Holly Winterburn
#7Holly Winterburn
Portland Fire · Guard
- From
- Northampton, England
- Nationality
- British
Bio
Holly Winterburn is the first British guard to reach the WNBA built predominantly through the domestic British pathway rather than a full US college career — though, corrected from earlier reporting, she did spend one season at the University of Oregon before returning home. Her route to Portland ran through a genuinely brutal 2025: a training-camp deal with the Atlanta Dream, then a season-ending injury that wiped out the entire year before she'd played a WNBA minute. She came back in 2026, made Atlanta's opening-night roster, and was waived while literally boarding the team bus to their season opener. The Portland Fire signed her days later.
Beginner Story
Winterburn made her senior Women's British Basketball League debut for the Leicester Riders as a teenager and was WBBL Young Player of the Year three times running (2018, 2019, 2021). She did play a season of US Division I basketball — a true freshman reserve on Oregon's Pac-12 Championship team alongside Sabrina Ionescu in 2019-20 — before COVID-era transfer chaos brought her back to England, where she finished her degree and starred for the London Lions. In April 2024, she helped the London Lions win the FIBA EuroCup Women title, the first European trophy in British basketball history. Then came the setback that would define her: a training-camp contract with Atlanta in February 2025, and an injury that ended her season before it started. Most careers don't survive a lost year at that stage. Hers did — she made Atlanta's 2026 opening roster, got cut two days before the season anyway, and had a new WNBA contract with Portland within days. By August 2026 she'd posted a career-high 20 points in a single game. None of that reads like a smooth story. It reads like someone who refused to let one lost year be the whole story.
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Last checked: 2026-09-15