The WNBA’s next expansion draft could be a mess for Toronto and Portland

As we wait for the WNBA and the Players’ Union to reach a new contract ahead of the 2026 season, there is a looming sense of anxiety about what comes next. Being able to fit everything in before the WNBA’s scheduled May 8 season tip-off won’t be easy, even if a deal is reached soon.

The priority will, of course, be an expansion draft for the Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire. The league’s two expansion teams are currently grasping at straws for any information they can get about their first step in team building. While the league held its last expansion draft just over a year ago for the Golden State Valkyries, that was not only under the last CBA, but also only involved just one team instead of two.

That expansion draft was held at the beginning of December that year, months before the rest of the WNBA entered free agency. The league gave teams over a month to prepare their protected player lists, and the Valkyries to review those lists and make their choices. The reality now is that Toronto and Portland will have a fraction of that time to prepare for their expansion draft, not to mention they are in the dark about what the rules will be and which players will be available as a result.

Here are a few of the main rules from the Valkyries’ expansion draft:

Things change, of course, when you think about this upcoming draft having two teams involved. Golden State could just pick whoever they wanted without having to prepare for another team taking those players first. That, mixed with the shortened amount of time Toronto and Portland will get to prepare when knowing the rules, puts both at a disadvantage in comparison.

The WNBA has only had three other expansion drafts with more than one team in the league’s 30-year history. These were in 1998, 1999 and 2000. While the ones in ‘98 and ‘99 were two-team expansion drafts, the one in 2000 was a four-team expansion draft. In that one, teams could pick multiple players from the same team, but in the previous two, only one player total was taken from each team.

So while it feels likely (based on precedent) that only one player from each current team will be able to be selected, there are also an uneven number of teams in the league right now, meaning one expansion team would have fewer players available to them.

A few big differences we could see in this next expansion draft:

It’s likely been hard for these two teams to do any sort of preparation without knowing when they will do the draft, when each of them will pick, and who will be available when they do so. Whenever a CBA is agreed upon, the league will probably try to make fast work of planning the date of the expansion draft and setting things in motion. But whenever that does happen, it’s going to be quite the scramble for its two newest organizations.