ISL Draft To Begin June 29: Full Order Revealed, Including Rookie-Only Round

International Swimming League teams have begun retaining their top athletes from last year. Starting next Tuesday, teams will retain up to ten more athletes before the drafting officially begins.

We’ve got the fully-updated draft order, plus a layout of all the personnel moves to come in the next week.

ISL Draft Process

1. First-5s

  • Each team retains five swimmers from its protection pool.

These happened earlier this week. You can find each team’s retained swimmers here, or below:

2. Draft-day retaining (Tuesday, June 29)

On draft day (currently expected to be next Tuesday, June 29), each team retains up to ten more swimmers from its protection pool, in this order:

  • Each team retains 4 swimmers
  • Each team retains 3 swimmers
  • Each team retains 2 swimmers
  • Each team retains 1 swimmer

3. First-Round Rookie Picks (Tuesday, June 29)

This was not part of the original announcement of the draft process, but was revealed on the SwimSwam podcast last week.

  • Each team selects one rookie from the draft pool
    • Teams pick in reverse order of last year’s team finish, so the Aqua Centurions will pick first
    • Teams can only select rookies – not swimmers who are a part of any team’s protection pool.

4. Fan Vote (From June 29-30)

After that, fans will be able to vote for one more swimmer to be retained to each team.

The swimmer must be in that team’s protection pool. In order to vote, fans will have to (1) register on the ISL platform and (2) purchase a subscription to stream either the full ISL season, or one team’s specific matches.

Each registered fan will get one vote to cast for one team to retain a swimmer from 2020.

5. Swimmer Draft (Wednesday, June 30)

After that, all unretained players join the draft pool, and teams can start drafting from the collection of rookies and unretained veterans.

Teams will have just 60 seconds to make their picks. If a team misses the deadline, they’ll be jumped in the draft order.

The lowest-finishing teams getting multiple picks before the top finishers get one. The format is below. We’ll plug in the actual teams for a full draft order at the bottom of this post:

PICK # ROUND 1 ROUND 2 ROUND 3 ROUND 4 ROUNDS 5-10 ROUND 11 ROUND 12 ROUND 13 ROUND 14
1 #10 Team #10 Team #10 Team #10 Team #10 Team #8 Team #6 Team #4 Team #2 Team
2 #9 Team #9 Team #9 Team #9 Team #9 Team #7 Team #5 Team #3 Team #1 Team
3 #8 Team #8 Team #8 Team #8 Team #6 Team #4 Team #2 Team
4 #7 Team #7 Team #7 Team #7 Team #5 Team #3 Team #1 Team
5 #6 Team #6 Team #6 Team #4 Team #2 Team
6 #5 Team #5 Team #5 Team #3 Team #1 Team
7 #4 Team #4 Team #2 Team
8 #3 Team #3 Team #1 Team
9 #2 Team
10 #1 Team

After that, the remaining swimmers in the draft pool are available to sign as free agents.

