WNBA: Toronto chooses to pick 6th in draft; Connecticut Sun to move to Texas after sale
The Toronto Tempo will have the sixth pick in the WNBA draft on April 13, choosing that option over having the top choice in the expansion draft on April 3.
The Portland Fire will have the first choice in the expansion draft and seventh pick in the WNBA draft.
The Tempo won the right to choose which option it wanted when a silver dollar was flipped on a Zoom call and came up Toronto's way.
WNBA teams have until Sunday to inform the league of the five players they'll be protecting ahead of the expansion draft. That draft will have two rounds, with up to six picks for each team in each round. The teams will alternate picks, with the team that picks second in the first round going first in the next round.
The new teams will pick among players left unprotected by their current WNBA teams. A current franchise can only lose two players in total through the expansion draft. If a player is taken in the first round, a second player from that same franchise can't be taken until the second round.
Teams can protect players they had rights to on the final day of the 2025 regular season.
Any player who has five or more years of service after the 2025 season must be put on the roster list as an unrestricted free agent or included on the unprotected list. Only two veteran players — Lexie Brown and Kalani Brown — had contracts that didn’t expire last season.
Toronto and Portland each may only select one player who’s a potential unrestricted free agent. The Tempo and Fire would then be allowed to negotiate a supermax contract with those players, which could be worth up to $1.4 million annually under the new CBA.
The Connecticut Sun say they will move to Houston in 2027 after reaching an agreement to sell the team to Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta in a deal worth a record $300 million, according to a person familiar with the sale.
The WNBA Board of Governors still needs to approve the sale and the move.
The person spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the sale.
The team will play in Connecticut for the upcoming season before moving to Houston and becoming the Comets again.
“I would have loved to remain in the region for our fan base and for the fact that I think this region deserves a women’s basketball team,” Connecticut Sun president Jen Rizzotti told the AP. “At the same time, it wasn’t my decision and I’m at a point now where my focus turns to making this the best season we can have and a memorable one for our fans. It’s an opportunity to say thank you to them.”
This will end a 23-year run by the team in New England after the team moved to Connecticut from Orlando in 2003.
Houston was one of the groups that expressed interest in buying the team last year, eventually raising its bid to $250 million — the amount Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia paid for expansion fees. Now with the $300 million sale price, that's the highest for which a team has been sold in WNBA history.
