Alexa PhilippouApr 16, 2025, 08:00 AM ET
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- Covers ladies’s school basketball and the WNBA
- Up to now coated UConn and the WNBA Connecticut Solar for the Hartford Courant
- Stanford graduate and Baltimore local with additional enjoy on the Dallas Morning Information, Seattle Occasions and Cincinnati Enquirer
TEN DAYS AGO, Paige Bueckers used to be chopping off a work of the online in Tampa’s Amalie Enviornment after main her UConn Huskies to a countrywide championship, this system’s first in 9 years.
8 days later — and with a couple of journeys from Storrs, Connecticut, to New York in between — Bueckers heard her identify referred to as as the primary choose by means of the Dallas Wings within the 2025 WNBA draft. As she used to be offered a No. 1 navy-and-volt-green jersey by means of WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert, she used to be formally anointed as a Dallas Wing.
“You simply have a degree of pleasure, anxiousness, bittersweet feeling understanding that my adventure at UConn is over,” Bueckers stated, “however excited for the following one to start out.”
Existence occurs speedy in ladies’s basketball — and the whirlwind may not prevent right here for Dallas’ latest famous person. Coaching camp starts April 27, and in 4 weeks Bueckers will make her WNBA debut when the Wings open their season at house on Would possibly 16 towards the Minnesota Lynx, the reigning WNBA Finals runners-up.
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What are sensible first-year expectancies for Bueckers? And what may well be her long-term ceiling as a professional? ESPN spoke with six basic managers around the league, plus Dallas basic supervisor Curt Miller and Wings trainer Chris Koclanes, to get their ideas on Bueckers’ long term.
The consensus? There is a lot to love. As one basic supervisor put it, “I believe she will be able to affect the league right away … she will also be bad in an instant.”
WNBA GMs see Bueckers as a high-IQ participant who is not merely an effective three-level scorer however a keen passer who can affect the sport in a mess of the way.
“She understands the sport. Her IQ may be very excessive. She comes from a successful program, and all that stuff interprets you probably have a couple of equipment like she does,” one GM stated. “She may well be 1-for-9 from the sector however have 8 assists. The general public can not turn the transfer. If you have a couple of abilities like she does, it lets you assimilate sooner.
“She’s now not Caitlin Clark, she’s constructed another way, however she will be able to make folks higher, and she or he’s hypercompetitive and she will be able to get to her spots on the identical time. And she is going to have much more guns round her in our league, so her playmaking will probably be much more on show.”
Bueckers’ measurement (she’s indexed as 6-foot) and sundry ability set must give her positional versatility within the professionals: She will be able to play both level guard or taking pictures guard (and even small ahead in some cases) for the Wings, although a couple of GMs stated that longer term, they see Bueckers as extra of some degree guard who’ll thrive as a pick-and-roll ball handler.
“While you have a look at what she will be able to do and the way she does it and the way environment friendly she is,” stated one GM, “that, to me, is what makes it the place she may well be probably the most greats that play.”
IN YEAR 1, Bueckers’ function will probably be made up our minds by means of first-year head trainer Koclanes and his workforce as they search to get essentially the most out of a new-look Wings roster — one that still boasts probably the most WNBA’s best scorers in Arike Ogunbowale (20.6 PPG in her profession).
With Ogunbowale additionally able to taking part in each guard positions, Dallas can have flexibility in the way it employs its backcourt. Koclanes may just choose to stay Bueckers off the ball extra as a rookie, since that would cut back the drive she faces from opposing defenses.
“I believe what makes her particular is she will be able to fill the space, and she will be able to fill no matter hole,” Koclanes stated Monday evening. “We will be able to put her at the ball, we will put her off the ball, and she or he’ll be simply as excellent, simply as environment friendly, simply as efficient, and, most significantly, simply as keen. And I believe that speaks to her unselfishness. I am excited as a trainer as a way to communicate to her and in finding out what works. “
A number of the intangibles that GMs identified may just translate to the following point: management, poise and adulthood advanced from having to conquer adversity all the way through her school profession. By no means getting too excessive nor too low, one GM stated, must assist Bueckers keep the path in her first yr particularly.
Bueckers used to be sidelined for just about two years at UConn with knee accidents — a tibial plateau fracture and meniscus tear in 2021 and an ACL tear in 2022 — however completed her time in Storrs with two wholesome seasons throughout which she performed the most efficient basketball of her profession.
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Maximum GMs stated her harm historical past is one thing to be cognizant of however now not overly excited by. As she rehabbed her ACL harm, Bueckers set to work with Susan King Borchardt, a efficiency enhancement specialist who works with an array of WNBA stars; now Bueckers can have extra time than ever to commit towards taking good care of her frame, the GMs identified.
“Completely now not,” one GM stated on whether or not the wounds are motive for worry. “Like, who cares what number of accidents she’s had? She’s particular.”
That wasn’t a common trust, although.
“My most effective worry with Paige is bodily,” a special GM stated. “She’s lovely slight; she’s slightly bit knock-kneed. There is a point of physicality it’s a must to get used to taking part in within the professionals that I believe may just take its toll on her, after which simply her bodily talent to carry up over time. You’ve gotten observed the wounds at Connecticut.”