Overall Draft Order

  • The draft order is set up to try to promote some parity in a league where there’s been very little of it. Outside of the rookie-only picks at the top, the bottom-finishing Aqua Centurions and DC Trident will get 5 picks each before the top two teams from last year (Cali Condors & Energy Standard) get their first pick.
  • Including the rookie picks, the Aqua Centurions will start the draft with overall picks #1, #11, #13, #17, and #23 – that’s a quarter of the picks in the first 25. Ignoring the rookie-only picks, Aqua will have three of the first seven picks among the unretained veterans on the board and the remainder of the rookie field.
Overall Pick Round Pick Team Restriction
1 R R.01 Aqua Centurions Rookies only
2 R R.02 DC Trident Rookies only
3 R R.03 NY Breakers Rookies only
4 R R.04 Toronto Titans Rookies only
5 R R.05 Tokyo Frog Kings Rookies only
6 R R.06 Iron Rookies only
7 R R.07 LA Current Rookies only
8 R R.08 London Roar Rookies only
9 R R.09 Energy Standard Rookies only
10 R R.10 Cali Condors Rookies only
11 1 1.01 Aqua Centurions
12 1 1.02 DC Trident
13 2 2.01 Aqua Centurions
14 2 2.02 DC Trident
15 2 2.03 NY Breakers
16 2 2.04 Toronto Titans
17 3 3.01 Aqua Centurions
18 3 3.02 DC Trident
19 3 3.03 NY Breakers
20 3 3.04 Toronto Titans
21 3 3.05 Tokyo Frog Kings
22 3 3.06 Iron
23 4 4.01 Aqua Centurions
24 4 4.02 DC Trident
25 4 4.03 NY Breakers
26 4 4.04 Toronto Titans
27 4 4.05 Tokyo Frog Kings
28 4 4.06 Iron
29 4 4.07 LA Current
30 4 4.08 London Roar
31 5 5.01 Aqua Centurions
32 5 5.02 DC Trident
33 5 5.03 NY Breakers
34 5 5.04 Toronto Titans
35 5 5.05 Tokyo Frog Kings
36 5 5.06 Iron
37 5 5.07 LA Current
38 5 5.08 London Roar
39 5 5.09 Energy Standard
40 5 5.10 Cali Condors
41 6 6.01 Aqua Centurions
42 6 6.02 DC Trident
43 6 6.03 NY Breakers
44 6 6.04 Toronto Titans
45 6 6.05 Tokyo Frog Kings
46 6 6.06 Iron
47 6 6.07 LA Current
48 6 6.08 London Roar
49 6 6.09 Energy Standard
50 6 6.10 Cali Condors
51 7 7.01 Aqua Centurions
52 7 7.02 DC Trident
53 7 7.03 NY Breakers
54 7 7.04 Toronto Titans
55 7 7.05 Tokyo Frog Kings
56 7 7.06 Iron
57 7 7.07 LA Current
58 7 7.08 London Roar
59 7 7.09 Energy Standard
60 7 7.10 Cali Condors
61 8 8.01 Aqua Centurions
62 8 8.02 DC Trident
63 8 8.03 NY Breakers
64 8 8.04 Toronto Titans
65 8 8.05 Tokyo Frog Kings
66 8 8.06 Iron
67 8 8.07 LA Current
68 8 8.08 London Roar
69 8 8.09 Energy Standard
70 8 8.10 Cali Condors
71 9 9.01 Aqua Centurions
72 9 9.02 DC Trident
73 9 9.03 NY Breakers
74 9 9.04 Toronto Titans
75 9 9.05 Tokyo Frog Kings
76 9 9.06 Iron
77 9 9.07 LA Current
78 9 9.08 London Roar
79 9 9.09 Energy Standard
80 9 9.10 Cali Condors
81 10 10.01 Aqua Centurions
82 10 10.02 DC Trident
83 10 10.03 NY Breakers
84 10 10.04 Toronto Titans
85 10 10.05 Tokyo Frog Kings
86 10 10.06 Iron
87 10 10.07 LA Current
88 10 10.08 London Roar
89 10 10.09 Energy Standard
90 10 10.10 Cali Condors
91 11 11.01 NY Breakers
92 11 11.02 Toronto Titans
93 11 11.03 Tokyo Frog Kings
94 11 11.04 Iron
95 11 11.05 LA Current
96 11 11.06 London Roar
97 11 11.07 Energy Standard
98 11 11.08 Cali Condors
99 12 12.01 Tokyo Frog Kings
100 12 12.02 Iron
101 12 12.03 LA Current
102 12 12.04 London Roar
103 12 12.05 Energy Standard
104 12 12.06 Cali Condors
105 13 13.01 LA Current
106 13 13.02 London Roar
107 13 13.03 Energy Standard
108 13 13.04 Cali Condors
109 14 14.01 Energy Standard
110 14 14.02 Cali Condors

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30% slow twitch 70% water
3 years ago

it’s a dumb idea ISL thinking they’re gonna make money from this, no-one’s really gonna be behind a team enough to pay a subscription when they could watch on ABC or something

Ghost
3 years ago

Has the Ukrainian paid all athlete and debts from previous years?

LAC Swimmer
Reply to  Ghost
3 years ago

Yes he has, but it took him very long and this season better be paid immediately i dont want ISL to be the AFA of swimming and vanish in a flash

2Fat4Speed
3 years ago

Is it just me or did they make this way more complicated than it needed to be?

Also, the way that they randomly announced the protected/retained athletes on social media was strange.

Barry
Reply to  2Fat4Speed
3 years ago

Having a rookie-only round also sort of defeats the point of giving the weaker teams more picks ahead of the stronger teams.

Coach
Reply to  Barry
3 years ago

I’m not sure about that. If Caeleb was just now graduating from Florida, he would be a great pick up in the rookie round.

ALDASP
Reply to  Barry
3 years ago

Good point – I’m sure a team like DC Trident would like as big of an advantage that is sensible especially given 1) the performance last year, and 2) the number of people who might/already have retired, but I guess maybe top teams also have some issues in the absences department as well.

Troyy
Reply to  Barry
3 years ago

That was my impression too. The rookies shouldn’t be treated any different.

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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