The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA)'s draft for the 2024 season, following the 2023–24 NCAA Division I women's basketball season, was held on April 15, 2024, the 29th draft in WNBA history. The draft took place at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn, New York, and allowed fans to be in attendance for the first time since the 2016 WNBA draft. It was exclusively televised on ESPN in the United States and on TSN1/3/4 in Canada at 7:30 p.m. EDT.
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 in the U.S. and on TSN5 in Canada. The four non-playoff teams in 2023 qualified for the lottery drawing: the Indiana Fever, Phoenix Mercury, Los Angeles Sparks, and 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 follows: Sparks, Mercury, Storm.
Lottery chances
Note: Team selected for No.1 pick noted in bold text
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. 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 2023.
Eligibility
Under the 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:
- The player's 22nd birthday falls during the calendar year of the draft. For this draft, the cutoff birth date was December 31, 2002.
- She has either:
- completed her college eligibility;
- received a bachelor's degree, or is scheduled to receive such in the three months following the draft; or
- is at least four years removed from high school graduation.
A player who is scheduled to receive her bachelor's degree within three 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.
Draft invitees
On April 11, 2024, the WNBA released the names of the players who would be invited to be in attendance at the draft. This included:
- Cameron Brink, Stanford
- Kamilla Cardoso, South Carolina
- Caitlin Clark, Iowa
- Marquesha Davis, Ole Miss
- Aaliyah Edwards, UConn
- Dyaisha Fair, Syracuse
- Rickea Jackson, Tennessee
- Elizabeth Kitley, Virginia Tech
- Nika Mühl, UConn
- Charisma Osborne, UCLA
- Alissa Pili, Utah
- Nyadiew Puoch, Southside Flyers (Australia)
- Angel Reese, LSU
- Jacy Sheldon, Ohio State
- Celeste Taylor, Ohio State