WNBA Rookies Watch – The Early Part of the WNBA Season.

Hi everyone, welcome back! We are now into the second week of WNBA action. We have seen some incredible performances, some great games and some standout moments. It is now time for Week 2 update of WNBA Rookie Watch. You can view the first week of WNBA Rookie Watch here.

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WNBA Rookie Watch – The Early Part of the WNBA Season

*Note – This WNBA rookie watch will be updated every two weeks instead of every week. This is because in the WNBA, there are a limited number of roster spots and so rookies have to compete with veterans/star players for spots. A majority of them either get cut, get limited minutes or need time to get adjusted. Their minutes will vary from game to game, opponent to opponent. It will be hard to find consistent minutes and so it won’t be easy to judge rookies on a week to week basis. I’m updating this every two weeks so that I have several games and data(!) to work with.

1. Aliyah Boston – Indiana Fever

Aliyah Boston followed up her first week in the WNBA with several amazing games. In the four games she played since the first WNBA rookies watch came out, she’s averaging 16.25 points per game and 6.5 rebounds per game. Per Her Hoop Stats, she’s shooting at an incredibly high percentage of 70.9% from the field and 71.7% from 2 point percentage which are both first in the league. She had her first 20 point game in a close loss versus Connecticut. She struggled in the following game versus Las Vegas in which she had foul trouble. She then followed it up with her first career double-double in an overtime loss against Chicago. She finished the game with a career high 25 points and 11 rebounds. Safe to say, she’s establishing herself among her team in the early part of the WNBA season.

2. Jordan Horston – Seattle Storm

Jordan Horston has taken quite a step since the first week of the WNBA season. In the minutes she’s recieved, she’s been productive. Against New York on May 30th, despite her struggles shooting from the field, she finished the game with 4 points and 5 rebounds in just 18 minutes. In the first game against Los Angeles in which she only played nine minutes, she scored 4 points, had 2 rebounds and 2 blocks. In the second game against the same opponent, she played a career high of 26 minutes and scored a career high of 14 points, had 7 rebounds and had a career high 4 steals. She’s also learning how to adjust in this early part of the WNBA season.

3. Diamond Miller – Minnesota Lynx

Diamond Miller is currently out with a sprained right ankle but she still deserves a spot on the WNBA rookies watch list this week because she continued to play really well. In the loss versus Las Vegas on May 28th, she scored a career high of 14 points while shooting 40% from the floor. She then followed it up in the next game versus Dallas, 8 points in 12 minutes, 5 rebounds and 4 assists. The second overall pick was learning to get into the groove before injury came into play. When she comes back healthy, I’m sure she will be back on this watch list.

4. Zia Cooke – Los Angeles Sparks

Zia Cooke continues to play well when she’s given the oppurtunity to do so. Coming off the bench for the Sparks, she’s been given a wide variety of minutes. Some games, she plays 20+ minutes, other games she plays less than 10 minutes. It really depends. In the loss versus Las Vegas, she scored 7 points, 3 rebounds and had 2 assists. She struggled shooting from the field, however as she shot 21.4%. She then followed it up with scoring 6 points in 9 minutes with 2 assists and shot 66.7% from the field in an overtime win against Phoenix. In the series versus Seattle, she did not score and only pulled down two rebounds. She will continue to grow and adjust in this early part of the WNBA season.

5. Haley Jones – Atlanta Dream

I talked about her making an appearance in the first WNBA rookies watch and now here she is! She comes in at #5 this week, replacing Dorka Juhász. In the three games she’s played in since the first WNBA rookies watch came out, she’s averaging 14.0 minutes per game, 5.67 points per game, 3 rebounds per game and 2.3 assists per game. She’s also shooting at a high percentage of 52.8%. The sixth overall pick is settling in and learning her way around her team. It will be fun seeing her continue to grow.

That concludes this week’s WNBA rookies watch. I will still keep my eye on Dorka Juhász and there’s another rookie who also deserves some consideration. Maddy Siegrist. She played well in a win against Phoenix yesterday night and it looks like she’s starting to settle in this early part of the WNBA season. The next WNBA rookies update will go out on June 22nd and we shall see which WNBA rookies grow or which WNBA rookies struggle.