The California 50: Ranking the Greatest Girls High School Basketball Players in California History

After the conversations, debates, corrections, history lessons, opinions, suggestions and a few folks ready to throw tomatoes at me through their phones, we went back into the lab.

This is the remixed full entrée.

The premise is simple. From 1990 to the present, who had the greatest high school basketball careers in California?

Not who became the best college player. Not who had the longest WNBA career. Not who became the biggest name. And definitely not who has the most Instagram followers.

High school, that’s it.

That distinction matters because once you start ranking players across more than three decades, nostalgia can get loud. Reputation can get loud. What somebody eventually became can get even louder.

So before anybody throws a hissy fit because their favorite player is 17th instead of seventh—or because somebody they swear was cold didn’t make the 50 at all—understand the criteria.

State championships matter. State championship appearances matter. Team national championships matter. National Player of the Year honors matter. Individual accolades matter. Production matters. The level of competition matters. And, yes, the eye test and sheer basketball talent absolutely matter.

But there was another piece I kept coming back to:

What did you do while you were actually in high school?

That changed the conversation.

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Winning Matters—But It Isn’t Everything

I don’t believe in punishing a great player simply because she didn’t win a state championship.

Basketball is still a team sport. One teenager cannot control her roster, coaching situation, injuries, playoff draw or whether another powerhouse happened to exist during the same era. But I’m absolutely rewarding the players who did win. There is a difference.

If two players are reasonably close in talent and individual accomplishment, and one repeatedly carried the pressure of March basketball, beat elite competition and finished seasons holding trophies, that has to mean something.

And multiple championships mean even more.

California basketball has produced programs where getting to a state championship wasn’t enough. The expectation was to win it. When you were the centerpiece of one of those teams, you weren’t just playing high school basketball. You were playing meaningful games against future Division I players, All-Americans and professionals with everybody in the gym expecting you to deliver.

That pressure counts.

It is one of the biggest reasons Devanei Hampton is where she is in the rankings. Due to ACL injury she really only played two seasons and did major work!

At Oakland Tech, Hampton wasn’t merely a talented post player with a tremendous basketball future ahead of her. She was a dominant high school player on championship teams. When the criteria puts real weight on winning, dominance, level of competition and what happened during the high school career, her résumé becomes extremely difficult to ignore.

That’s how she lands at No. 7.

The Top of This List Is Different

Renée Robinson at No. 1 is going to create conversation.

Good.

That’s the point.

Robinson’s Sacred Heart Prep career represents exactly what this ranking values: winning, production, dominance, high-level competition and sustained excellence. This isn’t a lifetime achievement ranking. We aren’t allowing what happened at Stanford, Tennessee, USC, UConn, the WNBA or anywhere else to rewrite what happened when these players were teenagers.

Then comes Jazmine Jackson at No. 2.

Those Sacred Heart Cathedral teams were serious business, and Jackson was at the center of it. When you combine her talent with the winning and the level of basketball she played against, her placement makes sense within this particular formula.

Jasmine Dixon at No. 3 deserves the same type of historical respect. Long Beach Poly was not playing a cute neighborhood schedule. Those teams were loaded, nationally relevant and expected to win every time they walked into a gym.

Then you get to Lisa Leslie at No. 4.

And this is where these exercises become fun.

Could somebody put Leslie No. 1 and make a compelling argument? Absolutely.

We’re talking about one of the most physically overwhelming high school talents California has ever seen. But again, this isn’t simply, “Who was the most talented?” If that were the question, the order would look different.

Courtney Paris at No. 5 presents another fascinating case. Her high school production was ridiculous. The combination of dominance, numbers, size, rebounding and winning makes her one of the easiest players on the entire list to defend.

Then comes Sa’De Wiley-Gatewood at No. 6.

People who weren’t around for that era may not completely understand this one.

Those who know, know.

Sa’De was different.

The handle, creativity, speed, swagger, passing and command of the game were years ahead of their time. Lynwood played major basketball, and she wasn’t simply participating in that environment—she was driving it.

Then Hampton at seven, followed by Chelsea Gray, Alexis Gray-Lawson, Candice Wiggins, JuJu Watkins, Kelsey Plum, Jackie Gemelos and Diana Taurasi among the names occupying that next elite tier.

Look at those names.

And somebody still has to be 14th.

That’s California.

Comparing Eras Is Almost Impossible

This was probably the hardest part.

How do you fairly compare a guard from 1993 to one from 2023?

Today’s players have year-round skill trainers, national club schedules, strength programs, social media exposure, streaming services and recruiting coverage beginning before some of them reach high school.

Earlier generations didn’t have that ecosystem.

That doesn’t make one generation better.

It makes them different.

You have to evaluate players within the basketball environment they actually competed in.