Some other GM added: “Her power is most definitely a space of alternative for her, as it’s for such a lot of gamers getting into the league.”
Acclimating to the physicality {of professional} basketball is generally probably the most greatest studying curves for newbies. That and the sport transferring too speedy had been sides that Clark, for example, needed to get used to closing season on her solution to incomes an All-WNBA first-team variety.
The GMs stated the transition for Bueckers shall be no other, particularly as a No. 1 choose whom fighters are in particular motivated to fasten up.
“I be expecting the similar studying curve as we noticed with Clark,” one GM stated. “Understanding the professional sport, its coverages, coping with [athletes] larger, sooner, more potent than collegiate gamers will all be demanding situations.”
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Some other GM identified that Bueckers may just stand to be extra assertive and “egocentric” at the offensive finish, a mindset UConn trainer Geno Auriemma challenged her to include all the way through her school profession.
“I believe she’ll at all times battle with it. Other folks which are like that generally do,” the GM stated. “It is like they do not have that overzealousness, ‘It will be me above each and every[one].’ There is a selfishness to being an excellent participant. You must be egocentric now and then, and I do not know the way egocentric she is.”
Being used to protecting professionals may additionally take time. One GM described Bueckers as “excellent however now not superb” on that finish of the ground due to her measurement and energy. The query is how briefly Bueckers can alter amid a 44-game time table.
“It is simply truly arduous to affect the sport as a rookie,” one GM stated. “What Caitlin did closing yr is so particular and distinctive. Paige is a unique participant … I believe she’ll be a excellent participant this yr, however I am not anticipating a Caitlin-like affect. And that’s the reason an unfair bar to set.”
“To observe her navigate the drive that she needed to really feel this yr used to be really particular,” Dallas GM Curt Miller stated of Bueckers. M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire
AS A NO. 1 choose with a UConn pedigree and an already sizable following, expectancies will probably be excessive for Bueckers. However after staring at her all the way through this previous season, the Wings see a participant constructed for that form of burden.
“I believe it is extra the intangibles, and the way in which she simply handles the whole lot with such gratitude and style is solely extraordinarily spectacular,” Koclanes stated.
Miller added: “I am not positive that there used to be extra drive on a participant to need to win a countrywide championship to outline her legacy greater than what Paige needed to be feeling … To observe her navigate the drive that she needed to really feel this yr used to be really particular.”
In Dallas, Bueckers may not be tasked with powering a complete group single-handedly, particularly one who received most effective 9 video games closing season.
Miller made over the roster this iciness, bringing in a gaggle of freshmen in DiJonai Carrington, Tyasha Harris, NaLyssa Smith and Myisha Hines-Allen ahead of drafting Bueckers, Aziaha James, Madison Scott, JJ Quinerly and Aaronette Vonleh. However a trail to the playoffs is a long way from assured — numerous groups leveled up this offseason with large unfastened company strikes — and it’ll most probably take time for the Dallas gamers to get used to Koclanes’ gadget and every different.
“If she’s on an unselfish crew like she is, then she’ll get a possibility to be as excellent as she is. If she’s on a egocentric crew, then Paige may not also have a likelihood to be who she is,” Auriemma stated. “So I believe numerous it’s she is going to need to paintings truly arduous at it, and I believe the crew has to evolve to her. It is a two-way boulevard.”
Both approach, there is a sentiment across the league that Bueckers will unquestionably make Dallas higher.
“For sure she makes them more potent and extra aggressive,” one GM stated. “I believe they have got an actual alternative over there in Dallas to make some noise.”
Added every other: “I believe she’s other [than Clark], however I believe she will be able to elevate a franchise.”
And most likely most significantly, with the combo of Bueckers’ on-court play and off-court following, she has the chance to revitalize the Wings.
“People who find themselves in those roles and wish to be natural basketball folks at all times say that it’s a must to pass simply off of any person’s ability, and also you attempt to forget about the hype or the thrill,” every other GM stated. “However I believe that is roughly bulls—.
“Realistically talking, there may be an power about positive gamers that may truly assist invigorate your franchise. And I believe Paige has that high quality to her, between her following, the way in which her teammates reply to her. For a tender participant, she’s were given an air of secrecy about her that might truly assist a franchise off and on the courtroom.”
Whilst all eyes will probably be on Dallas to look how Bueckers fares in Yr 1, her rookie season would possibly in the long run be a footnote to her profession by the point all is alleged and completed. The GMs agreed Bueckers has the root to be an excellent professional participant with a adorned profession. As for her final trajectory? There may be room for debate.
“If she will be able to keep wholesome, she must be an All-Big name,” one GM stated. “I believe she has an MVP ceiling,” stated every other. “I do not believe it is as obvious as like A’ja [Wilson] or Caitlin used to be popping out, however I believe it is proper in the back of them. … I believe Paige simply must get slightly extra egocentric to get to that point.”
And the loftiest prediction? “Lengthy-term ceiling — she’ll be a Corridor of Famer.”
