The lottery for the 2026 WNBA draft will happen Nov. 23 on ESPN, the league introduced Friday.
The Dallas Wings, Minnesota Lynx, Seattle Storm, Washington Mystics and Chicago Sky all certified for the upcoming lottery, which is able to air at 6:30 p.m. ET (ESPN).
Lottery odds are based mostly on the cumulative information of the previous two WNBA common seasons for the 5 groups that didn’t make the playoffs in the latest season. This yr, two trades landed Minnesota and Seattle within the lottery.
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With a cumulative file of 19-15, the Wings have probably the most probabilities to land the highest choose (420 out of 1,000) and are assured a minimum of a top-three choose. Dallas had the No. 1 choice within the 2025 draft and chosen UConn’s Paige Bueckers, who was named Rookie of the Yr.
On account of a commerce between the Lynx and Sky, Minnesota holds Chicago’s first-round choose and has 261 probabilities to win the highest choose. Seattle, which owns the Los Angeles Sparks’ first-round choose, has the third-most probabilities (167).
Of the three groups not chosen within the lottery, the group with the worst cumulative two-year file will probably be awarded the third choose, the group with the next-worst file will choose fourth, and the ultimate group will choose fifth.
UCLA’s Lauren Betts is the projected No. 1 choose in ESPN’s most up-to-date mock draft. She was projected to be a top-five choose on this yr’s draft however determined to return to the Bruins for her senior season. Gamers who’re eligible to return to high school can wait to declare for the draft till after they’ve accomplished this school season.
The WNBA didn’t say the place the league’s two new groups, the Portland Hearth and the Toronto Tempo, would fall within the draft order. For the 2025 draft, the Golden State Valkyries had the No. 5 choose following that season’s 4 lottery groups.
The WNBA draft is scheduled for April 13. An growth draft for the Hearth and Tempo is not going to be scheduled till the league and gamers attain a brand new collective bargaining settlement.