Now that the regular season has come to a close, it's officially time for the lottery-bound teams to turn their attention to next year. That process will start with the 2025 WNBA Draft Lottery to be held on Nov. 17. With UConn guard Paige Bueckers expected to be the No. 1 overall pick, this will be an extremely consequential lottery.
The four teams in the mix this year are the Los Angeles Sparks, Chicago Sky, Dallas Wings and Washington Mystics. But only three of them can wind up with the first selection. The Sky owe the Wings a first-round pick swap this year via the Marina Mabrey trade, so if they win the lottery the No. 1 pick will go to the Wings.
Due to that trade, the Wings will get the first pick if either they or the Sky win the lottery. Thanks to the combined odds of that happening (45.4%), they actually have a slightly better chance of picking first than the Sparks (44.2%). The last time Dallas had the top pick was in 2021, when the team selected Charli Collier out of Texas.
As a reminder, the WNBA calculates lottery odds based on the combined records of the past two seasons. Here's a look at the lottery teams and their individual chances of winning the No. 1 overall pick.
Note: The Wings and Sky finished with identical 31-49 records over the past two seasons. When the WNBA announced the two-year lottery system in 2015, it said the tiebreaker would be the worse record in the "immediately preceding season." The Wings finished 9-31 this season, while the Sky were 13-27. However, the team that wins the tiebreaker is not automatically bumped up to the better odds.
In this case, the Wings are not given the second-best odds of 27.6% and the the Sky given the third-best odds of 17.8%. Rather, the two probabilities (276 out of 1,000 and 178 out of 1,000) were added together and divided by two to get 227. Thus, each team gets a 22.7% chance at the top pick. If the chances had added up to an odd number, the extra chance would have gone to the Wings. Instead, the Wings are simply seeded above the Sky.
| Team | Combined 2023 and 2024 record | Odds of winning No. 1 pick |
|---|---|---|
Los Angeles Sparks | 25-55 | 44.20% |
Dallas Wings | 31-49 | 22.70% |
Chicago Sky | 31-49 | 22.70% |
Washington Mystics | 33-47 | 10.40% |
The Sparks are making their fourth consecutive lottery appearance, which is the longest streak in franchise history. They built a solid foundation for the latest iteration of this rebuild by taking Cameron Brink and Rickea Jackson in the lottery of this year's draft, but Brink tore her ACL in June and missed the majority of the season. They could really use a lead guard to pair with those two, and Bueckers would be a perfect fit.
No team had worse luck than the Wings this season. A major injury crisis prior to the Olympic break left them without Satou Sabally, Natasha Howard and Maddy Siegrist for an extended period, and they never recovered. The long summer will be worth it if they end up with No. 1 pick, though. Only three players on the roster have guaranteed money for next season, and they could be in for a major reset. Bueckers would be a great place to start.
A promising start to the season for the Sky turned grim rather quickly after the Olympic break due to trades and injuries. In Angel Reese, Kamilla Cardoso and Chennedy Carter they have some exciting young players, but the front office has a lot of work to do to build a successful team around them. Bueckers would have been a great fit, but the previous regime's short-sighted moves have prevented that from being a possibility. Still, another lottery pick will help.
Perhaps no team could use a true star rookie more than the Mystics, who have been a bit snake-bitten in recent years by injuries and untimely departures. They have a number of very solid, hard-working role players and some intriguing youngsters, but Bueckers would offer a foundational building block for the future. Unfortunately for them, they have just a 10.4% chance of getting the top pick.
The 2025 WNBA Draft won't be able to match this year's class in terms of star power or depth, but it's not a one-player draft either. There are a number of intriguing players besides Bueckers, including USC's Kiki Iriafen, LSU's Aneesah Morrow, Notre Dame's Olivia Miles and Buecker's college teammate Azzi Fudd.
