2021 WNBA draft

The lottery selection to determine the order of the top four picks in the 2021 draft took place during halftime of the DePaul Blue Demons game against the Louisville Cardinals on December 4, 2020 and was televised on ESPN. The same four non-playoff teams in 2020 qualified for the lottery drawing: Indiana Fever, Dallas Wings, New York Liberty, and Atlanta Dream.[1]

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:[2]

• The player's 22nd birthday falls during the calendar year of the draft. For this draft, the cutoff birth date is December 31, 1999.
• 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 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.