The full award history is at Every WNBA MVP Winner in League History.

The Recent Run: Boston, Clark and Bueckers

The last three winners have all been No. 1 overall picks arriving with more attention than any rookie class in league history.

Aliyah Boston (2023, Indiana Fever) averaged 14.5 points, 8.4 rebounds and 1.3 blocks and led the entire league in field-goal percentage at 57.8% — the first rookie ever to do that. She won unanimously, taking all 60 votes.

Caitlin Clark (2024, Indiana Fever) put up 19.2 points, 8.4 assists and 5.7 rebounds a game and rewrote the rookie record book: single-season assists (breaking Ticha Penicheiro's 1998 mark), single-game assists with 19, three-pointers made by a rookie, a 35-point single-game rookie scoring record, and the first triple-double by a WNBA rookie. She finished one vote short of unanimity at 66 of 67.

Paige Bueckers (2025, Dallas Wings) averaged 19.2 points, 5.4 assists, 3.9 rebounds and 1.6 steals in 36 starts, shooting better than 47% from the field and 88.8% from the line. She was the only player in the league that season ranked in the top ten in points, assists and steals per game. On August 20 she scored 44 against the Los Angeles Sparks — a WNBA rookie single-game record, and the first 40-point game in league history shot at 80% or better from the field. Her 692 rookie points and 194 rookie assists both rank third all-time. She took 70 of 72 votes; the other two went to Washington's Sonia Citron.

None of it was a coincidence of timing. All three arrived as the league's attendance and television numbers were climbing steeply, and all three played for teams that started moving games into larger buildings — a story told in Every WNBA Arena and Its Capacity, Ranked.

Unanimous Winners

Five players have swept the Rookie of the Year ballot:

• Candace Parker, 2008
• Tina Charles, 2010
• Elena Delle Donne, 2013
• A'ja Wilson, 2018
• Aliyah Boston, 2023 (all 60 votes)

Clark in 2024 (66 of 67) and Bueckers in 2025 (70 of 72) both came within a couple of ballots and both missed. That is partly a function of a growing panel: the more voters, the harder a clean sweep gets.

International Winners

This is the one category where the Rookie of the Year list looks different from the MVP list. The MVP award has gone to two players born outside the United States — Australia's Lauren Jackson three times and the Bahamas' Jonquel Jones once. Rookie of the Year has not.

The closest case is Aliyah Boston, who was born in Saint Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands and moved to Massachusetts at 12 to play high school basketball. The Virgin Islands are a U.S. territory, so she is an American citizen and came through the American college system at South Carolina — but she is the only Rookie of the Year not born in one of the 50 states.

There is a structural reason for the gap. Rookie of the Year rewards immediate production, and the players best positioned to produce immediately are the ones who have just spent four years in NCAA basketball on the same continent, in the same style, on the same calendar. International players who sign with WNBA teams often arrive mid-career, already established in European leagues, and are not draft-eligible rookies at all. Toronto's arrival in 2026 as the league's first franchise outside the United States may eventually change the recruiting math, but it has not changed the award yet.

FAQ

Who won the first WNBA Rookie of the Year? Tracy Reid of the Charlotte Sting, in 1998. There was no 1997 award because the entire league was made up of rookies in its first season.

Who won WNBA Rookie of the Year in 2025? Paige Bueckers of the Dallas Wings, with 70 of 72 votes. She averaged 19.2 points, 5.4 assists and 3.9 rebounds.

Who is the 2026 WNBA Rookie of the Year? Not decided yet. The 2026 regular season ends September 24, 2026, and the award is announced during the playoffs. This page updates when it's official.

Has a player ever won Rookie of the Year and MVP in the same season? Yes, once: Candace Parker in 2008 with the Los Angeles Sparks.

Which Rookie of the Year was drafted lowest? Crystal Dangerfield, the No. 16 pick in 2020 — the only second-round selection to win it.

Was Caitlin Clark a unanimous Rookie of the Year? No. She received 66 of 67 first-place votes in 2024, one short. The last unanimous winner was Aliyah Boston in 2023.

How does this compare with the NBA and NFL rookie awards? The NBA has given out a Rookie of the Year since 1952–53, and the No. 1 pick wins it far less often than in the WNBA — see Every NBA Rookie of the Year Winner in History. The NFL splits its rookie honor into two Associated Press awards, Offensive and Defensive Rookie of the Year, so there is no single equivalent; the league's flagship individual award is catalogued in Every NFL MVP Winner in League History.

Where can I see the full league champion list? It's at List of Every WNBA Champion by Year, and the current 15-team map is in How Many WNBA Teams Are There - Every Team and Where They Play.