The 6’0” guard is one of the best prospects in WNBA history
After a miserable 2024 season in which almost everything went wrong, the Dallas Wings turned their fortunes around by winning the 2025 WNBA Draft Lottery and securing the No. 1 overall pick in next April’s draft. This moment will likely change the franchise forever, as UConn superstar guard Paige Bueckers is widely presumed to be the obvious selection at this spot.
Bueckers has not officially declared for the draft, and she technically has a sixth year of college eligibility due to COVID and knee injuries wiping out multiple years of her career. But Bueckers has stated that 2024-2025 will be her final season at UConn, and it is widely believed she will enter the draft. Heck, Bueckers has been pro-ready since her freshman season; playing a sixth year of college ball at her level would be insane.
So, what’s all the commotion about? Is Bueckers really that good? The short answer is yes— Paige Bueckers is a generational prospect. You could argue she is a top-three guard prospect of all time. Everyone knows how good Caitlin Clark was in college, but Bueckers was the better player during their freshman seasons. Bueckers is still the only woman to ever win the Naismith Player of the Year award as a freshman (as well as every other National POTY award she won in 2021). Two knee injuries (an MCL during her sophomore season and an ACL before her junior year), derailed her reign as the best player in college basketball while Clark flourished.
But Bueckers got healthy last season and has improved on both sides of the ball since her unprecedented freshman year. What makes Bueckers so good and unique is her elite feel for the game and ability to function on and off the ball at a high level. Unlike Clark at Iowa, Bueckers has never run up a crazy usage rate at UConn. That’s not the way head coach Geno Auriemma wants to play. As a result, Paige has learned to affect the game in so many ways; she’s a genius cutter, an amazing re-location shooter, and a willing screener.
With the ball, she excels in the pick and roll, can make any pass, and is one of the best pull-up mid-range shooters ever. Bueckers is a threat at all three levels, averaging .534/.427/.830 shooting splits for her career. She is an incredible finisher at the rim and puts pressure on the defense every time she touches the ball. And despite her scoring prowess, Bueckers herself insists she is a pass-first player. Despite a lack of gaudy assist numbers at UConn (again, blame Geno’s system in which she often plays off-ball), Bueckers is one of the best passers in basketball. She is absolutely a true point guard at the WNBA level.
Once considered a shaky defensive player, Bueckers has evolved her game and is now a legitimate plus on the defensive end. Standing 6’0”, Bueckers has great positional size; last season, she even moonlighted as a power forward with UConn battling frontcourt injuries. And though her frame is slight, Bueckers has gotten much stronger in recent years. The result is incredible stock (steal plus block) numbers for a guard. In 2023-2024, Bueckers averaged 2.2 steals and 1.4 (!!) blocks per game. Bueckers is an event creator on defense, and her incredible basketball IQ gives her a very high floor for success as a pro on that end.
Does a prospect this great even have any weaknesses? Well, for Bueckers, the biggest question mark has to be health. Though she’s been healthy for a year, her two major knee injuries cannot be ignored. That being said, I’m encouraged by how she’s looked since returning, and any injury risk is superseded by her immense talent. Though Bueckers has few flaws on the court, she hasn’t been much of a pull-up three-point shooter in her college career. This is what separated Clark, someone who lives off these types of shots, as a prospect. Bueckers is elite at catch-and-shoot threes but hasn’t really featured the pull-up three in her shot diet. However, through three games this season, Bueckers is 3-of-3 on pull-up threes. It’s a tiny sample size, and I’d like to see her up the volume, but this is an encouraging start in that area. The only other issue for Paige is she can often be too unselfish. She always prefers to keep the ball moving and “make the right play” instead of taking over games. Her shotmaking prowess is so special, so it would be nice to see her call her own number more often.
If you want a TLDR on Paige Bueckers, here it is: big point guard who excels on and off ball, insanely efficient three-level scorer, incredible playmaker who is unselfish to a fault, defensive event creator who can guard a variety of positions well. If you’re unfamiliar with the women’s game and want an NBA comp, she reminds me of a taller Kyrie Irving.
I’ve been in love with Bueckers’ game since 2020. If you know me, you know I’ve been trying to manifest her on the Wings for four years. She is likely my favorite prospect in the history of women’s basketball. The ramifications of adding a prospect like this cannot be overstated. Bueckers will turn Dallas into a WNBA hotspot overnight; interest in the Wings is about to explode at an exponential rate. I can’t wait to see it all unfold.