Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire select players in WNBA expansion draft

Bridget Carleton was the first pick in the WNBA expansion draft — and the Canadian national isn’t headed to the Toronto Tempo.

The Portland Fire and Toronto finally have players for their inaugural season, and the draft started with a surprise, with the Fire selecting the best available Canadian player. Carleton was a starter in Minnesota the last two seasons as the Lynx advanced to the WNBA Finals in 2024 and had the league’s best record in 2025.

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Starting with Carleton, the draft had a decidedly international flair at the top. The second pick was Belgian point guard Julie Allemand from the Los Angeles Sparks, followed by France’s Carla Leite from the Golden State Valkyries to the Fire, Germany’s Nyara Sabally from the New York Liberty to Toronto, and fellow German Luisa Geiselsöder from the Dallas Wings to Portland. The first American player selected was Marina Mabrey from the Connecticut Sun at No. 6 to the Tempo.

Here are the full rosters for both new teams in order of selection.

Toronto Tempo roster

Portland Fire roster

The Fire and the Tempo each had the option of picking up to 12 players and selected 11 apiece, just as the Valkyries did during their 2024 expansion draft. Other than the Chicago Sky, which made a pair of pre-draft trades to avoid losing players, every team had at least one player taken. The Las Vegas Aces and Seattle Storm lost one player each, while the other 10 returning WNBA teams had two players selected in the expansion draft.

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Toronto head coach Sandy Brondello reunites with Sabally, with whom she won a title in New York in 2024, and also Australian national Kristy Wallace, who won a bronze medal under Brondello at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Portland general manager Vanja Černivec was part of the Golden State front office that selected Leite in last season’s expansion draft. Now, the 21-year-old point guard joins Černivec again on the Fire.

A few teammate pairings remained together in the draft process. Phoenix’s Lexi Held and Kitija Laksa are both headed to Toronto, Washington’s Emily Engstler and Sug Sutton were both drafted by Portland, and the Fire also have the Wings duo of Geiselsöder and Haley Jones.

“Today is an important step in building the foundation of the Toronto Tempo,” Tempo general manager Monica Wright Rogers said in a statement. “Our goal was to construct a roster that reflects the style of play and culture we want to establish — one that balances competitiveness with long-term flexibility, and features players who bring versatility, toughness and winning experience. This group gives us the ability to compete from day one while continuing to build, and embraces the opportunity to help shape something new in a new country as Canada’s first WNBA team.”

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Five players currently under contract switched teams. The remainder are mostly reserved or restricted free agents, meaning their new teams now have negotiating rights over those players. Carleton and Mabrey are both unrestricted free agents and not bound to the teams that selected them unless they are cored, in which case Portland and Toronto will have exclusive negotiating rights in free agency.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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