Bristol — The odds weren’t in the Connecticut Sun’s favor to win Thursday night’s WNBA Draft Lottery and be blessed with the good fortune of selecting UConn star Breanna Stewart with the No. 1 pick.

Outgoing Mohegan Sun CEO Mitchell Etess was hoping to beat the odds.

“I honestly, for some reason, had a feeling that we might get lucky and move up at least a spot,” Etess said moments after Connecticut drew the third overall pick in the 2016 WNBA Draft at ESPN.

“I just had an innate feeling. We were pretty unlucky during the year. Maybe something would turn around and go our way.”

Spoken like a man who has run a casino.

“I should know that lucky has nothing to do with it,” Etess laughed. “If anybody knows that, I do.”

The Seattle Storm were the lucky winners as they won the top pick for a second straight year, followed by the San Antonio Stars. The Atlanta Dream drew the fourth pick.

“I feel very positive about having the third (pick),” Sun general manager Chris Sienko said. “If we were in the West, we would’ve been in the playoffs. We would’ve never had this opportunity. I think the third pick is going to help us."

The lottery went exactly according to the highest number of draft chances. Seattle had 442 chances out of 1,000 to win, followed by San Antonio (276), Connecticut (178) and Atlanta (104).

The Sun were the only team in the lottery for a third straight year after a season plagued by injuries, however a team’s chances were determined by their two-year record. Seattle was 22-46, followed by the Stars (24-44), the Sun (28-40), and the Dream (34-34).

Connecticut is bound to get a good player at No. 3. Depending on who San Antonio chooses, the Sun could draft one of two guards — UConn’s Moriah Jefferson or South Carolina's Tiffany Mitchell.

“There are two players in mind that could really help us right away,” Sienko said, alluding to that duo.

Jefferson, 5-foot-7, elevated her play last season in helping the Huskies win their third straight national championship. She averaged 12.4 points, 4.9 assists and averaged 49.6 percent from the 3-point line.

The 5-9 Mitchell averaged 14.4 points, made 41.6 percent of her 3-point shots and helped the Gamecocks to their first Final Four.

“(Our decisions are) interesting because Jas (starting point Jasmine Thomas) did a great job for us,” Sienko said. “(Rookie point) Chelsea (Gray) played some pretty positive minutes for us. (Alex) Bentley at the two was really good when she was healthy, but the reality is there’s some players out there that could really help your team and augment what you have in place.”

The Sun were star-crossed before the regular season began as they lost five players to season-ending injuries. Two were starters — forward Chiney Ogwumike (knee), the 2014 WNBA Rookie of the Year and Connecticut’s leading scorer and rebounder that year, and veteran guard Katie Douglas, who was forced to retired last May due to a bad back. She was a 2014 All-Star.

Connecticut also lost 2013 All-Star guard Allison Hightower (knee) and forward/sixth-woman Kelsey Griffin (hip) before the season.

The injuries piled up higher late in the year. Bentley missed the final nine games with an ankle injury. Starting forward Alyssa Thomas (shoulder) missed 10 games. Rookie center Elizabeth Williams (knee) didn’t play the final 11 games after she had begun to get comfortable.

“We have not been healthy in quite some time,” Sienko said. “We’ve never had the opportunity to play with our roster for a full season, and I think that  the roster we have in place right now could be pretty darn good as is, but you always want to have a wing scorer. That’s always important for you.”

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