Awa Fam, a Spanish teenager, might be the next best WNBA prospect in the world

Those of you who listen to our Saturday podcast will have heard us sing her praises many times, including a dedicated episode this past summer. Some basics for the rest of you: Awa Fam is a 6’4 center who plays (and really should be starting) for Gernika in the Liga Feminina, Spain’s top level of competition. She was named the best center at the 2022 U16s, an all-tournament second team honoree in both the 2022 U17s and 2023 U19s, and was the MVP of the 2024 U20s; she is averaging 9.8 points, 6.0 rebounds and 1.2 assists in 21.6 minutes, numbers matched by just four others in LF, all of whom are at least seven years older — and Fam is doing it with fewer shots and fewer turnovers than all of them.¹

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Now, awards aren’t everything; Isobel Borlase was First Team All-WNBL in 2023-24 and was both ranked lower as a prospect and drafted later than a backup in her same league (Nyadiew Puoch). But with Fam, the key is age relative. Her only peers in Spain are 4-12 years older and she was two years younger than the competition at the 2023 U19s and 2024 U20s.

That means something fundamentally different than JuJu Watkins winning U17 MVP at age 17 or Hannah Hidalgo being First Team All-U19s at age 18. It doesn’t mean that Fam is necessarily better than those two players, but it adds even more weight to her play given that she is so far ahead of the curve.

Elite age-relative production does not make a player an elite prospect by itself; the most recent multi-year ACC stars, Elissa Cunane and Elizabeth Kitley, were both “conference player of the year”-level talents as early as their sophomore seasons, but never made significant improvements as their collegiate careers continued. Development arc is just as crucial, and Fam is in the process of one of the more extreme development arcs we’ve seen in a long time.

During her summer 2023 breakout, Fam was often the best player on the court even while playing against the likes of Hidalgo and Leïla Lacan. This was not totally surprising after her aforementioned accolades in 2022, but the jump from U16s and U17s to U19s and U20s is an enormous one, akin to going from a mid-major to a power conference. But Fam was dominant even without that context. She looked like the greatest playmaking center prospect since Janel McCarville, tormented defenders like Toby Fournier with a deep arsenal of moves, had defensive impact like an undergrad Aliyah Boston, and flashed both driving and pull-up shooting skills. At age 17.

Her game has continued to grow dramatically this season. She can capably switch 1-through-5, even against All-Europe-level guards; her help reads and reactions are far quicker; she is consistently hitting tough one-handed passes with touch off the dribble; her free-throw shooting keeps improving; and her scoring process has moved beyond just having a deep bag to actively knowing how to use it. Against borderline-WNBA-caliber opponents. At age 18.

Players this young are almost never this good, and players this good often don’t get significantly better; players this good who do still get significantly better never get better this rapidly. When someone does, any reasonable expectations of what their ceiling is and how long it might take to get there are thrown out the window. That’s not to say that Fam is a better prospect than Watkins or MiLaysia Fulwiley; rather, that she should be mentioned in the same breath.

Postscript

A couple of notes on the above narrative:

1. I would broadly define the best draft prospect in the world at given points in WNBA history as having been Chamique Holdsclaw from 1997-99, Lauren Jackson from 1999-2001, Diana Taurasi from 2001-04, Seimone Augustus in 2004-05, Candace Parker 2005-08, Maya Moore 2008-11, Brittney Griner or Elena Delle Donne 2011-12, Breanna Stewart 2012-2016, A’ja Wilson 2016-18, Sabrina Ionescu 2018-20, Caitlin Clark 2020-24, and Paige Bueckers 2024-25. You can give Bueckers 2020-21 if you like — I wouldn’t argue against it.
2. A case study in development arcs among draft prospects is too broad for what I’m doing here, and probably deserves a full article at some point, but one comparison can really illustrate why Fam continually improving is so crucial to her future projection. Take the 2019 draft: You could argue that AD Durr or Katie Lou Samuelson or Arike Ogunbowale were better players than Napheesa Collier at the time of the draft (you’d be wrong, I think, but you could make a decent argument); but Collier was the only one of them who was still making significant strides in their game at that point. An example of the opposite issue: Lithuanian wing Justė Jocytė was probably the greatest 14-, 15- and 16-year-old in women’s basketball history, considering she was playing very well in real minutes for Lyon ASVEL, an elite first-division French club, during that time; but Jocytė’s game has been mostly static for the past few years, dampening how high her ceiling can be reasonably projected.

1. Were she given minutes commensurate with other top centers leaguewide, those numbers would be 13.6/8.3/1.7, which would make her one of four LF players averaging 10 points and eight rebounds, alongside 2022-23 and 2023-24 LF MVP Sika Koné, 2022-23 LF Center of the Year Mariam Coulibaly and 2019-20 All-Europe Center of The Year Stephanie Mavunga. ↩︎