2024 WNBA Draft Recap By Mackenzie Meaney
In one of the most stacked draft classes of all time, the WNBA teams had so much talent to pick from.
The most stacked draft class that the WNBA has ever seen all gathered in Brooklyn last night to have a chance to hear their names called, and walk across the stage and collect their team jersey. Even if not the most stacked, it’s one of the best classes in the last decade.
Caitlin Clark, Cameron Brink, Angel Reese, Elizabeth Kitley, Kamilla Cardoso. Those are some of the names that headlined the draft.
However, The WNBA now has a situation on their hands, they have a talented pool of players to pick from, but how many make the’s rosters? So many players from the draft end up being cut due to there not being enough roster spots. Each team is given 12 spots, 36 players get drafted, but more than half the team already exists. According to Just Women’s Sports, 15 of the 36 draftees in 2023 made the opening day roster, and 17 from 2022 made the cut. This causes many players to play overseas in different leagues, or take a year off entirely. Expansion is the easy solution, but that is easier said than done. While there are plans to expand in the Bay Area in 2025, that doesn’t give the players now the footing they deserve to play in this league. Perhaps the solution lies with Clark, Reese, Kitley and Cardoso, as they helped to bring so much to college basketball, perhaps they bring in viewership, ad revenue and ticket sale money all to the W, and help the league grow.
Starting with the walking bucket herself, Clark went first overall to the Indiana Fever, who have already seen their ticket prices rise and their Clark jerseys sell out an hour after announcing the pick. Second overall was Cameron Brink, the 6-foot-4 forward from Stanford, and third was Kamilla Cardoso to the Chicago Sky, who had a double-double in the title game for South Carolina. L.A. also had the fourth pick, and selected Rickea Jackson from Tennessee.
The Sky also snagged LSU’s Angel Reese at No. 7, who shared how excited she was to finally play with Cardoso instead of against her. UCONN’s Aaliyah Edwards went one above Reese to the Washington Mystics, and her teammate Nika Mühl went in the second round, 14th overall to the Seattle Storm, just like another Husky legend, Sue Bird.
One of the most underrated and underappreciated college hoops players all year was Dyaisha Fair of Syracuse, who is third all-time on the DI women’s college basketball scoring list. Largely overshadowed by Clark’s record breaking year, some had Fair projected to go as high as 10th overall, but she slipped to the second-round, where the defending champions, the Las Vegas Aces, selected her at 16th overall.
Speaking of the Aces, they also drafted Clark’s teammate, Kate Martin, who was there in support of Clark first and hoping to hear her name called. Martin went 18th overall, and Elizabeth Kitley, who missed the tournament due to an ACL tear, went 24th to the Aces. Kitley was a three-time ACC player of the year, two-time All-American and ACC champion, and had her jersey retired by Virginia Tech.
Indiana’s Mackenzie Holmes went in the third round to the Los Angeles Sparks, along with UCLA’s Charisma Osborne, who went to the Phoenix Mercury. Angel Jackson, from Jackson State was the last pick of the draft and went to the Aces. She is the second player from an HBCU to be drafted into the ‘W.’
As we look to the start of the season, almost every team in the league improves in some way with one of these new players on their hands. The odds are not in their favor to all make a roster. Still, the WNBA will hopefully find a solution to come in the near future that allows their talented players to stay and play here, and not overseas or find a better way to support them and ease the transition from draftee to WNBA player.