2027 WNBA Draft Lottery Set for Nov. 15 as Houston and Toronto Share Best Odds at No. 1 Pick

The WNBA will hold its 2027 Draft Lottery on Sunday, Nov. 15, the league announced Wednesday. The drawing will be televised on ESPN at 7:30 p.m. ET, following the UConn vs. Louisville women's basketball game.

Along with the date, the league released the official odds for the new seven-team lottery. The Houston Comets, formerly the Connecticut Sun, and the Toronto Tempo will split the best chances at the No. 1 overall pick.

Lottery odds are normally set by two-season aggregate records. The two expansion teams, the Tempo and the Portland Fire, will be judged only on their 2026 results. The Comets, playing as the Sun, went 22-66 over the past two seasons, while the Tempo finished 11-33 in their first year.

Because the two clubs both ended with 11-33 marks and identical .250 winning percentages, the league pooled their lottery combinations and divided them evenly. The total was an even number, so the teams will have the same odds at the top pick. Had the number been odd, the Comets would have received the extra combination because they lost last season's tiebreaker.

The other lottery teams are the Chicago Sky, Seattle Storm, Phoenix Mercury and Los Angeles Sparks. Those will not be the seven teams that actually pick in the lottery, however. The Sky owe the Washington Mystics a first-round pick swap, and the Mercury traded their first-round pick to the Sparks, who will therefore hold two lottery selections. Odds are based on the team that originally owned the pick.

The drawing uses 14 balls numbered 1 through 14. Four are drawn to form a four-digit combination, and the team holding that combination gets the No. 1 pick. The balls are returned to the machine and the process is repeated to decide the second pick. Among the five lottery teams not chosen, the team with the worst cumulative winning percentage picks third, followed by the others in order of record for the fourth through seventh picks. A representative from Ernst & Young, the league's independent accounting firm, will oversee the process.

Houston went 1-2 against Toronto in the 2026 regular season, which served as the first tiebreaker. As a result, Houston cannot fall below the third pick, and Toronto is guaranteed at least the fourth selection.

On the prospect front, USC wing JuJu Watkins is the player to watch this college season. The 6-foot-2 standout returns after missing all of last season with a torn ACL, and she is the clear favorite to go No. 1 in the 2027 draft. That assumes she declares, since a medical redshirt last season leaves her eligible to return for a fifth year in 2027-28.

Texas forward Madison Booker and Notre Dame guard Hannah Hidalgo are also likely top picks. Kansas guard S'Mya Nichols, LSU guards Mikaylah Williams and MiLaysia Fulwiley, and Kentucky center Clara Strack are other lottery candidates. Among international players, French teenagers Sarah Cissé, the 2026 U20 EuroBasket Women MVP, and Aïnhoa Risacher, the younger sister of former NBA No. 1 overall pick Zaccharie Risacher, could go in the first round.