As the WNBA season churns along, the league’s freshest faces make a lasting impression. It’s entirely too early to name a preemptive Rookie of the Year, but as the season nears its quarter mark, some cases have started to take shape. Olivia Miles has helped steer the Lynx to the league’s best start, all without Minnesota’s biggest star in Napheesa Collier. Miles was in for a big role as the second pick while the Lynx’s guard-of-the-future spot was up for the taking. Top pick Azzi Fudd had a slow start, but she announced herself in a big way with a 24-point performance off the bench in Dallas’s win over the Liberty on Sunday. She dropped 17 in the third quarter alone, which tied her for the second-most points in a quarter by a rookie since the league shifted to quarters in 2006, per ESPN’s Alexa Philippou. And Kiki Rice has turned up the heat for the Tempo ever since she entered the starting lineup as she quickly becomes one of the league’s top scoring rookies. Across the rookie class, no story over the past week was bigger than the long-awaited arrival of Spanish phenom Awa Fam, who finally showed Seattle fans firsthand why she was so coveted in this year’s draft. Here’s a look around the league at notable happenings from standout rookies over the last week of action:Awa Fam’s arrival turns headsFam, the third pick in the draft, missed the start of the season due to overseas commitments with Valencia, her club in Spain. She made her WNBA debut with the Storm on Sunday and quickly showed why she was a prized prospect with 10 points on 4-for-7 shooting from the floor in 20 minutes of action. The 6'4" center flashed her impact near the rim as a pick-and-roll partner who’s a force at the hoop for her guards to dump the ball to. She even showcased a silky midrange jumper as a scoring threat at multiple levels.Awa-Fam.mp4 pic.twitter.com/df3N6d9OeC— Shabazz 💫 (@ShowCaseShabazz) May 25, 2026She’s yet to enter the starting lineup and had six points in 17 minutes during Seattle’s loss to the Mystics on Wednesday, her second game in action. We also have yet to see Fam play alongside French star Dominique Malonga, a fellow international center whom the Storm chose with the second pick in last year’s draft. At 6'6", Malonga and Fam are the WNBA’s most exciting frontcourt pairing. It will be interesting to see how that works out once Malonga returns from concussion protocol. But good luck to any team who tries to score against that duo.Olivia Miles continues to look like a veteranNo Collier, no problem. O.K., just kidding. But Miles’s immediate arrival as a true lead guard at the WNBA level has helped the Lynx deal without its superstar to start the year. Minnesota is on a three-game heater after a win over the Dream on Wednesday, when Miles had 16 points, eight assists and five rebounds. Through just seven WNBA games, she’s already a 15-point-per-game scorer who can seemingly guide the offense. She’s already one of the league’s most creative playmakers while serving as a strong rebounder for her position and impacts the game defensively with her peskiness on the perimeter.What’s most impressive about Miles is her play looks well beyond her years and the Lynx are off to a 5–2 start in large part to that.Azzi Fudd will start for the Wings … at some pointFudd put together her best performance yet in Sunday’s win over the Liberty with 24 points, three assists, three steals and two blocks as she knocked down six of her 12 three-point attempts. Even with that under her belt, Wings coach Jose Fernandez still played coy about when the top pick will be promoted to the starting lineup.“We’re headed in that direction,” Fernandez said postgame Sunday. “I think it showed with her being on the floor and what she did. She started in the second half.”She was on the floor for 32 minutes in the win, her highest workload thus far early in the season. The plan for bringing Fudd in with the first pick was always to put her deadly floor spacing and defensive playmaking alongside Paige Bueckers and Arike Ogunbowale. Although the Wings are not there yet, Fudd has started to force Fernandez’s hand. It was a slow start to the year but she quickly turned up the heat, averaging 11.0 points over six games, which is behind only Bueckers, Ogunbowale and Jessica Shepard on the Wings’ roster. Fudd’s increased minutes and shot volume is a sign that she’ll enter the starting lineup sooner rather than later, the only question that remains is when.The Tempo thrive with Kiki Rice at her bestThe UCLA product and sixth pick in the draft might be the WNBA’s most consistent rookie along with Miles. Rice had her best all-around performance in the Tempo’s win over the Sky on Wednesday with 14 points, eight rebounds, seven assists and two steals. She entered Sandy Brondello’s starting lineup in the fourth game of the season and hasn’t looked back, now an integral part for the Tempo in each game during the franchise’s first year in existence. Since Rice became a starter, she’s averaged 15.6 points per game, which would make her the league’s best scoring rookie, just ahead of Miles.Rice’s craftiness while driving to the hoop has led to nifty buckets near the rim and ample opportunities at the free throw line. She connected on eight of her nine foul shots in the win over Chicago and went to the charity stripe 10 times in a 19-point outburst during a win over the Sparks on May 17. She can get to the hoop with ease and has the ability to finish while absorbing contact to create easy points for the expansion squad who’s still getting used to playing next to one another.100 CAREER POINTS FOR KIKI RICE🤩 🥹 pic.twitter.com/NLqUYTvJRM— Toronto Tempo (@TempoBasketball) May 28, 2026Rice always gettin' it done😌 pic.twitter.com/3uXSr1EtED— Toronto Tempo (@TempoBasketball) May 28, 2026The pressure she puts on the rim opens up the floor for Marina Mabrey and Brittney Sykes as Rice puts her name in the mix for Rookie of the Year.More WNBA from Sports IllustratedAdd us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow