Lose to win: How the Tempo’s final two games could boost their odds for the No. 1 pick in the 2027 WNBA draft - Toronto Star

Toronto's odds in the draft lottery could come down to this week's showdown with the Connecticut Suns.

The Toronto Tempo will likely be doing what Teonni Key is doing here and watching for their balls to come up at the WNBA draft lottery.

The Toronto Tempo have a shot at a franchise-altering draft pick — and losing their final two games of the season could be their biggest wins of the season.

If the Tempo lose their last two games against the Chicago Sky and the Connecticut Sun, it could push them into having the best odds at the No. 1 pick in the 2027 WNBA draft — or into a tiebreak with Connecticut — in a class that some consider a three-way race between college basketball stars Juju Watkins of USC, Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo and Texas’ Madison Booker.

The league confirmed to the Star that as in previous years, teams can’t drop more than two slots in the lottery, which means that Toronto will have at least a top-four pick.

The Tempo’s inaugural season has been riddled with injuries, causing the team to fall to the bottom of the standings in the second half of the season. Once hovering around a .500 record in late June, they’ve lost 20 of their past 22 games.

Lottery odds are based on the cumulative records of the past two WNBA regular seasons for the seven teams that do not make the playoffs. The teams with the worst two-year winning percentage have the highest odds for the top pick. Since Toronto and Portland are expansion teams in their first season, only this year’s winning percentage is considered.

Toronto currently has the third-worst record in the league (11-31), but the second-best odds at the top pick. That could change when the Tempo go head-to-head with the Sun in Thursday’s season finale.

Juju Watkins and Hannah Hidalgo headline what could be a loaded WNBA draft class.