Who Goes Second Overall?
Trying to predict the future of the WNBA Draft
We are more than six months away from the WNBA Draft. And we’re still a few months away from knowing which team will win the draft lottery. But I figured this would be a fun exercise to try.
I’d say it’s a foregone conclusion that if JuJu Watkins declares for the draft, she will be the #1 overall pick to whichever team wins the lottery. But what happens to all the teams if they were to win the second lottery to claim the #2 overall pick? The top two picks go through the draft lottery process. The first winner gets the top selection, and the second winner earns the second overall pick. From there, all other teams go in the order they were ranked in the lottery, which combines the two-year records of all the teams that missed the playoffs. For the expansion franchises, it is based solely on their overall win percentage from their 2026 season.
As of this writing, this is the draft lottery order:
Connecticut Sun (Houston Comets)
Chicago Sky (pick goes to the Washington Mystics)
Toronto Tempo
Seattle Storm
Portland Fire
Los Angeles Sparks
Phoenix Mercury (pick goes to the LA Sparks)
While I am very confident that JuJu Watkins will go #1, I do believe there are multiple options with the second overall pick, and that certainly could change even more after the college season begins. I think it’ll probably depend on the specific needs of each team and how each player fits. I wanted to try to predict what each team would do.