From Gamecocks to Fever: Inside Raven Johnson’s Whirlwind WNBA Draft Day

What’s it like to spend a day awaiting your fate? We went behind the scenes with the South Carolina guard before her big moment.

Raven Johnson was selected by the Indiana Fever with the No. 10 pick in Monday’s WNBA draft. | David L. Nemec/NBAE/Getty Images

Raven Johnson looked intently across a crowded room as her grandmother, Connie Boone, spoke into a microphone. God doesn’t make mistakes, she said to Johnson, whose necklace caught the reflection of a disco ball hanging above. You are here, in this position, for a reason, Boone wanted her granddaughter to know. 

Only 28 others had found themselves in such a circumstance before: selected by the Indiana Fever in the first round of the WNBA draft. Johnson was the 29th, with the Fever taking the South Carolina guard as the No. 10 overall pick on Monday night. But Johnson’s grandmother’s words also spoke to the fortuity of the moment. 

Johnson will join a team led by Caitlin Clark, who infamously waved her off, as if Johnson was not worth the effort of covering on defense, in Indiana’s 2023 Final Four defeat of South Carolina. This moment sent Johnson on a soul-searching odyssey, which spurred a revenge tour that culminated in the Gamecocks toppling Clark’s Hawkeyes in the 2024 national championship. Johnson has been sure to say she doesn’t blame Clark for the incident that had her contemplating quitting basketball; rather, she emphasized the wave-off and subsequent public scrutiny as motivating factors and a transition point in her career. 

Just over a week before draft night, Johnson (left) was competing in the Final Four against fellow first-round pick Azzi Fudd (right). | Jordan Naholowaa Murph/Sports Illustrated

So it makes sense that the phrase “full-circle moment” permeated Johnson’s draft after-party, held on the third floor of a swanky Lower East Side members club. Friends and family who had flown in from all over, with many traveling from Johnson’s hometown of Atlanta, donned red, bedazzled Fever hats. Her mother, Shekia, said she had a feeling that Johnson was headed to Indiana, even before the cameras began to crowd her daughter’s table on the draft floor ahead of the Fever’s selection. Call it mother’s intuition. Johnson, herself, was not so sure. 

“I did not think I was going to get my name called,” Johnson said. “I was like, ‘Why are all these cameras coming in my face?’ But when they called my name, I was like, ‘Me?’ I thought I’d have been a lower pick, honestly. But it’s a blessing to hear your name get called.” 

Just 12 hours earlier, all Johnson could do was envision her draft moment, and even that couldn’t prepare her for the real thing. 

---

Johnson’s team huddled in a small green room with dark gray carpet and fluorescent lighting, which felt especially harsh at 10 a.m. on a Monday morning. They watched on as Charlamagne tha God peppered Johnson and her South Carolina teammate Ta’Niya Latson with questions for an interview that would air the following day on 101.9’s The Breakfast Club. The group of seven would occasionally laugh, with those who had known Johnson since she was a young girl quipping that they hadn’t heard her talk like this in public before. She was all grown-up. 

After the interview, Johnson was whisked out of the Midtown Manhattan building at noon, with the 23-year-old helping navigate the New York City streets back to her hotel around the corner. WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert breezed past Johnson & Co. on the way in, with the Luxury Collection Hotel doubling as league headquarters for draft day. Johnson brightly greeted her hairstylist, Elizabeth Semande, makeup artist Renee Sanganoo and stylist Brittany Hampton in the lobby before corralling the crew into an elevator. Videographer Jineen Williams, whom Johnson has known since the ninth grade, trailed behind capturing every moment. It takes a village, and Johnson didn’t appear phased by the commotion in the least, perhaps a manifestation of attending college in the NIL era. 

Once up in the room, Johnson slipped into a robe and brown Louis Vuitton slippers as the team from Coach, who dressed her for the draft, entered the small space. Johnson faced the window as her hair and makeup got underway. The trio laughed and chatted with what seemed to be an unmistakable familiarity as Semande and Sanganoo primped and pampered Johnson’s visage. How long had Johnson been working with the duo? They had just met her that day. Williams informed me that this type of contagiousness and ease is par for the course with Johnson. 

After her look was hung up and a table full of jewelry and accessories was laid out, there was a mass exodus from the space, leaving just Johnson and her hair and makeup team. The day’s first moment of silence washed over the room at 12:40 p.m., and it felt welcome. The vacuum, however, was filled with the unmistakable staccato dial-up tone of an outgoing FaceTime call. Johnson’s grandmother, Connie, filled the phone screen. Johnson playfully tapped her index finger to her thumb, explaining to her grandmother that the gesture meant tea. 

The call was soon merged with someone on the other line: South Carolina coach Dawn Staley. Johnson lit up in a way she hadn’t all day when talking with Staley. She jumped out of her chair, skipping around the room, almost floating as she spoke with her former coach. The two giggled and often finished each other’s sentences in what sounded like a shared language only the two of them could understand. 

Staley and Johnson were quickly interrupted, though, by Courtney Williams, who burst through the hotel room door like an energy bomb. One half of the popular Twitch channel StudBudz, Williams, was accompanied by someone holding a phone on a tripod, with all the happenings immediately beamed up to her livestream. Does an appearance on StudBudz count as a “Welcome to the W” moment? It sure felt like it.

Johnson’s mother, Shekia, entered the room next, sitting on the bed while her daughter was tasked with producing content for a number of partnerships. Johnson needed to appear in several videos for Coach as she prepared for the draft, often requiring multiple takes. Hampton, who was there as her stylist, doubled as a director, helping Johnson with her lines for her branded content obligations. 

Occasionally, the conversation turned toward the night’s draft. Out of earshot of Johnson, some loved ones discussed where certain mock drafts projected her to go. Shekia, though, reiterated a lesson that others who had been through the draft process before had told her: whatever is for the players is for them. In other words, what is meant to be will be. 

The last big decision before heading across town to Hudson Yards for the night’s main event came down to what shoes to pair with Johnson’s celestial-inspired blazer dress: pumps or platforms. Shekia prompted the room for everyone’s opinion on the choice. Platforms, it was.

At certain points throughout the day, there were as many as 15 people huddled around Johnson, with multiple cameras pointed in her direction, making it easy to forget she wasn’t even yet a pro. As the clock neared 4 p.m., and it was about time to head out to the draft, the room began to remark on how grown-up Johnson looked. Finally, a reminder that despite the 23-year-old operating deftly like a mini corporation throughout the day, she was still competing for her college team just eight days ago.  

Much about the WNBA draft process has changed. The outfits being one (no more business casual mandates). The event has exploded in terms of size, scope and stakeholders. Players have endorsements, brand deals and media obligations from sunrise to sunset. This isn’t the WNBA draft of 2010 or even five years ago. But what remains true is that the occasion serves as a threshold from college to the pros; from coming-of-age to all grown-up. And Johnson, having already navigated adversity and reinvented herself in her young collegiate career, may be better positioned than most to meet the moment. 

With her brand obligations all but finished for the day, Johnson slipped into the hotel hallway for an impromptu photo shoot before heading over to the draft. Who else did she run into but South Carolina teammate Madina Okot. The two squealed when they saw each other, gleefully complimenting each other’s outfits. In that moment, everything else fell away, and what remained in stark relief against the glitz of draft day were two old friends hyping each other up before a night out. There they were, two teammates, hand in hand, about to cross the threshold, exactly where they were supposed to be. 

---