In the latest episode of Locked On Women’s Basketball, Hunter Cruse, Emily Adler and Lincoln Shafer discuss two players who turned out to be underrated prospects in their respective draft classes. Current Atlanta Dream guard Allisha Gray was the fourth overall pick in the 2017 WNBA Draft — behind two players in Alaina Coates and Evelyn Akhator who are no longer in the league.
Yet Cruse says what Gray is doing now was largely foreseeable:
“The weird aspect of [Gray] as a prospect and her falling to four is it’s the same player [as scouts saw in college], but it’s an elevated version, as you would expect. She just developed in a lot of the areas you’d expect; she hits threes now, and then she continued being great at everything else.”
Gray went to the Dallas Wings in the 2017 draft and won Rookie of the Year that season. She played six seasons in Dallas before moving to Atlanta ahead of the 2023 season. She has been an All-Star every season she has played in Atlanta, and this season, she is averaging 18.4 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.0 assists in 35.0 minutes per game.
Related reading: No flinch, all fire: Allisha Gray’s star turn with the Atlanta Dream
In 2016, Italian forward Cecilia Zandalasini went undrafted. But she joined the Minnesota Lynx late in their championship-winning 2017 season and re-signed with them for 2018. After that, she didn’t play in the WNBA until 2024, again with the Lynx. She is now with the Golden State Valkyries after being selected in the expansion draft in December.
Shafer explains what kind of prospect Zandalasini was leading up to the 2016 draft:
“Zandalasini in her 2015 U20 [championship]s was a very solid wing shot creator. She has a really fun ability to take bigs off the bounce. She’s got pretty solid handles. … [She’s] definitely someone that should have been drafted, but it is much more defensible that she doesn’t get drafted based off of her 2015 U20s performance, because right after the draft is when she actually makes the leap. …
“She looks a little bit taller, a little bit bigger. The handle’s tighter. She’s a better off-ball mover. Her hands get cleaned up on [her] shot. To me, there’s no way to really predict that she becomes one of the best and most consistent 3-point and free-throw shooters in the world, but she’s very clearly a good shooter with really good touch. And she’s a better communicator and also started taking a step back to shoot more threes instead of 19-footers, and [she] immediately becomes one of the best players in Europe, starting at age 20 in July of 2016.”
In addition, don’t miss additional podcast episodes covering the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game.
Live from Indianapolis on Friday night, Howard Megdal breaks down how the New York Liberty swept the WNBA All-Star Skills Challenge and 3-Point Contest, with point guard Natasha Cloud winning the former and guard Sabrina Ionescu winning the latter.
And Indiana Fever beat reporter Tony East gives you a behind-the-scenes look at how Fever players are enjoying the festivities in their home arena.
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