In 1997, the Women's National Basketball Association was created. In order to give new teams reasonable talent, the league decided to have two drafts. There was the normal collegiate draft that most professional sports leagues hold. There was also the WNBA elite draft. The elite draft allowed teams to pick players that have already graduated from college and have gone on to play professionally on other American teams or overseas.

The following is the list of how players were picked in the 1997 WNBA elite draft. After this draft, the normal collegiate draft took place.

Round 1

Pick	Player	Nationality	WNBA Team	School/Club Team
1	Dena Head (G)	United States	Utah Starzz	Tennessee
2	Isabelle Fijalkowski (C/F)	France	Cleveland Rockers	Colorado
3	Rhonda Mapp (C/F)	United States	Charlotte Sting	North Carolina State
4	Kym Hampton (C/F)	United States	New York Liberty	Arizona State
5	Wanda Guyton (F)	United States	Houston Comets	South Florida
6	Judy Mosley-McAfee (F)	United States	Sacramento Monarchs	Hawaii
7	Bridget Pettis (F)	United States	Phoenix Mercury	Florida
8	Daedra Charles (C)	United States	Los Angeles Sparks	Tennessee

Round 2

Pick	Player	Nationality	WNBA Team	School/Club Team
9	Wendy Palmer (F)	United States	Utah Starzz	Virginia
10	Lynette Woodard (G)	United States	Cleveland Rockers	Kansas
11	Michi Atkins (F)	United States	Charlotte Sting	Texas Tech
12	Vickie Johnson (F)	United States	New York Liberty	Louisiana Tech
13	Janeth Arcain (F)	Brazil	Houston Comets	Brazil
14	Mikiko Hagiwara (G)	Japan	Sacramento Monarchs	Japan
15	Nancy Lieberman-Cline (G)	United States	Phoenix Mercury	Old Dominion
16	Zheng Haixia (C)	China	Los Angeles Sparks	China