The Dream drew the third overall selection in the WNBA draft in the league’s draft lottery Friday night.
The first pick for 2021 went to the New York Liberty, the second to the Dallas Wings and the fourth to the Indiana Fever.
In the 2020 draft, the Dream selected Chennedy Carter with the No. 4 overall pick. The 2021 draft is scheduled to take place in April, on a date to be announced.
“Certainly, we wanted to get the No. 1 pick,” Dream coach Nicki Collen said. “It’s like that feeling of Christmas morning. In some ways, it’s another competition. Even though it’s something that is balls and we have nothing to do with, it still feels like we lost by not at least getting (the second pick) because that was where the odds were for us.
“ ... I think as the season plays out, we’ll do our homework. The draft may very well depend, for us, on what happens in free agency. If free agency goes the way we want it to go, then we will fill in with the draft that way.”
The lottery odds were determined by the team’s record over the previous two seasons, so with a record of 15-41 over the last two seasons, the Dream had a 27.6% chance of selecting first overall. The Liberty had the best odds for the top pick at 44.2% after posting a 12-44 record over the past two seasons. The Wings (17.8%) and the Fever (10.4%) rounded out the teams eligible for this year’s draft lottery.
The Liberty won this year’s lottery, too, and selected Sabrina Ionescu of Oregon with the No. 1 pick.
The order of the remaining first-round selections, picks five through 12, will be determined by the inverse order of the team’s regular-season records from 2020.
Unlike in previous drafts, such as Ionescu last year or Breanna Stewart in 2016, there isn’t a clear-cut favorite for first overall at this point. For a team like the Dream, which has built depth in recent years, that soothes the sting of not getting the first overall pick.
“I think this is a good draft. I think it’s potentially a deep draft, but I don’t know right now,” Collen said. “We don’t have that hierarchy of players in terms of who fits where right now. Certainly, certain teams may, at this point based on need or maybe they just love one player or another or anticipate one player’s gonna come out that fits a need. I think for us, we have to look at free agency as our first priority.”
One of the Dream’s biggest needs is in the post, and the top of the 2021 draft thus far looks like it will be guard-dominant. That presents an interesting quandary between drafting the best player available and drafting for positional need, and Collen says she thinks this draft will be one where taking the best player available is the right move.
“It’s just gonna come down to what’s the right pick and where are we looking one year, two years, three years down the road in terms of who’s coming off contract and getting a player ready to be in those roles, as opposed to anticipating that they have to come in and impact us (immediately),” Collen said.
“I think we’re pretty deep, and if we go get a post who can really handle the ball and shoot it (in free agency), then I’m not sure that what we draft isn’t just best available that can be a great player long-term for us.”
