Despite finishing the 2025 regular season with the best record in the WNBA and matching the league’s record for most wins in a single season with 34, the Minnesota Lynx found themselves in an unfamiliar place this past weekend: the WNBA Draft Lottery.
It marked just the fifth time in the Cheryl Reeve era that the Lynx had any stake in the lottery. Their most recent occurrence also yielded the No. 2 overall pick, which they used to select Diamond Miller in the 2023 WNBA Draft.
The Lynx first acquired the right to swap 2026 first-rounders with the Chicago Sky in a last-minute trade on the eve of the draft in 2024. The Sky sent a package of draft capital to Minnesota in order to jump up to No. 7 in that year’s draft and selected Angel Reese. The Lynx selected Alissa Pili at the No. 8 spot.
A year later, both teams agreed to a separate deal on draft day in 2025 that extinguished the swap and gave Minnesota Chicago’s 2026 first-round pick outright in exchange for the No. 11 pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft.
“It was a big step,” Reeve said during her post-lottery media availability on Monday afternoon. “As you remember 2024, the other transaction we made has always largely been about this pick, and so taking that next step and know where we’re picking and we can really get to work on who we’ll select to be part of the team in April.”
The lineage of the pick has been a long one, but after the ping pong balls did their dance it formally manifested itself as the No. 2 overall pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft on Sunday evening with Lynx guards Natisha Hiedeman and Courtney Williams in attendance.
A lot can change between now and April. Similar to several teams, the Lynx have a host of unrestricted free agents from last year’s roster they’ll need to address whenever free agency begins. There’s also the matter of the expansion draft looming large as the league prepares to welcome both the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo. Events that cannot take place until the ink dries on a new collective bargaining agreement between the league and WNBA Players Association.
As Reeve said, Minnesota has designs on its fifth championship in 2026. For a team that plans on remaining at the top of the league, a No. 2 overall pick is an exciting piece to add to its roster-building coffers, especially during an offseason of heightened uncertainty.
“It’s helpful… you know, the player will be under team control,” Reeve said. “I think also, the position of the franchise to have as many free agents as we do, but also free agents externally looking at the Lynx, we’re well positioned for success immediately, and that’s what players want. So I do think it adds to the appeal.”
The 2026 draft class itself doesn’t lack for talent, but unlike the last two WNBA Drafts, it does lack a consensus No. 1 selection. An element of the draft that will create a guessing game for outsiders, at least five months out, but sitting just behind the Dallas Wings and with the knowledge that they’d at least be picking in the top four, the Lynx won’t have too much guess work to deal with.
“I think we’re there now,” Reeve said when asked how deep into the process they’d narrow down a top five. “Regardless of knowing our position with regard to the draft, all of us have been working on that for awhile, we’ve known a top five for a while. We’ll see as the (college) season evolves and that could shift. I think in general we’ve already been working on the evaluation process and coaches have been out (scouting). Now we know we’re number two, we only have one team above us that we have to worry about, so there’s not a whole lot of guessing and we’ll hone in on the players we’ve identified.”
The Lynx draft board will naturally shift along with the college basketball season, but the variety of types of players who will be available also gives the Lynx additional flexibility as they approach free agency and make decisions in regards to the expansion draft.
“I think there’s a wide range of skill sets (in this class),” Reeve said. “I think that’s what’s nice, certainly about the top of the draft, the first half of the first round. It reminds me a little bit of 2019. Not so much the whole depth of the draft, but certainly the nature of very talented players, but maybe not a consensus number one pick. So that leads to a certain level of subjectivity. It leads to maybe a focus more on position, that sort of thing. I think the diversity of talent in this draft in the first half of the first round, I think that’s palpable, and that’s something that’s really interesting for us to look at.”
The WNBA Draft will be held on Monday, April 13, 2026.
