LOS ANGELES — One thing about Kiki Iriafen, the Washington Mystics’ Tarzana-born rookie ahead – she’s not going to attend in your invitation.
No, she’ll do it herself, on her personal timeline, make a beeline from A previous B straight to the W, the place her WNBA dream job is exceeding her personal lofty expectations.
The 21-year-old former Harvard-Westlake basketball star – you may additionally know her from her season at USC, starring alongside JuJu Watkins – is an All-Star already.
She suited up for Saturday’s WNBA All-Star Recreation in Indianapolis together with fellow rookies Sonia Citron, Iriafen’s Mystics teammate, and Paige Bueckers, the Dallas Wings’ No. 1 general draft decide. Iriafen had a double-double with 17 factors and 10 rebounds because the first-year trio made it simply 36 WNBA rookies to take part in a WNBA All-Star Recreation because it debuted in 1999, per Throughout the Timeline.
Washington’s Kiki Iriafen speaks to the media through the WNBA All-Star observe classes on Friday, July 18, 2025, at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Picture by Steph Chambers/Getty Photographs)
“It’s incredible,” stated Melissa Hearlihy, Iriafen’s former Harvard-Westlake coach. “But it’s not surprising.”
No, as a result of that is Kiki Iriafen. And never so way back, when she determined, in eighth grade, that she wished to go to Harvard-Westlake, she crammed out all of the required types and paperwork that give grownups complications and introduced them to her mother, Yemi, accomplished aside from her signature. “I’m a very independent person,” Kiki stated. “I like to get things done.”
That is Kiki Iriafen, who accomplished her diploma in product design and mechanical engineering at Stanford – in three years, whereas, after all, enjoying Division I basketball. Who added a grasp’s diploma in entrepreneurship and innovation from USC whereas additionally attempting to chase a championship with the Trojans.
That is Kiki Iriafen, whose quick monitor to skilled All-Stardom – following Rookie of the Month out of the gate in Might – has been so quick, it has shocked even her: “Not even on my radar at all coming in.”
However the precocious energy ahead has checked in, a 6-foot-3 sponge – “She asks a lot of questions,” Trojans assistant coach Willnett Crockett informed me – desirous to study and enhance and, heck sure, to compete fiercely in opposition to fellow 4s, so a lot of whom are among the many WNBA’s greatest gamers.
Iriafen is averaging almost a double-double – 11.9 factors and eight.5 rebounds on 46% capturing – for a surprisingly aggressive Mystics group that’s within the midst of a youth motion that’s proving extra launching pad than incubator, with Citron and Iriafen, this 12 months’s Nos. 3 and 4 picks, changing into the primary pair of rookie All-Star teammates since 1999.
There’s losing little time and losing none; arriving early, proper on time.
As a result of as girls’s basketball is having a time right here within the 2020s, Iriafen is among the many recreation’s shiny new All-Stars. Not a headliner like Caitlin and JuJu and Paige, maybe, however she’s on the marquee.
After I heard her say final week that she discovered style and basketball gave her confidence as a tall woman rising up, I appeared over my daughter’s shoulder as she flipped via August’s Vogue journal to see Iriafen staring again at us in a Coach commercial. Additionally, in April, she grew to become the primary school athlete to signal a sponsorship cope with Skechers, catch her enjoying of their coral-colored SKX Nexus sneakers. And hey now, she’s an All-Star.
“Kiki has a remarkable presence,” stated Jamila Wideman, the Mystics’ normal supervisor who was a well-liked rookie enjoying for the Sparks within the WNBA’s inaugural season in 1997. “She’s funny, she’s warm, she has a charisma. And if that is a part of being a star, then she has that.”
USC’s Kiki Iriafen drives to the basket in opposition to UNC Greensboro within the first half of an NCAA Event first-round recreation March 22, 2025, at Galen Middle. (Picture by Keith Birmingham, Orange County Register/ SCNG)
There have been lots of causes for the transfer: a shot at a nationwide championship, enjoying for Gottlieb, coming house to L.A., no place prefer it.
And that the change turned out to be a problem – statistically, Iriafen took a step again, and eventual champion UConn stopped the JuJu-less Trojans within the Elite Eight of the NCAA Event – turned out to be a characteristic.
Not that collegians as of late want extra incentives to switch, however how about this from Wideman, the rookie GM who was additionally as soon as a Stanford star: “You got to see her in a couple different situations in college. Her transfer for her last year and her ability to make that transition pretty quickly, to adapt under a gigantic spotlight, I think told you something about her person and her ability to adapt … to me, it spoke something to her bravery.”
They ought to supply levels in adaptability, as a result of Iriafen could be working towards a kind of, too – or instructing the course.
“She’s just done a tremendous job of adapting and adjusting to the pros, the size and physicality,” stated Lynne Roberts, who needed to recreation plan for Iriafen in school as Utah’s head coach and now in her first 12 months teaching the Sparks. “Playing against her in college, she was always big and strong and athletic and explosive, and I think she’s just kind of taking that to another level.”
What meaning, Iriafen stated, is making use of her basketball schooling, “just putting my head down … just being adaptable and using the things that I’ve learned [at USC] to just impact any way I can on the Mystics.”
That’s additionally how she performed at Harvard-Westlake, the place she arrived having solely began hooping in center faculty. However she got here with simple bodily presents and, importantly, a dream and a drive: “She never let anything get in her way,” stated Hearlihy, who retired from teaching in 2024 after 39 years and 839 victories. “The most driven kid I’ve ever coached.”
Harvard-Westlake’s Kiki Iriafen dives for a free ball in opposition to Troy within the first half of their CIF-SS Basketball Division 1 championship recreation Feb. 29, 2020, at Azusa Pacific. (Picture by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-Information/SCNG)
As a junior, she was described as a “dominating,” “unstoppable” “budding superstar” with mushy fingers and spectacular physique management. A mentally powerful, elite finisher who cherished opening up the sport for teammates on the best way to a CIF Southern Part Division I crown.
And final week, she was again, again once more in L.A., this time having met and exceeded her preliminary skilled objectives. She was enjoying for the primary time in opposition to the Sparks and in Crypto.com Enviornment, the place she stated she’d been so many occasions as a fan. A big contingent from the Trojans’ girls’s basketball program was readily available Tuesday and DJ Mal-Ski, who additionally labored Iriafen’s USC video games, performed these acquainted few notes of Drake’s 2018 hit “In My Feelings” – “Kiki, do you love me?” – a few occasions through the recreation as one thing of hey once more.
Washington’s Kiki Iriafen drives in opposition to the Sparks’ Dearica Hamby within the first half Tuesday, July 15, 2025, at Crypto.com Enviornment. (Picture by Ronald Martinez/Getty Photographs)
The Sparks beat Washington, 99-80, handing the Mystics simply their third loss in 9 video games and holding Iriafen to eight factors and eight rebounds. A development alternative, she would most likely let you know.
Afterward, at house on the street, Iriafen embraced Sparks heart Cameron Brink – her former Stanford teammate – and slapped high-fives with followers, signed autographs and stopped for a number of photographs and selfies earlier than disappearing into the tunnel for the final time earlier than her All-Star Recreation debut.
Initially Revealed: July 21, 2025 at 4:58 PM PDT
