WNBA
Mechelle Voepel 10y

Draft lottery set for Thursday

WNBA, Seattle Storm, Tulsa Shock, Connecticut Sun

The No. 1 pick in the 2015 WNBA draft will go to Seattle, Tulsa or Connecticut. Thursday night, we will find out who gets to make that selection next April.

The league's draft lottery will take place in Secaucus, New Jersey, during halftime of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinal matchup between Washington and Indiana (7 p.m. ET, ESPN2). 

Tulsa, Seattle, Connecticut and New York failed to make the WNBA playoffs and qualified for the lottery. But the Liberty traded away the rights to their top pick for 2015 to Connecticut in a draft-day deal this past April that also sent Alyssa Thomas and Kelsey Bone to the Sun in exchange for 2012 WNBA MVP Tina Charles, giving Connecticut two of the top four picks.

Tulsa and Seattle tied for the league's worst record this season at 12-22, so each has 359 chances at landing the No. 1 pick. Connecticut, which finished 13-21, has a total of 282 when combining its chances with those of New York, which finished 15-19.

The Shock, who relocated from Detroit to Tulsa for the 2010 season, have never had a No. 1 pick in franchise history. Seattle last had the top selection in 2002 (Sue Bird), which followed No. 1 in 2001 as well (Lauren Jackson).

Connecticut has a chance to get the No. 1 pick for the second year in a row and will at the very least have two of the top four picks in 2015. The Sun had No. 1 this past draft and chose Stanford post player Chiney Ogwumike, who is considered the favorite for WNBA rookie of the year. The Sun also had the top pick in 2010, when they selected Charles.

While it's very early to try to project the 2015 draft class, many consider UConn senior forward Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis to be the front-runner as the No. 1 pick next April. She struggled with injuries and mononucleosis during the regular season in 2013-14, but was a key performer for the Huskies during their run to a record ninth NCAA title.

After the lottery determines the order of the top four picks, the rest of the 2015 first round will be in this order: 5. Chicago, 6. Indiana, 7. Los Angeles, 8. Washington, 9. San Antonio, 10. Atlanta, 11. Minnesota, 12. Phoenix.

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