Then, Powell brought in Adler and Shafer to discuss Friday\u2019s WNBA expansion draft<\/a>, which will officially bring the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo into the league. Adler explained the general format of the expansion draft, which will feature two rounds of picks.<\/p>\n \u201cToronto won the coin toss<\/a>, they elected to have the No. 6 pick instead of the No. 7 in the first year player draft, which means Portland gets pick No. 1 in the expansion draft,\u201d Adler said. \u201cIf anyone\u2019s ever played fantasy sports before, this is going to work like a snake draft. So there\u2019ll be 12 picks in the first round, Toronto picks 12th, alternate one by one, and then when we get to the second round it flips, Toronto has both round one, pick No. 12, and round two, pick No. 1, and we keep alternating from there. Next step is \u2026 all the teams have to submit their protections \u2026 there are some steps that can go along the way, in terms of trades, in terms of decisions. And then after that comes the draft itself.\u201d<\/p>\n Then, Shafer discussed the specific differences between this year\u2019s expansion draft, and the 2025 expansion draft that brought in the Golden State Valkyries. In particular, he touched on the differences in how many players each team can protect and what those protections actually do, in part because a vast majority of the league\u2019s players are unrestricted free agents.<\/p>\n \u201cThe protection list for each team moved from six players last season to five players for each team this season, and they kind of changed the nature of protections in a slight way,\u201d Shafer explained. \u201cTeams can still only draft one unrestricted free agent or, as the league designated, a potential unrestricted free agent, which is any player that is going into free agency this year that has five or more years of service. Last year, if the player was core ineligible, having been cored two or more times under the the previous CBA, that meant that they were ineligible to be drafted at all by the Valkyries.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecoming Caitlin Clark\u201d is out now!<\/p>\n Howard Megdal\u2019s newest book is here! \u201cBecoming Caitlin Clark: The Unknown Origin Story of a Modern Basketball Superstar\u201d captures both the historic nature of Clark\u2019s rise and the critical context over the previous century that helped make it possible, including interviews with Clark, Lisa Bluder (who also wrote the foreword), C. Vivian Stringer, Jan Jensen, Molly Kazmer and many others.<\/p>\n \u201cBut that has changed this year, and the league has designated all of the potential unrestricted free agents as draftable, regardless of their core eligibility, which makes a difference, because these players, even if they\u2019re not eligible to be cored by the team that drafts them here, they are still given exclusive, supermax negotiating rights by the league off of the new team that they\u2019re drafted to. And they could only get that that big, shiny, $1.4 million salary based on negotiations with the team that drafted them in the expansion draft, and no other team in the WNBA.\u201d<\/p>\n Tune in to hear more from Powell and Megdal about their Final Four predictions and reflections on the sale of the Connecticut Sun, as well as more from Adler and Shafer about the upcoming expansion draft.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Make sure to subscribe to\u00a0The IX Sports Podcast<\/a>\u00a0for in-depth coverage of women\u2019s soccer, hockey and basketball; and tune in each weekday morning for a quick overview of the biggest headlines on\u00a0Women\u2019s Sports Daily<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Untitled-design-13.png\")
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