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Alexa Philippou
Paige Bueckers clapped her hands and threw her head back as the Golden State Valkyries took a timeout. Bueckers had just converted a pair of free throws to put the Dallas Wings up seven with 19.4 seconds remaining Tuesday. She was up to 20 points on the night, but more importantly to Bueckers, she could sense it: Dallas was within reach of its first home win of the 2025 WNBA season and of breaking a seven-game losing streak.
Between the Wings’ slow start and her four-game absence because of a concussion then illness, Bueckers’ first month in the WNBA featured its share of ups and downs. But as she approaches her 10th career game, the rookie star has looked increasingly confident and comfortable as a pro, positioning herself for her first All-Star bid and becoming the latest No. 1 draft pick to win rookie of the year.
Bueckers was a highly touted prospect out of UConn in part because of her ability to be a willing passer and efficient three-level scorer. She’s still working on striking the right balance between facilitating and calling her own number, Bueckers told ESPN this week, but she has nonetheless shined so far in both categories.
Her 17.7 points per game are a team high, while her 5.7 assists per contest rank sixth in the league. Bueckers’ 282 points scored or assisted on are the third most through a player’s first nine career games, trailing only Sabrina Ionescu (302) and Caitlin Clark (289).
Bueckers admitted the pace and physicality of the WNBA has been an adjustment. “You kind of know that it’s different coming in, but you don’t really know how much it is until you actually live it,” she said. And yet she’s still one of just six players in the WNBA averaging at least 17 points and 5 assists, joining Ionescu, Clark, Rhyne Howard, Kelsey Plum and Skylar Diggins. Bueckers’ 47.2% shooting is the best of the group.
Bueckers has continued to separate herself as a midrange sharpshooter: Her 6.8 points per game from that distance leads the league, according to Genius IQ, with only Courtney Williams also averaging more than 4.0 points from there. Bueckers, who is hitting 50% of her midrange shots, has made an impact defensively, too. She and three-time MVP A’ja Wilson are the only players in the league averaging 2.0 steals and 1.0 blocks per game.
Bueckers has been tasked with conducting the Wings’ offense, a tough assignment for a first-year player on a team with a brand-new coaching staff and just three returners from last year. It also doesn’t help that Dallas is currently short four players, with Teaira McCowan and Luisa Geiselsoder competing in EuroBasket, Maddy Siegrist (knee) out indefinitely and Tyasha Harris undergoing season-ending knee surgery earlier this month.
Bueckers continues to work with the coaching staff to better understand how teams are covering her in ball screens and to learn ways to counter the physicality that’s allowed off the ball. But her ability to read in the pick-and-roll, Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon said last week, is already at a “doctorate level.”
“She’s got incredible poise and maturity. She looks like she’s been playing this game for like, ever,” Hammon said. “She plays the right way is what jumps out to me, every time. … When you play the right way, everybody can still eat. She gets 35 [points] and she’s still passing the ball like crazy. … She’s beyond her years.”
Six games into the season, Bueckers suffered a concussion, which combined with an illness cost her four games. But she said the time off the court helped her get her mind and body right, especially on the heels of going from UConn’s NCAA championship run to training camp. Watching from the sideline also helped her identify some of the self-inflicted wounds she thought were getting in the Wings’ way of winning close games.
That all helped Bueckers shine on June 11 in her first game back. Against the Phoenix Mercury, who boast the league’s fourth-best defensive rating, Bueckers tallied a career-high 35 points on 13-for-19 shooting. She is one of five players to score 35 points this season but achieved it more efficiently than anyone, with her 68% shooting accuracy also the most efficient 35-point game by any rookie since Breanna Stewart in 2016.
“She just controls the game so well,” Mercury star Alyssa Thomas said afterward. “The sky’s the limit for her.”
“We should have done better [guarding her] for sure,” fellow standout Satou Sabally said, “but she’s elite.”
Still, the Wings didn’t get the win. And after Tuesday’s victory, they are 2-11 (2-7 with Bueckers in the lineup). When Bueckers was on the court at UConn, the Huskies lost 13 times.
Bueckers gained a reputation at UConn for downplaying individual accomplishments. That attitude has carried over to Dallas, where the “only individual goal I have is to make Dallas a free agency destination in terms of the culture we want to build.
“Everybody who plays here this year, I want them to enjoy playing with me. I want them to enjoy playing in this environment, with this culture,” she said. “Just to be able to set that foundation is really the only goal.”
That also entails, she said, holding herself and others to a high standard as the team looks to build a winning culture: The Wings have just one winning season since the franchise relocated from Tulsa heading into 2016.
PAIGE BUCKETS HAS RETURNED 👑
Bueckers hit a career-high upon her return from concussion protocol in Wings-Mercury. pic.twitter.com/FDODcgp6ik
— espnW (@espnW) June 12, 2025
Dallas’ vision on turning that around, even if it’s a few years down the line, involves the ball being in Bueckers’ hands — a lot.
“Just to continue to lead on and off the floor and to manage the game,” coach Chris Koclanes said on what growth he’s looking for from Bueckers. “So as her and I continue to grow with our relationship, her just getting more and more confident and comfortable taking command out there on the floor and getting the ball where it needs to go. Getting us into the actions we need to get into, and then, as well, holding each other accountable to all these little things.”
Bueckers said she and UConn coach Geno Auriemma remain in “constant communication” and that he encourages her “to keep doing things the right way and continue to keep leading by voice and example.” Aside from teammates Arike Ogunbowale and Myisha Hines-Allen, who have helped her find her voice, Bueckers has also leaned on Las Vegas Aces star Jewell Loyd for veteran wisdom, and intends to reach out soon to UConn and WNBA legends Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi.
Loyd, Bird and Taurasi are No. 1 picks, perennial All-Stars and Olympians. And all are WNBA champions — the path Bueckers hopes to emulate.
“There’s a lot of people that have been in my shoes before, and as a rookie, you kind of know, especially if you’re one of the top picks, that you’re going to a team that was at the bottom of the league before,” Bueckers said. “You’re trying to make it be better, and you’re not going to do it by yourself, but how can you best make your imprint and leave your impact on that?”
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