Arike Ogunbowale No. 1 On Expansion Draft Board, But CBA Adds Twist

Dallas Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale is the top-ranked available player in a new WNBA expansion draft big board published Wednesday by The Athletic’s Sabreena Merchant, ahead of the April 3 draft that will stock the rosters of the Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire.

But a significant wrinkle buried in the new collective bargaining agreement could reshape how much leverage an expansion team actually holds if it selects her.

Under the league’s official expansion draft rules, each of the 13 existing teams must submit a roster list to the league office by Sunday, March 29, covering every player to whom the team holds rights. From that list, teams may designate up to five protected players who will not be available for selection. All others are placed on the unprotected list and are eligible for selection by Portland and Toronto.

The draft consists of two rounds in a snake format — the team that holds the first pick in Round 1 will pick second in Round 2. Each expansion team may select only one potential unrestricted free agent, with that selection granting the team exclusive supermax negotiating rights. Any incumbent team that fails to protect an unrestricted free agent loses the ability to core her afterward.

Merchant projects Ogunbowale, a UFA after seven seasons with Dallas, as potentially unprotected by the Wings as they build around Paige Bueckers. She is listed as one of the few UFAs the piece considers worth a max contract, with shot creation cited as a particularly valuable trait for a franchise building from scratch — even while acknowledging efficiency concerns after a 2025 season in which she shot 36.4% from the field and 30.4% from three.

Here is where the new CBA matters directly. Ogunbowale was drafted in 2019, giving her seven years of WNBA service entering 2026. Under the terms of the new CBA, which runs through 2032, players with seven or more years of service cannot be designated as Core Players starting in 2027. That means the supermax negotiating rights an expansion team would receive by selecting her are effectively a one-year window. She could be cored for 2026, but not beyond that.

That is nothing — the 2026 max salary is $1.4 million under the new CBA, with the salary cap rising nearly fivefold from $1.5 million to $7.0 million this season. But for Toronto or Portland, using their single UFA pick on a player they cannot core long-term is a meaningful constraint, particularly when both franchises are building from scratch and will likely need that supermax lever to retain a foundational piece.

A coin toss between Portland and Toronto is scheduled for Friday, March 27. The winner can choose between receiving the first pick in the expansion draft or the sixth pick — rather than seventh — in the first round of the college draft on April 13. There is also a trade window built into the process.

Between the time roster lists are submitted and the day before the expansion draft, Portland and Toronto are permitted to make pre-arranged deals with existing teams — including agreements to select a specific player from an unprotected list and immediately trade her to a third team.

Two Wings players appear in Merchant’s full top-15 ranking. Center Li Yueru checks in at No. 10 as a reserved free agent, with Merchant calling the 6-foot-7 big a “worthy gamble” ahead of other Dallas options, including Diamond Miller, Haley Jones, and JJ Quinerly.

The WNBA Expansion Draft 2026, presented by State Street Investment Management SPY, will air on ESPN at 2:30 p.m. CT on April 3.