On the night of Caitlin Clark, Cameron Brink and company there is also a little bit of Italy at the 2024 WNBA Draft: our Matilde Villa was selected by the Atlanta Dream with the 32nd overall pick, the eighth in the third round.
Matilde Villa writes another small piece of our basketball history, becoming the fourth Italian chosen in the history of the WNBA Draft: before her Catarina Pollini (in the 1997 Original Draft that gave birth to the American league), Kathrin Ress (2007) and Lorela Cubaj (2022).
Interestingly, the Dreams are the same lineup that welcomed Lorela Cubaj, Villa’s partner at Reyer Venezia, to its ranks last season (Cubaj will be in Georgia again this season on a training camp contract).
WNBA Draft 2024 night, held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn, New York, was certainly among the most anticipated because of one of the most promising classes ever. And it did not betray expectations: the first selected was of course the new world basketball phenom Caitlin Clark, from the Indiana Fever, with the number 1; at number 2 for the Los Angeles Sparks Cameron Brink; at number 3 Kamilla Cardoso, a Brazilian who, however, played in college at South Carolina.
International call-ups
Out of 36 calls, there are ten players who can be counted among the “Internationals” in this Draft, of whom Kamilla Cardoso, Croatia’s Nika Muhl and Spain’s Helena Puleyo (22nd call) play in the NCAA. The others are France’s Carla Leite and Leila Lacan (ninth and tenth calls); Australians Nyadiew Pouch and Isobel Borlase, selected just by the Dreams with twelfth and twentieth calls; another Australian, the twenty-ninth caller Jaz Shelley; Nastja Claessens chosen with the thirtieth call by the Washington Mystics. And of course, Matilde Villa!
Source: legabasket women’s press office
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