Should They Stay or Should They Go?
Weighing the on court and off court factors that determine if 2025 draft eligible talent should stay another year or declare for the draft
With WNBA Free Agents and picks being traded around like a certain green illicit drug, upcoming draftees are now becoming a more centralized focus at this point of the WNBA calendar year. Teams are faced with major decisions to determine if their team is talented enough to pursue a big name in free agency or if they should continue to build in hopes of competing in the near future.
Draft picks also have to determine, are they ready to take the next step? Although one would think it’s simply a matter of what they look like on court, schedule, opportunity, interpersonal relationships and health all play a factor on whether a player declares.
Let’s take a look at the upcoming 2025 WNBA talent that have to ask themselves the question: Should they stay another year in college or should they pursue a professional career after the 2024-2025 college season?
Flau’jae Johnson
Falu’jae Johnson can do it all. The accomplished SEC player of the year candidate found success early in her freshman year with a SEC freshman of the year award and a national championship. Popular in media since an early teen, Johnson has also built a successful music career featuring worldwide known talent such as Lil Wayne and NLE Choppa.
With so much success early on, it’s hard to see what’s holding Flau’jae to LSU. The junior has enjoyed improvement in every statistical category from her freshman year, most notably her scoring totals, which have jumped from 11.0 to 14.9 to 20.0 Points Per Game (PPG). This is all while Johnson has taken on more scoring responsibility, as her Field Goals Attempted (FGA) has jumped from 9.3 FGA to 15.6 FGA. She has always been a reliable scorer on the inside and outside while contributing crucial defense and leadership.
Outside of basketball, Flau has gone on record talking about the long nights that come with juggling all the responsibilities that she has to manage. Driving hours in the middle of the night to fit in a practice, rap performance and game all in one weekend is a chore to manage even without homework being on her plate too. Leaving school might make the hectic schedule of the hooper, rapper and business woman that much lighter.
Flau’jae herself has stated in her Best of Both Worlds with Flau’jae podcast that she feels the need to move on. While her mother might encourage finishing school, her resume speaks for itself. Even LSU’s basketball program has set themself up for a team without Flau’jae with a #1 recruiting class featuring 3 guards. It’d be easier for Flau’jae and her program for her to declare and enter the 2025 WNBA draft.
Although momma often knows best, lil momma could use some rest.
Raven Johnson
Raven Johnson’s career has only just started yet is littered with impactful moments. The Junior sat on the bench the first couple of years and even with limited minutes showed a special ability to deliver passes to her teammates with ease and vision that is uncanny for a freshman. As she filled into a starting role, her defensive prowess shined, most notably against Caitlin Clark in both March Madness games against Iowa and South Carolina. After being famously waved off during the first matchup between both teams, Johnson overcame a litany of critique and self doubt, developing a 3 point shot that became crucial for the Gamecocks on their run to the NCAA Championship in 2023.
While Johnson has shown the ability to be a standout player with attributes that should translate to a starting WNBA guard spot, unfortunately, she has not displayed these traits in a consistent enough manner to pencil her in as one yet. When Johnson came off the bench her freshman year, her ability to control the offense as a point along with her vision and the types of passes she made were modeled after her basketball hero Chelsea Gray. Unfortunately, her career assist percentages have steadily declined from 27.5% to 24.4% to 18.4% (ast %) while never earning a Field Goal Percentage (FG%) beyond 44%.
An unreliable jumper and inconsistent assist totals makes even stellar defensive effort hard to overlook.
The decision for Johnson to leave might best be seen as a matter of comparison. Assessing the draft declaration of other guards in this year versus the next could be a big factor on when she’s chosen. Point guards in the ‘25 class include Olivia Miles and Georgia Amoore and ‘26 includes Kiki Rice and Bri McDaniel, with players like Rori Harmon eligible for either. Choosing to declare when the point position is least crowded slides her up draft boards.
Johnson has a very interesting decision. Does she declare now when her numbers have declined and give her less leeway to stay on a roster? Does she take the risk of developing another year and join a draft class that is going to have even more talent than the 2025 draft class? Does she declare after 2026 to see how the restructured CBA affects how draft picks are developed in the growing WNBA?
Her declaration comes with a lot of hard questions. With the pros that come with an extra year of development and the looming CBA negotiations, I think Johnson should stay with South Carolina after the 2025 college season.
Lauren Betts
Watching Lauren this year, the questions about what she can’t do on the court becomes harder to list than the sheer number of things she can. A summer of hard skill work and an increased sense of inner belief has unlocked a National Player of the Year (NPOTY) worthy talent.
