The 2026 WNBA draft produced one of the deepest rookie classes the league has seen, headlined by six first-round picks from UConn and UCLA alone. Azzi Fudd went No. 1 overall to the Dallas Wings, reuniting her with former UConn teammate Paige Bueckers.
Right behind her, Olivia Miles went No. 2 to the Minnesota Lynx and went on to have one of the most statistically dominant rookie seasons in league history. The rest of the first round filled out with Awa Fam Thiam, Lauren Betts, Gabriela Jaquez, and Kiki Rice.
Every one of these rookies now has a dedicated base card and rookie parallel run across 2026 Prizm WNBA, making this class a genuine hobby storyline on top of an on-court one. UCLA alone had six players drafted, the most ever by a single school in one WNBA draft class.
This guide runs through the full first-round class and what each name means for collectors heading into their rookie seasons.
Azzi Fudd arrived in the WNBA with more pre-draft card hype than almost any rookie in recent memory. Ranked the No. 1 recruit in her high school class by ESPN, she spent five years at UConn, helped the Huskies to the 2022 national title game as a freshman, and won the 2025 national championship while earning Final Four Most Outstanding Player honors.
By July 2026, over 630 distinct Azzi Fudd cards were listed on eBay alone, spanning everything from base rookies to numbered autographs. Her rookie season was cut short by a knee procedure, but she still earned AP WNBA All-Rookie Team honors and became the first rookie ever to win the league's All-Star 3-point contest.
Olivia Miles went No. 2 overall to the Minnesota Lynx and immediately became the best player picked in this class, on paper or otherwise. Her rookie season produced results rarely seen from a first-year WNBA guard, and her card checklist across 2026 Prizm WNBA reflects a player collectors are already treating as a long-term cornerstone.
A full breakdown of her season and what it means for her rookie card specifically is worth its own deep dive, since there is more to her story than a single paragraph can cover here.
Awa Fam Thiam went third overall to the Seattle Storm, giving the Storm a frontcourt piece with genuine two-way upside. Her size and rebounding profile made her a popular name on pre-draft boards throughout the spring, and her rookie Prizm cards carry the same base and parallel structure as every other member of this class.
Seattle's willingness to take her that high signals real confidence in her long-term fit, which is worth factoring in for anyone speculating on rookie parallels beyond the top two names.
Lauren Betts went fourth overall to the Washington Mystics, followed by her UCLA teammate Gabriela Jaquez at fifth to the Chicago Sky, and fellow Bruin Kiki Rice at sixth to the Toronto Tempo. UCLA had six total players drafted in 2026, a WNBA draft record for a single school, with five of those six landing in the first round.
Betts in particular enters the league with a size and rim-protection profile that made her a lottery lock for most of the pre-draft cycle. All three Bruins now share a rookie class with each other in both the league and the 2026 Prizm WNBA checklist, a genuinely unusual collegiate overlap for collectors to track.
Every name in this class appears in the 200-card base set, with rookie-specific base Prizm parallels running the same ladder as every other card in the product, from unnumbered colors up through 1/1 Black Finite and Gold Vinyl. Several of these rookies also appear in the product's autograph checklist and signature subsets.
Given how deep this class runs beyond just Fudd and Miles, collectors building complete rookie sets have a genuinely larger project on their hands than in past WNBA Prizm releases, where the rookie pool was thinner.
Loose base rookies from all six names should go straight into penny sleeves like EVORETRO's Perfect Fit Sleeves before they ever touch a binder page, since bare cardboard picks up edge wear fast when it is being sorted across six different players.
Azzi Fudd, selected by the Dallas Wings.
Six, a WNBA draft record for a single school.
The Minnesota Lynx, with the No. 2 overall pick.
Washington Mystics, Chicago Sky, and Toronto Tempo, respectively.
With six first-round rookies to track across one checklist, a dedicated home for the whole class beats loose stacks every time. An EVORETRO Compact 2x2 Top Loader Binder keeps every rookie pull from this class organized and visible in one place.
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