Sun Earn Third Pick at 2016 WNBA Draft Lottery

UNCASVILLE, Conn. (September 24, 2015) – The Connecticut Sun earned the third overall pick during the 2016 WNBA Draft Lottery presented by State Farm on Thursday night.

The Seattle Storm emerged from the lottery with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 WNBA Draft, which will be held next April. San Antonio drew the second selection while Atlanta will pick fourth.

“You would always like to think there is a chance that you can move up, but this is a very deep draft so it is difficult to be disappointed,” Connecticut Sun Vice President and General Manager Chris Sienko said. “We are going to get an impact player that we can add to an already-talented young roster, and I am excited about what we will be bringing to the court next year.”

Under the new lottery format, the 15^th annual drawing was held among the four teams that did not make the playoffs during the 2015 regular season.  However, instead of assigning each Lottery team odds based solely on its record this season, the odds are based on the cumulative records of the Lottery teams over the two most recent regular seasons (2014 and 2015).

Seattle, which finished the past two regular seasons with a combined record of 22-46, had the most chances to land the top pick (442).  San Antonio, which went 24-44 over that same period, had the next most chances (276).  Connecticut had 178 chances after posting a combined record of 28-40 in 2014 and 2015. Atlanta – with a combined 34-34 record — had 104 chances after compiling a 34-34 mark.

The new format guaranteed that the Lottery team with the worst two-year cumulative record ended up with at least the third pick.  Under the previous format, the Lottery team with the worst single-season record was guaranteed to pick no worse than fourth.

The order of selection for the remainder of the first round as well as the second and third round is determined by inverse order of the teams’ respective regular-season records solely from 2015.

Following is the remaining order of the first round, as determined by 2015 regular-season records:

REMAINING ORDER FOR FIRST ROUND