Six Teams Learn Their 2027 Draft Order on Sunday

Six front offices get their winter's first real answer on Sunday. The WNBA draft lottery on November 15 will set the top of the order for the 2027 draft, and the field is a snapshot of where the league is going: Houston, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Toronto and Washington.

Three of those six are expansion markets. Portland and Toronto just finished their first seasons, and Houston is reviving the Comets — the franchise that won the league's first four championships — after buying and relocating the Connecticut Sun. For all three, a top pick isn't just a player. It's the first face of a franchise still introducing itself.

The mechanics are built to reward patience without guaranteeing anything. Lottery odds are based on teams' combined records across the last two seasons, and the drawing itself uses 14 numbered balls mixed in a machine, with four drawn to form the winning combination. A representative of the league's independent accounting firm, Ernst & Young, oversees the process.

Last year's drawing shows how much one night can bend a franchise. Dallas arrived with a 19-65 combined record and a 42 percent chance, won the first pick and used it on UConn's Azzi Fudd. Minnesota, Seattle, Washington and Chicago rounded out a top five that restocked half the league's future in one evening.

The 2027 class will be drawn from the same eligibility pool the new CBA sets out: U.S. players must be at least 22 in the draft year and done with college eligibility, while international players can enter at 20. Players with eligibility remaining have to declare at least 10 days before the draft and give that eligibility up.

The 2026 draft showed what the top of the order is worth. Behind Fudd at No. 1, Minnesota took Olivia Miles second with a pick acquired from Chicago, Seattle selected Spain's Awa Fam third, Washington took UCLA's Lauren Betts fourth and Chicago landed Gabriela Jaquez fifth. Toronto and Portland, drafting as expansion teams for the first time, took Kiki Rice sixth and Iyana Martín seventh. Five of those seven picks went to teams in this year's lottery field.

For the Sparks and Storm, Sunday is about accelerating a rebuild with a centerpiece. For the Mystics, it's another high pick in a long accumulation. And for Houston, Portland and Toronto, it's simpler than that: the lottery hands each of them the first building block they're allowed to choose for themselves.