WNBA Announces Expansion Draft Details
Well, it’s finally happening.
The WNBA has unveiled the schedule and details for a much-anticipated offseason event: the Portland-Toronto Expansion Draft.
A coin toss will be held on Friday to decide the order for Portland and Toronto in the upcoming expansion and college draft, which is scheduled for next month.
The winner of the toss gets to pick whether to take the No. 1 spot in the expansion draft—which is slated for April 3 in the afternoon—or the No. 6 overall pick in the 2026 draft.
This expansion draft will utilize a “snake” format, allowing the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo to alternate selections in the second round from the pool of unprotected players across the league’s 13 existing teams.
Before the expansion draft takes place—just hours ahead of the Women’s Final Four—each existing team must submit a list of five “protected” players who cannot be chosen by the Fire or Tempo. Players left unprotected will be available for selection.
The rights for any selected players will depend on their current team status. For instance, Liberty players Rebecca Gardner and Marin Johannes are currently reserved as free agents. If they are exposed and picked in the expansion draft, the team that claims them will hold exclusive negotiating rights because they are pending free agents.
Both the Fire and Tempo can select only one pending unrestricted free agent, even when a player no longer qualifies as a core player. The team that picks this unrestricted free agent will have exclusive rights to negotiate a supermax contract, which is a change from what occurred in last year’s Valkyries expansion draft.
This means that the Liberty will need to protect key players like Brianna Stewart and Jonquel Jones, despite both already being named core players twice, which is the limit.
Looking ahead to the college draft on April 13, the Fire and Tempo will alternate their picks. So, whoever selects No. 6 in the first round will then choose No. 7 in the second round and back to No. 6 in the third round. For a team with the No. 7 overall pick, it would receive the No. 6 pick in the second round and also the No. 7 in the third round.
