With more WNBA expansion coming, should the WNBA’s age limit rule end?

With more WNBA expansion coming, should the WNBA’s age limit rule end?

(ThyBlackMan.com) The 2026 WNBA Playoffs has had some fireworks. The first ever 8th seed defeated the top overall seed when the New York Liberty upset the Minnesota Lynx in the first round. There have been big performances from stars like Allisha Gray of the Atlanta Dream and Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever and even an unfortunate fan confrontation of Las Vegas Aces superstar A’ja Wilson during her team’s first round series. Overall, the variety of talents by several WNBA players and teams have been on display throughout this year’s playoffs. The women’s basketball action will continue less than a month from now as the college basketball season begins with notable names such as USC’s Juju Watkins and UConn’s Sarah Strong leading some of the projected top teams for the 2026-27 women’s college basketball season.

Women’s college basketball fans will be fortunate to be able to see both Strong and Watkins play in college this season because neither were eligible to enter the 2026 WNBA Draft as underclassmen. The WNBA is not like the NBA, where talented college freshmen, can leave for the NBA Draft, often called “one and done”. According to the collective bargaining agreement between the WNBA and its players’ union, all NCAA players who graduate from a four-year college within three months of the draft, or are four years removed from high school graduation, or turn at least 22 years old during the year in which the draft takes place are eligible to renounce any remaining NCAA eligibility and opt in to the WNBA draft. However, International draftees must be at least 20 years old during the year in which the draft takes place. It is peculiar that the international draftees can be 2 years younger than those women’s basketball prospects in the U.S.

It is easy to forget about how men’ college basketball would have been affected if superstar high school basketball players like a LeBron James or a Kevin Garnett had been “forced” to attend college? That is not a question that could have been answered 2004 but in 2005, the NBA enacted a new age limit that requires “that an amateur player of American origin be at least nineteen-years-old on December 31 of the year of the NBA draft and that at least one NBA season must have passed when he graduated from high school, or would have graduated from high school, and the NBA draft”. There were many strong feelings about the NBA’s age limit from those who passionately follow college and professional basketball. During the 2000s and 2010s, some of the NBA’s best players were draftees who never played a minute of men’s college basketball including James, Tracy McGrady, and Dwight Howard who are all in the Basketball Hall of Fame or will be.

The growth of women’s basketball over the past decade has made this an even more legitimate question now. In the past two seasons, the league has added Golden State, Portland, and Toronto. By 2031, there will be new WNBA teams in Detroit, Cleveland, and Philadelphia. It is also important to point out the instant success of the Golden State Valkyries, who immediately established themselves as some of the better teams in the WNBA just two years since joining the league which is a sign of the greater women’s basketball talent pool. The major injury to USC’s Juju Watkins back in 2025 was a terrible thing for her but may have never happened if she could also have left for the WNBA after her freshman year like her male counterparts. NIL is an important incentive for the top women’s college basketball players to be paid in college but many would benefit from the choice of being able to start their WNBA professional careers early.

Staff Writer; Mark Hines