What first-round pick the Fever has in the 2025 WNBA Draft
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — For the first time since 2022, the Indiana Fever will not have the first overall pick in the WNBA Draft.
Of course, that was already known entering Thursday night, when the WNBA announced details of the 2025 WNBA Draft Lottery.
The Fever will have the eighth overall pick in the upcoming draft, after finishing with the sixth-best regular season record (20-20) in the league this past season.
Meanwhile, the following four teams will each have a chance to win the number one overall pick thanks to being part of this year’s WNBA Draft Lottery:
- Los Angeles Sparks
- Dallas Wings
- Chicago Sky
- Washington Mystics
The 2025 WNBA Draft Lottery will take place on Sunday, Nov. 17 at 5 p.m. EDT.
The Sparks, whose combined record the past two seasons is 25-55, have the best chance to win the first overall pick.
The Wings and the Sky are tied for the second-best odds to get the No. 1 overall selection, while the Mystics have the fourth-best odds.
“Lottery odds are based on the two-year (2023 and 2024) cumulative records of the four teams that did not make the playoffs in the most recent season,” according to a WNBA news release.
The league’s expansion team, the Golden State Valkyries, will have the fifth overall pick in the draft. The team’s expansion draft takes place Dec. 6.
The 2025 WNBA Draft itself is scheduled for Monday, April 14, 2025. It will feature three rounds of draft picks.
The Fever has had the No. 1 overall pick in each of last two drafts. The franchise selected guard Caitlin Clark first overall in 2024, while it selected forward Aliyah Boston first overall in 2023.
Indiana is coming off its first playoff appearance since 2016. The team fell in the first round of the playoffs to the Connecticut Sun.
“Caitlin Clark was 10 years old when we won our first championship — and I say first because we’re going to have another one at some point — but this is a moment where, it takes a generation sometimes to get to that next level,” Fever President Kelly Krauskopf said this week. “I would tell our players, ‘Look, we’re building this for someone else. We’re building this for someone’s 10-year-old daughter right now, because that’s what you do.’ We wanted to just keep moving it forward, keep pushing it forward, and paying it forward.”