Betts is another player that has improved in every major statistical category from last year, going from15 PPG to 20.2 PPG, 1.0 to 2.9 assists per game (ast), and 2.0 to 2.9 blocks per game. She has demanded the ball more, increasing her usage rate from 23.3% to 28.9%, handled double teams masterfully by passing the ball more, increasing her ast % from 7.7% to 19.2% and has been more aggressive defensively, increasing her defensive box plus minus from 5 to 7.2. Now that she’s discovered just how cold she is, the rest of the country should be scared.
Scaring the country should get the W GMs excited. A player with her length being as skilled offensively and defensively as she is makes her an easy top 3 draft pick.
But I’m here to throw a little cold water on the fans. Betts is certainly talented enough to leave, but remember that athletes aren’t machines destined to live in the legacies placed onto them by chubby starry eyed schlubs that evaluate players on the internet (this is a self own).
She’s a human, and has human desires attached to her basketball career. One of the obvious desires is to play basketball with her little sister, Sienna Betts, who recently committed to playing with the Bruins next year.
Beyond her desire to play with her sister, draft heads also miss the fact that almost every junior on this roster has played together since they were children. Betts, Kiki Rice, Londynn Jones, Jahniah Baker and Timea Gardner have played on several national teams, and Betts, Rice, Barker and Gabriela Jaquez were McDonalds All Americans. When a group of players that have been childhood friends come together to win championships, they usually don’t part until the goal is complete or time just runs out.
Laruen the player might be talented enough to leave, but Lauren the person has too many ties to this program to leave before the job is finished. While a potential championship and the annoyance of school could make the decision to leave a little more difficult for Betts, I find it unlikely that she ends up declaring at the end of the season.
Janaiah Barker
One could copy everything that was said about Betts and apply it to Barker. The junior has another year of eligibility, is on a team with national championship aspirations, just transferred to a team full of her childhood friends and is now playing in a market with plenty of NIL opportunities and fun to be had. Why would she leave?
If she declares for the draft now, she risks getting less sponsorship exposure and playing on a team with a much less involved nightlife scene like Indiana (sorry Fever fans).
Beyond interpersonal or financial reasons to stay in Los Angeles, Barker is still adjusting to the Bruin offense. After transferring from a starting role at Texas A&M, the junior has taken a major step back in minutes coming off the bench for UCLA. Barker has made the most of her lack of minutes, earning similar points, steals and blocks per 40 minutes as she did at A&M. The only major changes are an increased total rebounding rate (19.9 from 16.1 the year before) and a decrease in 3pt% from 34% to 18%.
The forward has a very diverse skill set, mixing in dribbling ability, faceup and low post shot making with above average passing ability for her size. In a league that is leaning more into inside-outside ball with the hiring of coaches like Natalie Nakase, Karl Smesko and Lynne Roberts, having a forward with a Swiss army knife skill set becomes more valuable with each passing day.
That being said, I would find it surprising if anyone on the Bruins roster leaves this year unless they win a national championship and are absolutely tired of school. But for Barker, maybe playing books for another year could end up being more fulfilling in the long run than taking the next step of her journey and becoming a pro. Barker’s declaration is a coin flip but I imagine she stays another year in UCLA, if only to find an even bigger role in the Bruin’s system next year.
Rori Harmon
Rori Harmon is a player that’s probably never received the proper praise from the media she deserves. The 5’6 point might not be the tallest, but has always made up for her lack of height with elite quickness, an unrelenting motor, tough defense, wonderful footwork, an uncanny ability to finish even in a den of trees and a decent pullup middy. Before her injury, the biggest flaw for Harmon was developing a reliable jumper, especially from the outside.
However, now that she has gotten back on the court, it’s become obvious just how important her explosiveness and athleticism was to her team and her game. Harmon has had difficulty testing the same driving lanes that she once easily exploited, frustrating her and limiting another level for herself and the Longhorns offense. Accounting for her speed and ability to finish inside causes more havoc for the opposing team’s interior defense and perimeter rotations.
A saving grace to her injury is that it’s become all the more obvious how smart Rori is. Her complete control running the offense, directing traffic and guiding the Longhorns through scoring lulls shines with a more limited scoring load. She has maintained a 2.3 Assist To Turnover Ratio from last season to this one, even with less dynamic ability to stress a defense.
If Harmon is able to return to a similar form as she did during her junior year, with career numbers in PPG (14.1), Assists (7.8) and Steals (3.1), she would be a tempting pickup in the second round. But, with a couple of months until tournament season, the time to recover shrinks with each passing day. This is why I lean towards her using her medical redshirt year to recover from injury and earn a better spot in the 2026 draft.