Lorela Cubaj (born January 8, 1999) is an Italian professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

player for the

Atlanta Dream The Atlanta Dream are an American professional basketball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Dream compete in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) as a member of the Eastern Conference. The team was founded for the ...

of the

Women's National Basketball Association The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is a women's professional basketball league in the United States. The league comprises 13 teams (scheduled to expand to 15 in 2026). The WNBA is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan. The WNBA w ...

(WNBA) and for

Umana Reyer Venezia S.S.P. Reyer Venezia Mestre, commonly known as Reyer Venezia or simply Reyer, is an Italian professional basketball club that is based in Venice, Veneto. The club currently plays in the Lega Basket Serie A (LBA), the Italian basketball league sys ...

of the

Lega Basket Femminile Lega Basket Femminile (LBF) is the premier national league for women's basketball clubs in Italy, founded in 1930. Pool Comense is the competition's most successful club with fifteen championships, followed by AS Vicenza with twelve and Geas Bas ...

. She played college basketball at

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Established in 1885, it has the lar ...

. She was drafted by the

Seattle Storm The Seattle Storm are an American professional basketball team based in Seattle. The Storm compete in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) as a member of the Western Conference (WNBA), Western Conference. The team was founded by Gi ...

in the

2022 WNBA draft The 2022 WNBA Draft, the WNBA's draft for the 2022 WNBA season, was held on April 11, 2022, in New York City and aired live on WNBA on ESPN, ESPN in the United States and on The Sports Network, TSN1/4 in Canada at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time Zone, EDT ...

and played for the

New York Liberty The New York Liberty are an American professional basketball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of Brooklyn. The Liberty compete in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) as a member of the Eastern Confer ...

in the WNBA. She was waived by the team during her rookie season on July 1, 2022 after playing 11 games.

Playing career

Early years

Cubaj started playing basketball when she was 8. She won the Italian U18 championship with Umana Reyer Venezia in the 2016–17 season.

College career

Cubaj signed with

the summer of 2017. She made the NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen with the Yellow Jackets in

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

, where they were defeated by

South Carolina South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...

. That match Cubaj scored 15 points and grabbed 7 rebounds.

Professional career

On April 11, 2022, Cubaj was drafted 18th overall by the

in the

and they traded her draft rights to New York immediately. Cubaj played in 11 games for the Liberty during her rookie season before being waived on July 1, 2022. On 15 June 2022 Cubaj was signed to

for the

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LBF The pound of force or pound-force (symbol: lbf, sometimes lbf,) is a unit of force used in some systems of measurement, including English Engineering units and the foot–pound–second system. Pound-force should not be confused with pound ...

season.

Career statistics

WNBA

Regular season

''Stats current through end of 2024 season'' , - , align="left" ,

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New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, 11 , , 0 , , 8.0 , , .333 , , —, , — , , 2.1 , , 0.4 , , 0.0 , , 0.2 , , 0.5 , , 0.7 , - , align="left" ,

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

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Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

, 3 , , 0 , , 6.3 , , .000 , , — , , — , , 2.3 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 0.3 , , 0.3 , , 0.0 , - , align="left" ,

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, 28, , 1 , , 7.9, , .429, , —, , .600, , 1.5, , 0.5, , 0.3, , 0.1, , 0.4, , 1.2 , - class="sortbottom" , align="left" , Career , align="left" , 3 years, 2 teams , 42 , , 1 , , 7.8 , , .396 , , — , , .600 , , 1.7 , , 0.5 , , 0.2 , , 0.1 , , 0.4 , , 1.0

Playoffs

, - , style="text-align:left;",

, style="text-align:left;",

, 2, , 0, , 11.0, , .500, , —, , —, , 2.5, , 0.5, , 0.5, , 0.0, , 0.0, , 1.0 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:left;", Career , style="text-align:left;", 1 year, 1 team , 2 , , 0 , , 11.0 , , .500 , , — , , — , , 2.5 , , 0.5 , , 0.5 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 1.0

College

, - , style="text-align:left;", 2017–18 , style="text-align:left;",

, 34, , 32, , 20.6, , 32.9, , 16.7, , 46.2, , 4.4, , 1.5, , 1.4, , 0.8, , 1.5, , 3.7 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2018–19 , style="text-align:left;",

, 30, , 29, , 28.3, , 40.9, , 25.0, , 50.0, , 7.3, , 2.0, , 1.5, , 1.0, , 2.3, , 7.0 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2019–20 , style="text-align:left;",

, 31, , 30, , 34.2, , 44.9, , 28.0, , 57.8, , 7.7, , 2.5, , 1.2, , 1.2, , 1.9, , 10.0 , - , style="text-align:left;",

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

, style="text-align:left;",

, 26, , 26, , 33.3, , 43.9, , 19.4, , 59.2, , 11.5, , 2.8, , 1.3, , 1.3, , 2.3, , 12.5 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2021–22 , style="text-align:left;",

, 32, , 32, , 33.6, , 42.0, , 17.4, , 67.0, , 11.1, , 4.3, , 1.4, , 1.3, , 2.1, , 10.0 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 153, , 149, , 29.7, , 41.7, , 21.3, , 58.4, , 8.3, , 2.6, , 1.3, , 1.1, , 2.0, , 8.5

National Team

Youth level

Cubaj won the bronze medal with the Italian team at the U16 European Championship in

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

, averaging 11 points and 6.6 rebounds and being voted to the tournament All-Star Five. One year later she won the silver medal with the Italian U17 team, at the 2016 U17 World Championship in Spain. They lost the final against

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. At the tournament Cubaj averaged 6.1 points and 5.4 rebounds. A few weeks later, she was part of the Italian U18 national team at the U18 European Championship in Hungary and finished seventh place. At the tournament Cubaj averaged 10.4 points and 7.3 rebounds.

References

External links

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cubaj, Lorela 1999 births Living people Italian people of Albanian descent Atlanta Dream players Forwards (basketball) Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets women's basketball players Italian expatriate basketball people in the United States Italian women's basketball players New York Liberty players Seattle Storm draft picks Sportspeople from Perugia 21st-century Italian sportswomen