The 2025 WNBA Draft Lottery, maybe better known as the Paige Bueckers sweepstakes, will take place Sunday.
Four teams, the Los Angeles Sparks, Dallas Wings, Chicago Sky and Washington Mystics, will have ping pong balls in the league's 24th annual draft lottery. Odds are based on the two-year (2023 and 2024) cumulative record of the four teams who didn't make the playoffs in the most recent season. The Golden State Valkyries, a WNBA expansion franchise who will begin play in 2025, is automatically assigned the fifth selection in all three rounds of next year's draft.
ESPN will air a 30-minute lottery special Sunday at 5 p.m. ET following the TCU vs. NC State women's basketball game.
What are the 2025 WNBA Draft Lottery Odds?
To make things interesting, Dallas owns the right to swap first round picks with Chicago after a 2023 trade which sent Marina Mabrey from Dallas to Chicago. Dallas will exercise the swap rights if Chicago's first round pick is above their own after the drawing. This gives the Wings implied odds of 45.4% to win the No. 1 pick, right near the high chance the Sparks have of winning the lottery.
In the drawing, 14 ping pong balls numbered 1-14 will be placed in a lottery machine and mixed. Four balls will be drawn to determine a winning four-digit combination. The team that owns the drawn combination will be awarded the No. 1 overall pick. The same process is then repeated to determine the second pick. The team with the lowest combined two-year record who wasn't awarded the first or second pick will select third and the remaining team will select fourth.
UConn's star guard Paige Bueckers is the likely prize and franchise-changing player for the team who draws the lucky combination to select first in the 2025 WNBA Draft. USC's Kiki Iriafen has a say to be the No. 1 pick as well depending how the season plays out. Other top prospects could include Notre Dame's Olivia Miles, UConn's Azzi Fudd, UCLA's Janiah Barker, LSU's Aneesah Morrow and Dominique Malonga from France.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as WNBA Draft Lottery Rules, Odds & Teams Explained.