It’s opening day for the WNBA, and we’ve got three great matchups across the league in our first Friday night slate of the season.
I’ve found player props across the board, from veteran Brittney Griner in a new uniform to younger players like Kiki Iriafen and Veronica Burton to keep improving on what they do best.
Read on to see how I’m approaching the first night of the season with my free WNBA picks for Friday, May 8.
Top WNBA player prop bets for today
| Player | Pick | Odds |
|---|---|---|
 Brittney Griner |
Over 12.5 points | -114 |
 Kiki Iriafen |
Record a double-double | +150 |
 Veronica Burton |
Over 1.5 made threes | +123 |
Prop #1: Brittney Griner Over 12.5 points (-114 at Caesars)
At 35, Brittney Griner is well past her days of being a perennial WNBA MVP candidate. She also put up the worst numbers of her career in 2025, averaging 9.8 points and 5.2 rebounds per game in her first and only season with the Atlanta Dream.
But the issue in Atlanta looked to be a lack of playing time more than ineffectiveness. Griner saw her time on the court reduced to a career-low 20.8 minutes per game, while she still shot 51.8% from the field and 76.5% from the free-throw line. She also started strong, scoring 15+ points in three of her first four games last year.
Now with the Connecticut Sun, Griner has an opportunity to reclaim a full-time starting role and get more minutes. She’s coming off a 16-point performance in the Sun’s last preseason game, where she shot 7-for-9 including a 2-for-2 performance from beyond the arc.
Griner is a great pick to hit the Over early in the season before sportsbooks fully adjust to her role in Connecticut.
- Time: 7:30 p.m. ET
- Where to watch: ION
Prop #2: Kiki Iriafen to record a double-double (+150 at FanDuel)
Kiki Iriafen lived up to her billing as the No. 4 draft pick for the Washington Mystics last season, averaging 13.3 points and 8.5 rebounds per game in her rookie campaign. She also proved to be something of a double-double machine, accomplishing that feat 16 times in 44 games.
That’s exactly the type of production Washington was counting on from Iriafen. She averaged a double-double (19.4 points, 11.0 rebounds) in her junior year with the Stanford Cardinal. And the Mystics showed confidence in Iriafen as a result, starting her in every game last season while she averaged 26.9 minutes per contest.
Iriafen might see some competition for minutes as the season goes on, as Washington added three more first-round draft picks this year.
But for now, the 22-year-old forward will get just as much – or even more – run as she did in 2025, and that’s going to mean a lot more double-double efforts. Iriafen is a great bet to start off the season strong at plus money.
- Time: 7:30 p.m. ET
- Where to watch: ION
Prop #3: Veronica Burton Over 1.5 made threes (+123 at BetRivers)
Veronica Burton has always had some ability to hit shots from three-point range, but we saw her explode as a deep threat in 2025. Last season, she shot 34.5% from deep for the Golden State Valkyries, but the real change was in her volume.
After never attempting more than 1.2 threes per game off the bench early in her career, Burton put up four shots from beyond the arc per game as a starter last year.
Even that volume wouldn’t give me high confidence that Burton is in line to start hitting multiple threes per game this season. But there are signs that she’s going to adjust her game to become more of a pure shooting threat in 2026.
For starters, she hit three shots from deep in both of her playoff games last year. Burton followed that up by shooting 4-for-7 in her only preseason performance this year, with every shot she took coming from three-point range.
Even if Burton doesn’t completely move her game beyond the arc, she’s shown enough to expect her to start hitting more threes than we’re used to, and she certainly has the ability to hit those shots. Let’s ride that trend into the start of the regular season for as long as it lasts.
- Time: 10:00 p.m. ET
- Where to watch: ION
Where to bet on WNBA player props
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