What Are the Storm’s Chances of Landing No. 1 Overall Pick?
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Seattle Storm guard Flau’jae Johnson assesses the court during the team’s game against the Los Angeles Sparks on Sunday, Aug. 30, at Climate Pledge Arena. Credit: Courtesy of Seattle Storm [/caption]
The WNBA is currently on a late-season break for the 2026 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup, but when the Seattle Storm return to play on Thursday, Sept. 17, they will only have four games remaining in the season.
At this point in the season, the seven teams included in the WNBA Draft Lottery have already been decided. The league’s top-8 teams heading to the playoffs are already determined.
The Storm will be joined by the Connecticut Sun, Toronto Tempo, Phoenix Mercury, Los Angeles Sparks, Chicago Sky and Portland Fire — all of whom are eliminated from postseason contention. The Washington Mystics hold the Sky’s first-round pick, however, and benefit from the more games Chicago loses.
Even though they have the worst record in the league this season, the Storm are essentially stuck with the fourth-highest odds for the No. 1 overall pick. To understand why, it’s important to understand how the WNBA conducts its draft lottery.
How WNBA Draft Lottery odds are determined
Each team that missed the postseason automatically qualifies for the lottery, and that will be seven teams this season because of the two newest expansion teams. They are then ordered from worst to best by their cumulative record over the last two seasons.
In the case of the Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire, who are both in their inaugural seasons after expansion, only their 2026 records are included. That provides them an advantage, to some degree.
The team with the worst combined record in 2025 and 2026 will have the highest odds of landing the No. 1 overall pick, assuming they own their own draft pick (more on that in a minute). Each subsequent team then has diminishing odds, from two to seven.
This means that the Storm’s odds are heavily hampered by the fact that they finished with a 23-21 record in 2025. The Connecticut Sun, for example, have had two straight bottom-of-the-league finishes, giving them the highest odds for the No. 1 pick.
Current odds standings during FIBA break
Here are the current odds rankings, in order, before the final four games of the 2026 WNBA season:
The Storm don’t have much wiggle room out of their current position, as there’s a large win percentage gap between them and the Sky, Tempo and Sun. Seattle is one of just two teams (Mercury) in this upcoming lottery that had a winning record in 2025, and that’s why they are in the situation they are.
Even if all six other teams won their final four games of the season and the Storm lost the rest of theirs, there isn’t much movement. The only change that would occur among the top four is the Mystics, via the Sky, moving into the second-highest odds ahead of the Tempo.
That means the odds are largely settled, and unfortunately for the Storm, they would’ve needed to win even fewer than eight games to contest for the No. 1 overall pick. The benefit is that the Storm have a hungry young roster and will likely be trying to win out when they return from the World Cup. They could fall even further back in the odds standings if the Fire lose a few games and the Storm win, but the top pick isn’t in the question anyways.
Last draft was key for the Storm in acquiring Awa Fam and Flau’jae Johnson — two players who will be cornerstones next to Dominique Malonga for years to come. If the Storm can get a decent depth option (or a starting point guard prospect), they will have won with their current positioning.
The Storm’s next game is at home against the Las Vegas Aces at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 17.
