April 12, 2025
Locked On Women’s Basketball: Breaking down the final 2025 WNBA draft board
By The Next
Lincoln Shafer: 'It's a deep class of role player bets'
In the latest episode of Locked On Women’s Basketball, Hunter Cruse, Emily Adler and Lincoln Shafer discuss their final draft board ahead of the 2025 WNBA Draft on Monday.
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Adler explains the quantitative system they use in their draft board to compare prospects:
“I borrowed the 20-80 scouting grade system from baseball, which is to say that basically grades fall on a normal distribution curve between the 20th percentile and the 80th percentile, because that’s where … [nearly all] of a sample falls in a normal distribution curve. … And you progress basically in units of 10. At the middle you progress [in] units of five, because it’s more granular. There’s more people there.
“Anyway, this is [a] way to basically assign grades to prospects and then map … those grades onto what it means for a quality of WNBA player, so that we can reasonably project players and compare them, not only within years, but across years and across eras. So … we talk to each other throughout the year. We talk to other people throughout the year. But we’re watching a lot of stuff, and we’re evaluating a lot of things.”
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Shafer sums up how the top of this draft class looks heading into Monday’s selections:
“It’s a deep class of role player bets. There’s not a ton of star potential in ways that the last couple draft classes have had [with] the one outstanding player or the two outstanding players at the top and some other high-upside players. This is a lot of players with capped ceilings who are probably going to be productive role players. And that’s a bit different, and honestly, it’s kind of more fun that way for me because I like players with high floors that are kind of role player bets.”
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