Toronto chooses to pick 6th in WNBA draft instead of 1st in expansion draft after winning coin flip

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The Toronto Tempo will have the sixth pick in the WNBA draft on April 13, choosing that option over having the top choice in the expansion draft on April 3.

The Portland Fire will have the first choice in the expansion draft and seventh pick in the WNBA draft.

The Tempo won the right to choose which option it wanted when a silver dollar was flipped on a Zoom call and came up Toronto's way.

WNBA teams have until Sunday to inform the league of the five players they'll be protecting ahead of the expansion draft. That draft will have two rounds, with up to six picks for each team in each round. The teams will alternate picks, with the team that picks second in the first round going first in the next round.

The new teams will pick among players left unprotected by their current WNBA teams. A current franchise can only lose two players in total through the expansion draft. If a player is taken in the first round, a second player from that same franchise can't be taken until the second round.

Teams can protect players they had rights to on the final day of the 2025 regular season.

Any player who has five or more years of service after the 2025 season must be put on the roster list as an unrestricted free agent or included on the unprotected list. Only two veteran players — Lexie Brown and Kalani Brown — had contracts that didn’t expire last season.

Toronto and Portland each may only select one player who’s a potential unrestricted free agent. The Tempo and Fire would then be allowed to negotiate a supermax contract with those players, which could be worth up to $1.4 million annually under the new CBA.

It’s the second consecutive year that the league has held an expansion draft. Golden State entered the league last year and became the first expansion team to make the playoffs.

The two teams will alternate who picks sixth and seventh in the second and third rounds of the WNBA draft. So Portland will go sixth in the second round and seventh in the third round. Toronto gets the seventh pick in the second round and sixth pick in the third round.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball