The 2025 WNBA Draft will begin with the Dallas Wings.
The Wings won the top pick in the draft lottery on Sunday and are poised to draft a potential franchise cornerstone in the annual spring event.
Complete results from the 2025 WNBA Draft:
1. Dallas Wings
3. Chicago Sky
THE Wings had a 45.4 percent chance of landing the top pick after entering the lottery with the right to swap first-round picks to the Sky due to a trade during the 2023 offseason.
Sunday’s event could be called the Paige Bueckers sweepstakes, as the UConn star begins this year’s college season as the presumptive No. 1 pick. But Bueckers is far from the only talented player to hear her name called early in the draft. USC forward Kiki Iriafen, Notre Dame guard Olivia Miles and French forward Dominique Malonga list potential players who could all make significant contributions in anything. WNBA the franchise is calling their names.
The draft will take place on Monday April 14.
Curt Miller coached the 2024 season for the Los Angeles Sparks as if the team needed one more year of rebuilding before welcoming the Bueckers in 2025. Now Miller gets the franchise-changing guard job, but in Dallas, where he is the new general manager. The Wings have had an injury-riddled 2024, but are loaded with talent to surround the unselfish superstar rookie, including All-Stars Arike Ogunbowale and Satou Sabally. Dallas is missing a leader to organize its attack, and that’s where Bueckers will come in. She is a disciplined ball handler who does not commit turnovers or hijack the offense for herself although she is a phenomenal scorer.
The Wings were also the worst defense in the league in 2024, and Bueckers gives them some structural integrity in the backcourt. She’s a great guard who won’t get overwhelmed by the WNBA point guards. If Dallas can keep Sabally, the addition of Bueckers will bring them back into contention very soon. —
Chicago and Washington were scheduled to land at 3 and 4, respectively, where they finished. As a result, the only team whose fortunes have been negatively affected by the lottery is Los Angeles. A year after the Sparks jumped to land the second pick to select Cameron Brink, they stumble upon a spot, where they could also draft another former Stanford forward, Kiki Iriafen. Iriafen is spending his final college season in Los Angeles, at USC, about three miles from where the Sparks play. —
Lottery odds are determined by the two-year cumulative records of the four teams that did not make the playoffs in 2024. With the record of 25-55, the Sparks had the most combinations assigned (442 of 1,000) and were assured of at least one top-three pick. Dallas and Chicago both had combined 31-49 records over the past two years and entered the draft with 227 combinations each for the top pick. However, due to a February 2023 trade that sent guard Marina Mabrey to the Chicago Sky, Dallas had the right to trade its first-round picks to the Sky. Washington was 33-47 over the past two seasons and had 104 combinations to land the top pick.
Once the first choice is determined, the four lottery balls will be returned to the machine and will be drawn again to determine the second choice. The franchise with the lowest two-year record and whose combinations did not result in the first two drawings received the third pick and the remaining franchise the fourth selection. —
The Golden State Valkyries will make the fifth pick in each of the three rounds of the 2025 WNBA Draft. However, the first round of this year’s draft will still only have 12 selections, with the Las Vegas Aces’ pick vacated after the WNBA found that the franchise had violated league rules regarding unauthorized player benefits and workplace policies.
This article was originally published in Athletics.
Dallas Wings, WNBA
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