Sparks secure top 2025 WNBA Draft lottery odds: UConn's Paige Bueckers among L.A.'s best options at No. 1

[RandySF]

The Los Angeles Sparks have locked in the top odds for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft lottery. While the team is struggling this season, its future looks bright already.

The Sparks dropped to a 7-28 record after a 79-67 loss to the Connecticut Sun on Sunday. And while the 2024 season has yet to conclude, Los Angeles owns the top lottery odds by virtue of the WNBA's draft lottery system, which uses the aggregate records of the past two seasons to configure the order. No matter what happens in the draft lottery, though, Los Angeles is guaranteed a top-three pick.

This season, the Sparks had two of the top performing rookies in Cameron Brink and Rickea Jackson. Brink, the 2024 Naismith Defensive Player of the Year, tore her ACL in June. When her season ended, the former Stanford star was third in the league in blocks with 2.3 per game.

Jackson wasn't talked about as much as Brink and started the season off the bench. However, it didn't take long for Jackson to prove herself, and she has become one of just four players in Sparks history to register at least 400 points as a rookie





https://www.cbssports.com/wnba/news/sparks-secure-top-2025-wnba-draft-lottery-odds-uconns-paige-bueckers-among-l-a-s-best-options-at-no-1/

[ProfessorGAC]

1. Here's To Hoping Bueckers Stays Healthy

That was an awfully bad injury she had.

[RandySF]

2. The acl seems all too common in bball.

[ProfessorGAC]

3. Sure Does

I read speculation (5 to 10 years ago?) that in b-ball there was reason to suspect the shoes are too good.
I misstep that 40 years ago resulted in the foot slipping & the player falling, now results in a sudden stop of the foot with the leg in an unbalanced position, but the sudden stop moves upper body momentum over the out of position leg.
I don't recall seeing whether that was confirmed further or refuted.
But, it seems to make some sense, although players have been blowing up knees forever. (Gayle Sayers, Bernard King, and so on.)
At least ACL tears are less likely to be career ending now.