Fire take Lynx’s Bridget Carleton No. 1 in WNBA expansion draft
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The Portland Fire selected Bridget Carleton first overall in the WNBA's two-team expansion draft on Friday, and the Toronto Tempo followed by making Julie Allemand their first pick.
Carleton comes from the Minnesota Lynx and is an unrestricted free agent this offseason. That means Portland can designate Carleton a "core" player and have exclusive negotiating rights for a one-year, fully guaranteed max contract.
ESPN reported the Tempo also wanted Carleton, a native of the province of Ontario, so the Fire spent the first pick to ensure they got the 6-foot-2 forward.
In a seven-year, 219-game career - 215 spent with the Lynx, four with the Connecticut Sun - Carleton has posted 5.7 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game. She finished third in Most Improved Player voting in 2024 after posting career highs of 9.6 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.2 assists for the Lynx. She started 36 games that year and all 44 for Minnesota in 2025.
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The Lynx also lost forward Maria Kliundikova to Toronto Tempo.
Allemand, a guard for the Los Angeles Sparks, has career averages of 5.5 points, 4.7 assists and 3.3 rebounds per game. She shot 47.8% from 3-point range in 22 games for the Indiana Fever during the condensed 2020 season, but has split her career since between Europe and the WNBA.
The biggest name selected Friday was Marina Mabrey, sixth overall by the Tempo. Mabrey has averaged double-figure points every season since 2020 but was unhappy in Connecticut after the Sun went into rebuild mode last offseason, requesting a trade that was not granted.
She went on to score 14.4 points per game to go with 4.2 rebounds and 4.0 assists in 35 games (34 starts) for the Sun.
The WNBA's 13 existing teams - including last year's expansion franchise, the Golden State Valkyries - could only protect five players for the expansion draft.
Below are each team's expansion draft results, in order of selection. Toronto and Portland each passed on one pick, leaving 22 selected:
Portland Fire
--F Bridget Carleton, Minnesota
--G Carla Leite, Golden State
--C Luisa Geiselsoder, Dallas
--F Emily Engstler, Washington
--G Maya Caldwell, Atlanta
--F Chloe Bibby, Indiana
--F Haley Jones, Dallas
--F Nyadiew Puoch, Atlanta
--G Sarah Ashlee Barker, Los Angeles
--G Sug Sutton, Washington
--G Nika Muhl, Seattle
Toronto Tempo
--G Julie Allemand, Los Angeles
--C Nyara Sabally, New York
--G Marina Mabrey, Connecticut
--G Aaliyah Nye, Las Vegas
--G Lexi Held, Phoenix
--F Maria Conde, Golden State
--F Maria Kliundikova, Minnesota
--C Adja Kane, New York
--F Nikolina Milic, Connecticut
--G Kitija Laksa, Phoenix
--G Kristy Wallace, Indiana
