Flau’jae Johnson’s LSU career got here to an abrupt, unceremonious conclusion, and she or he didn’t have a lot time to sit with the frustration of that Sweet 16 loss to Duke.
Things transfer rapidly for gamers in her place. The ones who wrap up their senior seasons, then rapidly flip their focus to the WNBA draft course of. Johnson was solely per week into it when she acquired a key to the town of Baton Rouge in a ceremony exterior City Hall. That morning, the draft was solely 9 days away, and she or he was attempting to sustain.
“This whole process is crazy,” Johnson said. “It’s like, you’re right into it. I’m doing a lot of workouts, training, trying to get ready for training camp, but I’m excited though.”
Johnson is widely expected to be a first-round pick in the 2026 WNBA draft, which will begin at 6 p.m. Monday in New York City (ESPN). ESPN’s newest mock draft has the Chicago Sky selecting her with the fifth general choice, and The Athletic’s latest forecast has the Washington Mystics scooping her up with the No. 9 general choose.
LSU has produced top-10 picks in every of the previous two years. Both Angel Reese and Aneesah Morrow have been chosen seventh general of their respective drafts.
If Johnson is taken with one of many first 15 decisions on Monday, then the Tigers can say they’ve turned out first-round picks in three consecutive WNBA drafts for the primary time in this system’s historical past.
Johnson was eligible to declare for final yr’s draft, however as a result of she determined as a substitute to return for her senior season at LSU, she’ll now be a part of the primary rookie class that performs below the league’s new collective bargaining settlement (CBA), which was ratified on March 24.
Under the previous CBA, rookies earned modest five-figure salaries.
Now, Johnson — and some other participant chosen within the draft — will every pocket at least $270,000 annually.
The LSU star mentioned on March 19 that she was “very excited” that the league and its gamers hammered out the phrases of a “transformational deal” only some weeks earlier than she begins her skilled career. Because they did, she now has considerably extra incomes potential.
“I’ve been watching it all day on ESPN,” Johnson mentioned. “It’s so dope. Salaries going from 60K to 300K is a crazy leap. I’m ready to hear about the things they have on housing and traveling and all of that, but this is generational.”
Whichever crew chooses Johnson will land a protracted, athletic three-level scorer who has proven she will defend a number of perimeter positions. Her senior yr was an uneven one, however she nonetheless drained a career-high 39% of her 3-pointers and turned the ball over a career-low 1.7 instances per sport.
Johnson is at her greatest in transition, however as a result of she’s an environment friendly exterior shooter and a disruptive perimeter defender, she will match on nearly any crew within the WNBA.
The league could choose aside a few of Johnson’s inconsistencies. This previous season, for instance, she scored 20 or extra factors about as many instances (seven) as she completed with fewer than 10 (eight).
But Johnson spent three years as one of many high scoring threats on top-of-the-line packages within the nation, and she or he constantly elevated her play in a few of the largest video games of her career.
Johnson scored 15.4 factors per sport on 47% taking pictures within the regular-season matchups she performed throughout the previous three years of her career. But in these seasons’ NCAA Tournament contests, she scored 18.6 ppg on 54% taking pictures.
Only 5 gamers have ever scored extra factors in an LSU uniform than Johnson did. Two of them have been first-round WNBA draft decisions — Seimone Augustus (2006) and Sylvia Fowles (2008). LSU has produced 9 of these gamers because the league was based in 1997.
Johnson ought to turn out to be the tenth on Monday, not even three weeks after Duke ended her hopes of main LSU again to the Final Four.
“I don’t have any expectations,” Johnson mentioned. “I’m just like, wherever I go, I’m gonna kill.”
