With the 2021 International Swimming League (ISL) playoffs set to commence on Thursday, we’ve taken a look back at the league’s first-ever draft that was held over the summer—and how the early results are looking for each of the 10 ISL clubs through the regular season.
As it turned out, the top rookie scorer from the season went undrafted: The LA Current’s Ingrid Wilm, who was a prudent free-agent signing for the club, had an unbelievable breakthrough performance, winning six individual races over the season and averaging 42.1 points-per-match.
The #2 scorer (based on points-per-match) was Toronto Titan teen Summer McIntosh, who was an 11th round, 92nd overall pick by the Titans during the draft.
The top scorer among a top-10 draft pick was Iron’s Barbora Seemanova, who was selected sixth overall in the opening rookie round of the draft and went on to average more than 35 points per match.
In addition to being the top first-timers, Wilm, McIntosh and Seemanova also ranked 1-2-3 among unretained swimmers, meaning the athletes that were available for selection during the ISL Draft after teams finished picking who they would protect.
Thank you to SwimSwam’s Barry Revzin for compiling the data.
Top Unretained Scorers
| Rank | Name | Club | Points-Per-Match |
| 1 | Ingrid Wilm | LAC | 42.1 |
| 2 | Summer McIntosh | TOR | 35.5 |
| 3 | Barbora Seemanova | IRO | 35.4 |
| 4 | Kasia Wasick | TOR | 31.6 |
| 5 | Marius Kusch | TOR | 30.6 |
| 6 | Holly Barratt | AQC | 29.8 |
| 7 | Vini Lanza | LON | 28.0 |
| 8 | Evgeniia Chikunova | ENS | 26.8 |
| 9 | Maria Kameneva | AQC | 26.6 |
| 10 | Andreas Vazaios | DCT | 26.4 |
| 11 | Yui Ohashi | TOK | 25.3 |
| 12 | Ali DeLoof | DCT | 25.1 |
| 13 | Paige Madden | TOK | 24.0 |
| 14 | Matt Temple | NYB | 23.2 |
| 15 | Fabian Schwingenschlogl | TOR | 22.6 |
| 16 | Sherridon Dressel | CAC | 22.6 |
| 17 | Katsumi Nakamura | LON | 22.5 |
| 18 | Aleksandr Shchegolev | DCT | 21.9 |
| 19 | Dylan Carter | LON | 21.2 |
| 20 | Katie Shanahan | LON | 20.8 |
We find a wide range of results when looking at how the top-10 rookies selected in the draft fared throughout the season.
Top selection Arno Kamminga averaged 15.6 points-per-match, ranking 34th among unretained swimmers, while #2 pick Ryan Hoffer averaged 12.7 for 34th.
Top 10 Rookie Picks
| Selection | Name | Club | Points-Per-Match | Rank Among Unretained |
| 1 | Arno Kamminga | AQC | 15.6 | 34th |
| 2 | Ryan Hoffer | DCT | 12.7 | 57th |
| 3 | Matt Temple | NYB | 23.2 | 14th |
| 4 | Kasia Wasick | TOR | 31.6 | 4th |
| 5 | Paige Madden | TOK | 24.0 | 13th |
| 6 | Barbora Seemanova | IRO | 35.4 | 3rd |
| 7 | Martin Malyutin | LAC | 20.4 | 21st |
| 8 | Kenzo Simons | LON | 1.5 | 153rd |
| 9 | Evgeniia Chikunova | ENS | 26.8 | 8th |
| 10 | Maaike De Waard | CAC | 11.7 | 68th |
Overall, the DC Trident had the best offseason based on points added. The team drafted 163.8 points and added an additional 60.6 from free agency for a total of 224.4 added points.
Despite failing to qualify for the playoffs, Tokyo was a close second with 223.8 points added, followed by Toronto with 214.6.
The New York Breakers, who finished fourth in four straight matches before narrowly placing third over Tokyo in the Play-In, had the worst offseason by points added with 127.1.
| Team | Retained | Drafted | Undrafted | Added | Total |
| DCT | 192.9 | 163.8 | 60.6 | 224.4 | 416.8 |
| TOK | 177.7 | 96.5 | 127.3 | 223.8 | 401.5 |
| TOR | 297.9 | 178.9 | 35.7 | 214.6 | 512.5 |
| AQC | 274.3 | 136.5 | 42.6 | 179.1 | 453.4 |
| IRO | 271.5 | 120.8 | 57.2 | 178.0 | 449.5 |
| LAC | 267.2 | 87 | 89.2 | 176.2 | 443.4 |
| LON | 329.4 | 135.6 | 39.4 | 175.0 | 504.4 |
| CAC | 507.3 | 97.3 | 45.5 | 142.8 | 650.1 |
| ENS | 471.1 | 91.3 | 48.9 | 140.2 | 611.3 |
| NYB | 183.4 | 64.5 | 62.6 | 127.1 | 310.5 |
NYB with the lowest points added despite getting an early pick. 🤣
Tokyo proves that if you don’t retain swimmers you can have a lot of added points.
Also the efficiency of the draft process is clear from the fact, that Cali’s retained swimmers outscored 7 of the 10 teams’ totals, Energy’s outscored 6.
Tokyo comes with an asterisk because they didn’t retain Yui Ohashi (25.3pts/match) nobody drafted her, and then they signed her later again. So it’s more like they retained 203.0 and added 198.5.