Tina Thompson’s era wasn’t JuJu Watkins’ era. Diana Taurasi’s era wasn’t Kelsey Plum’s. Sa’De Wiley-Gatewood played a different style of basketball than Sabrina Ionescu. Alexis Gray-Lawson and Chelsea Gray had different responsibilities and different games.

You can’t simply put everybody’s statistics into a spreadsheet and press “rank.”

Context matters.

So does competition.

A 25-point night against an ordinary opponent is not automatically more impressive than 17 against a nationally ranked team with three Division I defenders trying to take you out of the game.

That’s why schedule, postseason performance and the strength of California’s various eras mattered throughout this process.

And California Had Some MONSTER Teams

You cannot properly discuss this list without discussing the programs.

St. Mary’s of Stockton has been a factory.

Long Beach Poly was terrifying.

Narbonne had stretches when its roster looked like somebody accidentally assembled a college team.

Sacred Heart Cathedral produced champions.

Mater Dei has consistently operated on a national stage.

Archbishop Mitty has been one of the most respected programs in the country.

Oakland Tech produced championship-level teams and elite individual talent.

The great Troy teams deserve their flowers, too.

And some programs were so loaded that multiple players from the same roster had legitimate arguments for this list.

Look at those St. Mary’s of Berkeley teams.

Gabby Green.

Mikayla Cowling.

Serious players.

Then think about those Bishop O’Dowd teams with Oderah Chidom and Asha Thomas. That’s high-level talent playing together, winning together and competing against California’s best.

Some tremendous basketball players missed this list because California has simply produced too many of them.

That isn’t disrespect.

That’s depth.

The Players Near the Middle Might Create the Best Arguments

The top 10 will always generate headlines, but the real arguments start once you get into the teens, 20s and 30s.

That’s where résumé versus talent becomes fascinating. You have Katie Lou Samuelson, Charde Houston, Destiny Littleton, Jayne Appel, Sabrina Ionescu, Jordin Canada, Danielle Robinson, Kennedy Smith, De’Nesha Stallworth, Jeanette Pohlen, Ashley Paris, Aquira DeCosta, Jordan Lee, Nirra Fields, Tina Thompson and now Willnett Crockett sitting in portions of the list where you could spend an entire afternoon rearranging names.

And somebody would still be mad.

Crockett belongs in this conversation because those Narbonne teams were no joke. When you’re evaluating high school careers, the caliber of basketball being played around a player has to matter. Narbonne wasn’t simply beating teams; during its best stretches, it was one of the defining programs in California girls basketball.

Then there’s Tina Thompson.

If this were a ranking of overall basketball careers, we’re having a completely different discussion. She’s one of the greatest basketball players California has ever produced, period.

But we’re intentionally locking the doors at high school graduation.

That changes everything.

Some Great Players Had to Miss

This was painful. California has produced enough talent to make a second 50-player list that people could argue against this one. That’s not hyperbole.

There are McDonald’s All-Americans who won’t make everybody’s version of the top 50. State champions who won’t make it. Future pros who won’t make it. Players who were absolute nightmares to guard who won’t make it.

Gabby Green, Mikayla Cowling, Oderah Chidom, Asha Thomas, McKenna Woliczko, Jerry Robinson and many others had legitimate arguments.

California is just that deep.

The JuJu Question

JuJu Watkins might eventually become the most accomplished basketball player California has ever produced. She also might not.

That’s a conversation for another day.

For this exercise, her placement is based strictly on the high school résumé that already exists.

The production was absurd. The national recognition was enormous. The competition was legitimate. The talent was obvious. And she carried expectations that very few high school players in any era have experienced. That’s why she’s already this high.

But this list isn’t projecting.

We’re not giving bonus points for what somebody might become. We’re grading what happened.

And That’s Really the Point

Rankings like this shouldn’t end conversations.

They should start them.

The beauty of California girls basketball is that somebody from Oakland is going to look at this differently than somebody from Los Angeles. Somebody from Stockton is going to remind you about a player everybody else forgot. Someone who watched basketball in the ‘90s will swear today’s generation has no idea. Today’s players will pull up film and say the game has evolved. Perfect.

Let’s argue basketball.

Tell me who is too high.

Tell me who is too low.

Tell me who I completely missed.

But bring a résumé with the argument.

Bring championships. Bring state appearances. Bring national recognition. Bring production. Bring competition. Bring impact. Bring the tape.

Don’t just tell me, “She was cold.”

I know.

They were all cold.

That’s why cutting California girls basketball down to 50 players was damn near impossible in the first place.

From Morningside to Sacred Heart Prep. From Long Beach Poly to Lynwood. From Oakland Tech to St. Mary’s. From Narbonne to Mater Dei. From Bishop’s to Mitty. From La Jolla Country Day to Sierra Canyon and dozens of gyms in between, California has spent decades producing guards, wings and posts who changed games and raised the standard.

Different eras.

Different styles.

Different résumés.

Same state.

And one undeniable basketball history.

California, stand up.