Wings win WNBA draft lottery, get No. 1 selection

The Dallas Wings will have the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 WNBA draft -- widely expected to be UConn star Paige Bueckers -- after winning the league's draft lottery on Sunday.

The Los Angeles Sparks will select second in the WNBA draft, followed by the Sky and Washington Mystics.

The Wings had a combined 45.4% chance of earning the top pick in the lottery for the first time, including both their odds and those of the Chicago Sky, as Dallas had the rights to swap first-round picks with Chicago. The odds were based on the two-year cumulative records for the four teams that missed the 2024 postseason. The Sparks' probability to win was 44.2% and the Mystics' 10.4%.

With their No. 1 pick in tow, the Wings will seek to return to the playoffs after an injury-plagued 9-31 run in 2024. It is the franchise's first No. 1 overall pick since 2021, when Dallas selected Charli Collier.

ESPN's most recent mock projects Kiki Iriafen, Azzi Fudd and Olivia Miles to also be picked in the lottery.

Earlier this offseason, Dallas fired coach Latricia Trammel after two seasons, which included a semifinals appearance in 2023. The Wings have yet to announce their new head coach, but they did bring in Curt Miller to assume the role as general manager.

The team has Arike Ogunbowale, Teaira McCowan and Kalani Brown on protected veteran contracts, while All-Stars Satou Sabally and Natasha Howard are set to hit free agency.

Bueckers, a 6-foot guard from Hopkins, Minnesota, has dazzled since she first arrived at UConn, when she was the first freshman to win all the major national player of the year awards for which she was eligible. She then missed the majority of her sophomore season with a knee injury and then tore her ACL heading into her junior season.

The 2021 national player of the year has still led the Huskies to the Final Four each year she's been on the floor for them, including the national championship game in 2022.

Bueckers' current career scoring average (19.9 points per game) is on track to be a program record -- surpassing Maya Moore (19.7 ppg from 2007-11) -- and she's done it on a stunningly efficient 53% shooting from the field and 43% clip from 3.

Though Bueckers has one more year of eligibility -- in addition to her COVID-19 year, she redshirted her junior season due to injury -- she has said publicly this will be her last season at UConn.

"I hope she goes to a team that she is exactly what they need, whatever that team is," UConn coach Geno Auriemma said last month. "Paige is going to be all right wherever she goes."