On Sunday, Nov. 15, we find out which team will pick first in the 2027 WNBA Draft, permitting them to, presumably, transform their franchise’s future outlook by selecting USC superstar JuJu Watkins (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).
If there are, in fact, basketball gods, and if they are just and moral, which team most deserves the No. 1 pick ?
Here’s my rankings of the teams in the running for the WNBA’s most-coveted prize, with each teams’ odds for the No. 1 pick noted in parentheses.
In the comments, share your ideal order and explanation.
1. Portland Fire (5.2 percent chance)
Portland had to wait almost 25 years to return to the WNBA.
That patience already has been rewarded with a team being built the right way, establishing a solid, sustainable foundation for future success over the a shaky one that would produce more immediate, yet also short-lived, results.
So, let’s make one of the most promising prospects in the history of women’s basketball part of the foundation.
2. Los Angeles Sparks (3.6 percent
The Sparks really don’t deserve the No. 1 pick.
It not only would be a bail out for seasons of ill-conceived team-building decisions, but also for owner Mark Walter, who is seeking to sell the team—one he did not put the championship-level investment in that he afforded his men’s professional teams—as aims to escape legal and financial troubles stemming from fraudulent activities.
However, for the WNBA as a whole, Watkins in LA would be a huge win.
What should be the league’s signature West Coast market (now usurped by the Golden State Valkyries) has largely been irrelevant to the league’s recent boon, muddling through uninteresting mediocrity. Watkins would, instantly, correct that, generating more big-market momentum around the W.
3. Houston Comets (32.9 percent)
From the perspective if the Sun fans left in Connecticut, the idea of the Comets getting the No. 1 pick probably feels like the opposite of basketball justice. But from another perspective, that the Comets, the WNBA’s original and most dominant dynasty, has been absent from the league for almost two decades also is a basketball injustice.
Thus, the Comets occupy this middle-of-the-pack ranking. That the new ownership opted to bring along the leadership that has built the current young Sun/Comets squad to Houston does earn them extra points. (Other aspects of the ownership, however, might result in a loss of all those extra points, and more.)
4. Seattle Storm (9.3 percent)
Dominique Malonga, Awa Fam and Flau’jae Johnson. The basketball gods have been good to the Storm of late. It might be time for another franchise to experience some draft luck.
Yet, Storm fans could argue that their favorable drafts were earned, not given. The Malonga pick, No. 2 overall in 2025, was the product of Seattle’s savvy negotiating in the three-team trade headlined by Jewell Loyd and Kelsey Plum during the 2025 offseason. Last April, they then fleeced the Golden State Valkyries for Flau’jae, sacrificing just two second rounders.
Should the right moves should beget another reward?
5. Toronto Tempo (32.9 percent)
Tempo fans likely will bristle at this ranking, and they’re won’t be wrong to do so.
The whole of Canada embraced the country’s first WNBA team with great fervor, only for that team to be undone by a series of unfortunate injuries. Surely, that fate entitles them to some lottery luck?
Toronto, however, is set at the positions played by Watkins and the other projected top picks. Presuming the Tempo would not be eager to move on from one of Marina Mabrey or Brittney Sykes, the Tempo seem ill-suited to accommodate a perimeter-based young star who will need reps. They also have Kiki Rice, who should command more usage as a sophomore.
A lower lottery pick, which they could use to draft or trade for a big, would make things simpler for Toronto.
6. Washington Mystics (16.1 percent)
Watkins would be a championship ceiling raising stimulus package for Washington, giving them an injection of star level offense, as well as even more defensive playmaking, that could turn them into a league-wrecking force.
It would be fun! But, there’s already too much greed in DC. The Mystics should embrace real democracy and share the young star wealth with another WNBA team.
