The Portland Fire will select their first rostered players this Friday at 12:30PM PST. There are new rules, possible trades, many players available to them, and many that will be protected from selection. Let’s talk through it.

To officially start their franchise, the Fire are going to draft players off of other team’s rosters. Each other team in the league can “protect” five players on their roster. Every other player in the league that was on a team at the end of 2025’s season will become available to be drafted. Portland will select six players in round one, and six players in round two. This is going to be the very first addition of players into the franchise. The incoming players will keep their current contract lengths and pay.

Important note: the Fire, as well as the Toronto Tempo, this year’s other new team in the W, will be allowed to draft one player who is an unrestricted free agent this season. We will talk about that later.

The draft takes place on Friday, April 3rd at 12:30PM PST. It will air live on ESPN.

Every team needs to submit their Protected Players list by tonight, Sunday March 29th. That means that tomorrow we could know who is available, and we can start our silly little predictions. Expect a poll, or other engagement, coming at you ASAP for your Fire Expansion Draft hopes and dreams.

I’ll bold the topics we’re about to cover to allow you to pursue the information as you wish, because some of these things are very intricate, and some of them may not be of interest to you. But to be a real B.A.L.L. K.N.O.W.E.R., you gotta read the fine print.

The Toronto Tempo won this past Friday’s coin flip to decide who drafts first in the Expansion Draft and who drafts earlier in the annual college draft later this month. The Tempo opted to have the earlier college draft pick, awarding the Fire the first Expansion Draft pick.

The Fire and Tempo will draft one player at a time back and forth until twelve total picks have been made, and then round two will start, in which the Tempo will start first. This means that the Fire get the first pick, and six of the first eleven total picks, and Toronto will get picks twelve and thirteen back-to-back.

Before we try to establish the total pool of players available, we have to re-establish the fact that over 80% of the league’s players are currently/about to be free agents. That means they don’t have established contracts with any team. Obviously, the league cannot hold an expansion draft if only 20% of the players are available, so some rules are in place to continue a player’s establishment with their previous team, even if they might very well not return to that team of their own accord.

Let’s start by defining Unrestricted Free Agents, Restricted Free Agents, and Previously Drafted Players

An Unrestricted Free Agent (UFA), defined by WNBA.com, is a player that can enter into negotiations with any team during the free agency period without hindrance. They can negotiate contracts starting on ___, and on ___, enter into a negotiated agreement.

A Restricted Free Agent (RFA) is one that meets certain career criteria whose contract has expired, but their previous team has special allowances to try and retain. A team can offer their RFA a Qualifying Offer (QO) before free agency begins, allowing them to have exclusive rights to negotiating the player’s next contract, and functionally keeping them out of free agency. If the team does not offer a QO, that player becomes a free agent, and can negotiate with anyone.

Additionally, that player will also be allowed to negotiate a QO with other teams before full-on Free Agency starts. If that player were to agree to a QO with a different team (Team B), their previous team (Team A) has a “Right of First Refusal”, and can match Team B’s QO, and the player must sign with Team A, their previous team.

RFA’s are a tricky, funky situation. Luckily, the Fire don’t have to go through that right now.

Previously Drafted Players are players who were selected in a previous WNBA Draft that have not actually joined their WNBA teams yet. These are mostly foreign players who get selected but stay in their home countries for another season, for development or other reasons. There aren’t too many of these.

The current thirteen WNBA teams have to protect players under these designations. That means that, yes, teams have to protect their upcoming free agents, Restricted or Unrestricted.

Let’s go back and touch on that note from above: The Fire and the Tempo can each select one Unrestricted Free Agent. I’ll acknowledge that at first sight it might seem strange: why draft a player that is scheduled to become a free agent? The Athletic has the details:

Per the CBA term sheet, which was released to teams and obtained by The Athletic, Toronto and Portland can select only one unrestricted free agent each during the expansion draft and then offer her the core designation, which allows the team to pay the player up to the supermax salary. If the incumbent team fails to protect that unrestricted free agent during the expansion process, that team cannot core the player afterward.

There is a massive detail here: Toronto and Portland can select only one unrestricted free agent … and then offer her the core designation, which allows the team to pay the player up to the supermax salary. Portland and Toronto can offer the highest tier salary (to qualified players), which not every team is going to be able to offer to their own Free Agents. Each team in the league can only have one Core Player. From the WNBA:

A Core Qualifying Offer is a fully guaranteed one-year deal worth the supermax that both UFA and RFA’s are eligible for. A Core Designation contract is a one-year deal on the maximum base salary available to players who have met the requirements of years spent with an organization.

If the New York Liberty want to re-sign Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu, Jonquel Jones, and Natasha Cloud, all of whom are UFA’s, they have to use protection picks on them.

The ability to expansion draft a free agent is a new concept, so we don’t have any history to look back on. Will Portland or Toronto pick one of these? I have no idea. Does a brand new team want to give the new $1.4 million supermax contract to someone before their franchise has had a single practice? I have no idea.

In another crazy rule addition, Portland and Toronto can use Expansion Draft selections in trades with other teams. Again, from the WNBA:

Between the time that the Roster Lists are submitted and a designated time on the day before the Expansion Draft, Portland and Toronto will be permitted to make the following trades with existing teams: (i) an agreement to select a particular player from an Unprotected List and trade that player to a team other than her existing team; and (ii) an agreement to select (or not select) a particular player from such trading team’s Unprotected List.

This is both a simple idea, but wacky in practice. Once again, I have no idea if any teams are going to try and pull something off like this, but I doubt it.

So, that covers the function of this Expansion Draft. I think the event is going to be a lot of fun: an entire team is going to develop right in front of our eyes in the matter of minutes. We are going to see the beginnings of this new front office’s strategy for team-building. We are going to learn what the coaching staff values. We are going to be able to buy jerseys with names on the back. We made it, y’all.

On April 7th and 8th, Qualifying Offers and Core Offers can be made by teams on their own free-agents. Theoretically the Fire could have their one UFA player they would offer the Core designation to, if they pick one.

Starting April 9th, players and teams can officially have full free-agent negotiations. Starting on April 12th, players can formally agree to new contracts with teams. Expect that day, Sunday April 12th, to have a lot of news coming at you, including from the Portland Fire.

The College draft will take place on Monday, April 13th, immediately after the free agency signings start happening (these front office staffs are going to be working 80 hour weeks for all of April, it seems). The Fire have the 7th overall pick in that draft, as well as the 21st and 37th picks. I’ll share some analysts’ picks and predictions when we get closer to that day, and once the Fire have players on their team.

Then, on April 20th, teams officially start their training camps. Then they start playing games.

Thanks for reading any or all of this. I look forward to not working for a few hours this Friday when the Fire start their team-building journey. I’ll see you in a chatroom somewhere.