2016 WNBA Draft Lottery to take place Thursday, Sept. 24

The 2016 WNBA Draft Lottery will be televised live on ESPN2 on Thursday, Sept. 24. The telecast, hosted by Matt Barrie, will air during halftime of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The winner of the lottery will secure the top pick in the 2016 WNBA Draft, to be conducted in April.

Under the new format announced on Aug. 5, the 15th annual drawing will still be held among the four teams that do not make the playoffs during the current season. However, instead of assigning each lottery team odds based solely on its record this season, the odds will be based on the cumulative records of the lottery teams over the two most recent regular seasons (2014 and 2015).

The odds are unchanged, with the lottery team with the worst two-year cumulative record having 442 chances out of 1,000 to win the first pick, the Lottery team with the second worst two-year cumulative record having 276 chances out of 1,000, the Lottery team with the third worst two-year cumulative record having 178 chances out of 1,000, and the Lottery team with the best two-year cumulative record having 104 chances out of 1,000 to win the first pick. Cumulative record tiebreakers will be based solely on the current season (e.g., the first tiebreaker would be the worst record in the 2015 regular season).

The new format also guarantees that the lottery team with the worst two-year cumulative record will end 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.