Wings Win No. 1 Pick Again—and Chance to Reunite Bueckers, Fudd

Paige Bueckers will get a top running mate in Dallas.

The Dallas Wings will receive the No. 1 pick for the second year in a row after winning the WNBA draft lottery Sunday. The Wings had the best odds to win the lottery (42%) after finishing with the worst cumulative record over the last two seasons.

Dallas selected Paige Bueckers with the No. 1 pick in last year’s draft despite months of speculation that the UConn star was looking to pull an Eli Manning so she could play for another franchise. Bueckers finished as the 2025 Rookie of the Year and was named an All-Star starter, but the Wings still finished in a tie with the Sky for the worst record in the WNBA (10–34).

The Wings, who hired new head coach Jose Fernandez from South Florida last month, have the opportunity to pair Bueckers with Azzi Fudd, her college teammate and girlfriend, a consensus top-five pick who is projected No. 4 in ESPN’s 2026 WNBA mock draft. Ahead of Fudd are Spanish center Awa Fam, UCLA big Lauren Betts, and TCU guard Olivia Miles.

The 2026 draft is scheduled for Monday, April 13. 

The WNBA draft lottery includes five teams, with the odds determined by their cumulative record over the last two seasons. The first two picks are selected by the lottery, while picks three to five are awarded to the remaining teams according to the worst cumulative record.

The draft lottery results:

• 1st: Dallas Wings
• 2nd: Minnesota Lynx  
• 3rd: Seattle Storm
• 4th: Washington Mystics
• 5th: Chicago Sky

The lottery did not actually alter the order of selection this year, as Wings and Lynx had the two best odds of winning. 

Minnesota will receive the No. 2 pick despite finishing with the WNBA’s best record last season and making the finals two years ago. They received the pick from the Sky after a series of trades that ended in the Sky acquiring the No. 11 pick from the Lynx in last year’s draft, which they used to select Hailey Van Lith. 

However, Chicago was still in Sunday’s lottery after acquiring a pick from the Connecticut Sun in a trade that sent Marina Mabrey to Connecticut.

The Storm, who also made last year’s playoffs, received the No. 3 pick from the Sparks through a three-team trade last offseason that sent Kelsey Plum to Los Angeles and former Seattle star Jewell Loyd to Las Vegas.

The Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire, two expansion franchises that will join the WNBA in the 2026 season, will have the sixth and seventh picks in the draft. The exact order between the two teams will be decided by a coin flip at a later date.

But the 2026 WNBA season is in jeopardy as the league and its players’ association have yet to agree to a new collective bargaining agreement. The two sides have until Nov. 30 to agree to a new deal, a deadline that was extended late last month.