Virginia Tech’s Georgia Amoore Is Rising in the 2024 WNBA Draft

The 2024 WNBA Draft is creeping up, just 56 days until draft day itself. With some questions about what the top end of the draft could actually look like given the possibility of college returners, recently spurred on by Paige Bueckers announcing she’s returning to Connecticut for another year, things are shaking up significantly.

While return announcements may hinder the depth of the draft, it makes holding a lottery pick (and making the most of it) all the more important in a class that can still impact organizational trajectory.

With Bueckers returning to Storrs, I view Georgia Amoore as the player most likely to rise up draft boards.

In my most recent Mock Draft, I had Bueckers going 3rd overall to the Chicago Sky and Rickea Jackson 4th to the Los Angeles Sparks. Jackson automatically shifts up to the Sky for me given fit and her talent, but Amoore jumps significantly from 8th to the Sparks to 4th to LA as well. Why?

Guard play is becoming an increasingly essential cog in the modernization of WNBA play, proliferated by space and pace principles ushered in by the Las Vegas Aces. Talent in general is the number one pillar of successful team-building, but being able to create efficient offense with consistency is of the utmost importance. Multiple teams throughout the league lack a starting point guard that can bring that to the table, part of what made this free agency so tenuous.

The great point guard Cold War of February 2024 will not be forgotten.

Amoore has been an enticing prospect her whole tenure in Blacksburg, ascending last season as she and Virginia Tech went nuclear en route to their first Final Four appearance in program history. While she is on the smaller end at 5’6, her shiftiness and first step set her apart. The distance shooting off movement, off the dribble, and on high volume with efficiency relative to difficulty was a staple of her game the past two seasons. Her ability to create laterally with her footwork and fluid handles tantalized.

In the 2024 season, she’s made sizable developments as point guard. She’s long held the role, but this season has shown a marked change in approach and her ability to routinely generate meaningful paint touches and easy buckets for herself and others out of them.

A usage increase this season has certainly played a small part, but make no mistake, there is a difference here borne out on film and statistically. 26 percent of Amoore’s points have come in the paint this season as opposed to 17.7 percent in 2023 per CBB Analytics. She’s taking 9.1 attempts inside the arc per 40 minutes this season, nearly 4 more than last season.

Tech has leaned heavily into Amoore’s downhill guile and freneticism in ACC play.

In the 8 games since Virginia Tech’s last loss, a game they recently avenged against Duke, Georgia Amoore is averaging 21 points and 8.5 assists (4.1 TO) while shooting with 43.1/39.7/93.1 splits, taking over 7 threes per game and getting to the line nearly 4 times per game.

Iceing and Blitzing ball screens set for Amoore has become commonplace, but stifling her with those coverages has not. She’s starting to iron out dribble manipulation/hesitation in tandem with her acceleration to just devastate defenses and routinely crash the basket like the tide hitting the sand. 

She picked apart Louisville with her pace, dusting every defender against a team that loves to try and put guards on an island and eliminate easy outlets. There wasn’t a single player that could stay in front. Even in the games where she struggled from the field (UNC and NC State), Georgia’s ability to continually keep the defense in rotation and make them pay was pivotal. When your impact is felt at a high level, even when scoring efficiently isn’t in the cards for you that evening, that’s meaningful. It’s a huge growth in Amoore’s game as a whole.

A defense can’t just say “we’re going to make her a scorer” or the same as a facilitator. She is always a threat, and it’s been bordering on impossible to find a way to keep her from making things happen for an entire game. 

She’s not the same player of course, with multiple differences in how they see and play the game, but Amoore has that same skip hesi as Kelsey Plum, using it to setup defenders along with her handle (most often the hesi or a quick cross) and it is LETHAL. When you bring that kind of off the dribble shotmaking dynamism and the quick twitch drives, the skip is an absurd probe to try and gauge/dictate your defender.

Everything she’s done out of screens this season has felt even more intentional. There’s manipulation in her game, thinking ahead to how the defense is or isn’t tagging, where the help is going to come from, and how she can best take advantage.

The key part of getting downhill more is how that opens the easy stuff. Corner kicks and quick skips to the slot are easy money. Consistently pushing the hit the paint, along with her penchant for Nash dribbling (snaking in and around the rim without taking a shot, but drawing the defense) is huge in continuing to force full focus from a defense.

Amoore creates so much easy out of how effectively she can do what’s hard, and she has really reaped the rewards of that this season with her intensified approach and understanding of the game.

One of my favorite aspects of her game is the two-player game she has with star center Liz Kitley. The pick and roll game is always highlighted understandably, but how she feeds the post is what stands out most to me. A great post player is only as great as their entry passers allow them to be!

While I do think it’s worth noting that it will take time to create synergy at the next level with a post player, (she and Liz have been doing this for 4 seasons!) the nuances and subtleties she’s already found are a huge part in what elevates her as a prospect. She’s so good at ball placement on those little float lobs, but also the timing. It’s like watching a very in sync pitcher and catcher when they make two or three passes back and forth to get Liz best established on the block. It’s such a key establishment in facilitating halfcourt offense.

There are going to be questions about what it means to have a 5’6 guard on the court defensively. It’s certainly understandable and fair to raise those, something I expect will come up eventually in a postseason series. However, it’s worth noting a few things.

For one, Amoore is a very active defender, and while she is small, she is very stout, capable of using strength and a strong base to guard up. She’s active in passing lanes, can fight through screens with a low shoulder, and has quick hands and feet. I’d also point out that steal numbers aren’t necessarily the best indicator of defensive potential/activity with respect to Amoore. Virginia Tech plays typically in a base drop with Kitley protecting the rim deeper in the paint, sacrificing the mid-range and not often playing with aggressive pressure or coverages. It works well for them, so it’s not a slight, but again just stands out in noting that it adds context to understanding some statistical points.

Another aspect that matters greatly; Opposition has to guard Amoore just as much as she has to do so with them. Especially with the current state of guard play in the league and the increased importance of it, I feel this outweighs any of the defensive questions in most contexts. Creating efficient offense for yourself and for the team at large is arguably the most important skill in team-building, and Georgia Amoore is one of the better prospects in the last few and next few seasons in this regard.

The biggest things I really want to see Amoore continue to develop this season and moving forward is a steadier game on her floater and in the mid-range at large. She’s added more to her game at all levels by getting downhill more as mentioned earlier, but the next stage for me is continuing to develop counters in the in-between. Given how much attention she draws outside the line and at the rim, being able to tease defenses and punish them further is going to be paramount for reaching her highest outcomes as a player.

Against the very best guard defenders in the game, which is a high mark to be fair, you can see this play out a bit. Duke’s Oluchi Okananwa (you will continue to hear more of her no doubt), has guarded Amoore better one on one than anyone in the country, in my opinion. If you can stick to her hip and ride out drives, she struggle a bit with initiating/drawing contact in the paint, another area for growth at the next level.

But again, when factoring in the players in the W that bring that same sort of length, physicality, and quickness to guard Amoore for a full game…. We are looking at quite a small list! 

Georgia Amoore has the potential to make things shake in the 2024 WNBA Draft, and in the pros at large.