2024 WNBA Draft
General information
SportBasketball
Date(s)April 15, 2024
LocationTBA
Network(s)TBA
Overview
LeagueWNBA
Teams12

The 2024 WNBA Draft, the WNBA's draft for the 2024 WNBA season, will be held on April 15, 2024 following the 2023–24 NCAA Division I women's basketball season. The draft will be the 29th in WNBA history.

Draft lottery

The lottery selection to determine the order of the top four picks in the 2024 draft took place on December 10, 2023, and was televised on ESPN. The four non-playoff teams in 2023 qualified for the lottery drawing: Indiana Fever, Phoenix Mercury, Los Angeles Sparks, and the Seattle Storm. The Fever won the lottery for the second time in franchise history and were awarded the top pick in the draft. The rest of the order went as the following: Spark, Mercury, Storm.[1]

Lottery chances

Team Combined 2022–2023 record Lottery chances (out of 1,000)
Indiana Fever 18–58 442
Phoenix Mercury 24–52 276
Los Angeles Sparks 30–46 178
Seattle Storm 33–43 104

The lottery odds were based on combined records from the 2022 and 2023 WNBA seasons. In the drawing, 14 balls numbered 1–14 are placed in a lottery machine and mixed. Four balls are drawn to determine a four-digit combination (only 11–12–13–14 is ignored and redrawn). The team to which that four-ball combination is assigned receives the No. 1 pick. The four balls are then placed back into the machine and the process is repeated to determine the second pick. The two teams whose numerical combinations do not come up in the lottery will select in the inverse order of their two-year cumulative record. Ernst & Young knows the discreet results before they are announced.[2] The order of selection for the remainder of the first round as well as the second and third rounds was determined by inverse order of the teams' respective regular-season records solely from 2022.

Eligibility

Under the current collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the WNBA and its players' union, draft eligibility for players not defined as "international" requires the following to be true:[3]

  • The player's 22nd birthday falls during the calendar year of the draft. For this draft, the cutoff birth date is December 31, 2000.
  • She has either:
    • completed her college eligibility;
    • received a bachelor's degree, or is scheduled to receive such in the 3 months following the draft; or
    • is at least 4 years removed from high school graduation.

A player who is scheduled to receive her bachelor's degree within 3 months of the draft date, and is younger than the cutoff age, is only eligible if the calendar year of the draft is no earlier than the fourth after her high school graduation.

Players with remaining college eligibility who meet the cutoff age must notify the WNBA headquarters of their intent to enter the draft no later than 10 days before the draft date, and must renounce any remaining college eligibility to do so. A separate notification timetable is provided for players involved in postseason tournaments (most notably the NCAA Division I tournament); those players (normally) must declare for the draft within 24 hours of their final game.

"International players" are defined as those for whom all of the following is true:

  • Born and currently residing outside the U.S.
  • Never "exercised intercollegiate basketball eligibility" in the U.S.

For "international players", the eligibility age is 20, also measured on December 31 of the year of the draft.

Key

+ Denotes player who has been selected for at least one All-Star Game
Bold Denotes player who won Rookie of the Year

Draft

First Round

Pick Player Nationality Team School / club team
1 Indiana Fever
2 Los Angeles Sparks
3 Phoenix Mercury
4 Seattle Storm
5 Dallas Wings (from Chicago)[lower-alpha 1]
6 Washington Mystics
7 Minnesota Lynx
8 Atlanta Dream
9 Dallas Wings
10 Connecticut Sun
11 New York Liberty
12 Los Angeles Sparks (from Las Vegas)[lower-alpha 2]

Second Round

Pick Player Nationality Team School / club team
13 Chicago Sky (from Phoenix)[lower-alpha 1]
14 Seattle Storm
15 Indiana Fever
16 Las Vegas Aces (from Los Angeles)[lower-alpha 2]
17 New York Liberty (from Chicago)[lower-alpha 1]
18 Las Vegas Aces (from Washington)[lower-alpha 3]
19 Minnesota Lynx
20 Atlanta Dream
21 Washington Mystics (from Dallas)[lower-alpha 4]
22 Connecticut Sun
23 New York Liberty
24 Las Vegas Aces

Third Round

Pick Player Nationality Team School / club team
25 Phoenix Mercury
26 Seattle Storm
27 Indiana Fever
28 Los Angeles Sparks
29 Phoenix Mercury (from Chicago)[lower-alpha 1]
30 Washington Mystics
31 Minnesota Lynx
32 Atlanta Dream
33 Dallas Wings
34 Connecticut Sun
35 New York Liberty
36 Las Vegas Aces

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 3 4 February 11, 2023: Four-team trade among Chicago, Dallas, New York, and Phoenix[4]
    • Chicago acquired Marina Mabrey and a 2024 second-round pick (from Phoenix)
    • New York acquired rights to Leonie Fiebich, a 2024 second-round pick (from Chicago), and the right to swap 2025 first-round picks (from Phoenix)
    • Phoenix acquired Michaela Onyenwere, 2024 third-round pick (from Chicago), and 2025 second-round pick (from Chicago)
    • Dallas acquired Diamond DeShields, 2023 and 2024 first-round picks (from Chicago), and the right to swap 2025 first-round picks (from Chicago)
  2. 1 2 January 21, 2023: Las Vegas to Los Angeles[5]
  3. ↑ February 5, 2023: Las Vegas to Washington[6]
    • Las Vegas acquired a 2024 second-round pick and 2025 second-round pick
    • Washington acquired the rights to Amanda Zahui B
  4. ↑ April 10, 2023: Washington to Dallas[7]
    • Dallas acquired the rights to Stephanie Soares
    • Washington acquired 2024 second-round and 2025 first-round picks (via Atlanta)

References

  1. ↑ Negley, Cassandra (10 December 2023). "2024 WNBA Draft: Fever land No. 1 selection in lottery with Caitlin Clark the presumptive top pick". Yahoo Sports.
  2. ↑ Dozier, Emily (10 December 2023). "WNBA Draft Lottery, explained: Updated odds for every team to win the No. 1 overall pick in 2024 | Sporting News". www.sportingnews.com.
  3. ↑ "Article XIII, Section 1: Player Eligibility" (PDF). 2020 Women's National Basketball Association Collective Bargaining Agreement. Women's National Basketball Players Association. pp. 110–111. Retrieved December 14, 2020.
  4. ↑ "Chicago Sky Acquires Marina Mabrey in Four-Team Trade". WNBA.com. February 12, 2023. Retrieved February 12, 2023.
  5. ↑ "Sparks Acquire WNBA Champion Dearica Hamby". WNBA.com. January 21, 2023. Retrieved January 8, 2024.
  6. ↑ "Aces Acquire Pair Of Second Round Picks From Washington". WNBA.com. February 5, 2023. Retrieved January 8, 2024.
  7. ↑ DBragaSports (April 10, 2023). "Stephanie Soares selected 4th overall in WNBA Draft". SBNation. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.