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The WNBA will hold its annual draft lottery on Nov. 23, and the Dallas Wings have the best chance to win it for the second consecutive season.
The Wings used the No. 1 pick this past April to draft former University of Connecticut star guard Paige Bueckers, who had just led the Huskies to their record-extending 12th NCAA Division I women’s basketball championship. Dallas has a 42% chance to secure the top pick again.
Bueckers delivered in her first pro season, becoming the fourth straight No. 1 pick to be voted rookie of the year, but Dallas went 10-34 and missed the playoffs for the second straight season.
On Thursday, the Wings introduced their next head coach, Jose Fernandez, who spent the past 25 years leading the University of South Florida women’s basketball program. He follows Chris Koclanes, who lasted just one season as the successor to Latricia Trammell. No coach has lasted as many as three full seasons since the franchise formerly known as the Tulsa Shock moved to Dallas in 2016 and became the Wings.
The WNBA is currently negotiating with the players’ union for a new collective bargaining agreement. The two sides agreed to extend a Oct. 31 deadline to Nov. 30. Assuming a new CBA can get negotiated, the draft is normally held in April.
The Minnesota Lynx, who hold the Chicago Sky’s first-round pick after a previous trade, have a 26% chance at getting the No. 1 choice. The Lynx, who reached the WNBA Finals in 2024, had the best regular-season record in the WNBA this year before losing to the fourth-seeded Phoenix Mercury in a semifinal series in the playoffs.
The Seattle Storm own the Los Angeles Sparks’ top pick and have a 16.7% chance of winning the lottery. The Washington Mystics have just less than a 10% opportunity, while the Sky, who hold the Connecticut Sun’s first-round choice, have a 5.5% chance.
The lottery will be shown on ESPN for the 14th straight year, with Bethany Donaphin, the head of league operations, revealing the results. Lottery odds are based on the two-year cumulative results of the five teams that didn’t make the playoffs in the season preceding the next draft.
With the worst record, the Wings are guaranteed no worse than the No. 3 pick.
While there’s no clear-cut No. 1 pick like Bueckers last season, there are a host of talented draft-eligible players in college, including UCLA’s Lauren Betts, UConn’s Azzi Fudd, LSU’s Flau’jae Johnson and TCU’s Olivia Miles.
The league is expanding to 15 teams next season with the addition of the Portland Fire and the Toronto Tempo. Details of the expansion draft for those two new franchises hasn’t been announced yet.
In the past, the expansion teams would pick after the lottery teams in the first-year player draft.
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